Has it really been three months?
I've been working on this but struggling to get momentum and not been checking in here lately. I hope to change both of those. Figured I would update with where I am currently.
Wired up the LED strips to surround the joysticks and light up the blue rings (green and black wires on 24v):
I had mistakenly cut out another inner circle for a 2nd LED ring, but as you can see in the picture above it was better to have the LED’s firing sideways to light up the etching rather than fire them below. It also meant I ran into a problem with mounting the trackball as I hadn’t done that before making that cut. Below you can see that the threaded inserts weren’t grabbing onto wood all around.
Epoxy and wood flour to the rescue:
Consistency is like peanut butter, and when dried is as hard as a rock.
Had to account for the LED’s that would mount on the trackball housing so off to the sanding:
You can see the white LED strip that sits between the plastic and the trackball housing which lights up the two white etchings on the acrylic.
Here’s how the dust washer solution and LED strip with LED ring work:
Side firing LED’s touch the acrylic edge while ring LED wires up to change the dust washer.
Have to leave a gap so the dust washer can move with the joystick shaft. The dust washer is made of High Density Polyethlene (HDPE) which although wasn’t listed as a plastic for light diffusion I found it to be the best, and it also matches the white color of the graphics on top.
Joystick together.
The wiring was a lot to manage:
I wanted to get rid of any strain on the wires and solder joints so I used what I had available on the other side so I could “plug in” the power and data lines for communication with the 24v LED strips and 5v LED rings everywhere:
That’s a VGA breakout box with the wires running into it for power and data just below the trackball mounting area.
Here it is with all the lights in place and the edge lighting taped to the UNDER side of the acrylic. When I tried on top the edges of the tap would show.
Here’s the solution I ended up using for light indication on the spinner. Simple single addressable LED to light up below the spinner head.
Putting on T-molding ended up being problematic. I hadn’t realized what was wrong with my small control panel, but it became obvious after enough experience:
Because there wasn’t enough wood on top of the slot cut the wood bowed where the spline of the T-molding was installed. This meant 3/4” molding wouldn’t fit, and it also meant the grip on the spline was weaker. To solve this I got larger t-molding and used contact cement on the spline and inside the slot cut to keep it affixed. After installing it I used a flat razor blade to cut the excess t-molding:
Installation was by hand as I couldn’t use a hammer to band in the t-modling for risk of crushing the LED strip.
The part of the CP that met the smoked acrylic bezel could not fit molding, so I had to come up with a solution:
Not so pretty but it kept the wires out of the way. You can see a good side shot of the three layers of wood, etched acrylic and acrylic with graphics. You can also see the white LED strips side firing into the middle layer. You can also see my poor paint job to prevent light leaking. I ended up using the wrong paint and didn’t realize until after.
To cover up that mess I went back to what I had experience with and cut a thin strip of laminate to cover all three sides:
Used contact cement as always and came out better then I would have thought:
Started wiring but first built a stand for it as I couldn’t remove the flight stick (or would have been a lot more trouble):
Mounting of iPAC Ultimate’s with PCB legs facing inward:
Installation of Paradise Arcade LED’s for IL buttons:
Let the wiring begin:
4 conductor 22 AWG security wire makes for a handy cleaner install. The Molex pins on the left are for the iPAC Ultimate board, and the 22AWG .187 quick disconnects are for the buttons and joysticks.
Molex pins being shoved into the 8 pin Molex housing for players 3 & 4.
Player 1 & 3 buttons crimped all around and neatly organized (best I can). Ground loops are daisy chained at the top. The colors are broken out from the sheathing for the button connections.
Player 2 buttons almost done. I didn’t know when buying the iPAC ultimate (a long time ago) that you can’t have 4 players and also have a trackball and spinner. So as you can see I have to iPAC Ultimates (necessary for the number for controls and number of LED’s being driven).
A gratuitous shot fo the backside of the joystick housing:
Current state of things:
Hopefully things pick up with the kids back in school…….