The Vewlix Fighter Cabinet - WIP. The cab is dead my friends.

[Gatsu]

Just a small update. Got everything thats been cut out and together primed. I'm gonna wait on the top rounded pieces and the marquee until it starts to get cooler. So the project will sit at 95% complete for a while.

But I got the main box actually painted, along with some of the front panels. Today I'm hoping to get the white side piece all painted up and the rest of the control panel done. Depends on how hot it gets.

I hate South Carolina and its retarded heat & humidity. It can be 93 degrees....and feel like its 104 and wet. Ridiculous.

So after painting and letting it sit for a couple of days to let the clear coat set, I'll be moving it to the apartment to get it all wired up and whatnot. Then once everything starts to cool down (and I can save some money). I'll take on the top pieces and marquee.

No pictures sadly.

[Gatsu]

Some sad news.

After 3 days of painting, I hit a huge setback and that has driven me to the point of putting the entire thing on hold for a while.

I share the garage space with my father. And apparently a buddy of his came over and used some tools for a project. What he didn't realize was that leaving greasy tools and garbage ontop of my painted project would ruin the paint and stain the unpainted pieces.

3 days of painting wasted. It must all be re-sanded and 3 coats re-applied. Fun.

Its too damn hot outside most of the time...and the humidity is a nightmare. So I will be moving the pieces to my apartment so they won't get any more damaged. And just finish painting there.

Probably won't touch it again until October or November.

Sorry guys & gals. I know a few of you were looking forward to seeing this get done soon. So was I. But my level of frustration has hit a point where if it never gets finished I really wouldn't care. So its time to put it away for a few months.

Probably won't see much of me around until then. So...until then.

[javeryh]

Boo!!!  C'mon Gatsu - your cabinet is looking awesome - try not to get discouraged (as hard as it may be).  We've all been there - take a deep breath and a few weeks off if you have to but not 4 months!!!  We can't wait that long! 

That totally blows though.  I've noticed that people aren't careful around my cabs (finished or not) and I don't know what the deal is.

[Bender]

hey, man that sucks, so sorry that happened

people that borrow or use other peoples tools should have a little respect!

I second Javeryh take a little time off, but we can't wait four months!

I do know how you feel, had a few major setbacks with some projects too (though none that quite as bad as yours)

Time heals all wounds

are you still making fighter sticks? might be a good way to get back into it with a smaller project

anyway, all best and we hope to hear from you sooner than later

[Kaytrim]

Hey Buddy if you want to save a little time sanding get some shalac from Home Depot.  Thin down the shalac with denatured alcohol about 50%.  Use a real hair brush and brush it on the entire cab.  Because it is alcohol based it will dry quickly.  Also don't go back over the area once you apply the shalac until it is completely dry it gets sticky quickly and you'll do more harm than good. 

This stuff will seal in the stains, grease and everything else with one or two coats.  You can even use it to seal bare MDF and use less primer.  There is no need to sand between coats unless you want to smooth things out.  Give it a day to cure before you sand it smooth.  Then you can add one or two more coats.  Once the final coat is cured you can scuff sand and paint. 

TTFN 
Michael

[Pixelhugger]

GOD How I hate redoing work. I'd rather do 3X the work on something new than to retrace my steps and redo something I already did and lost. Javeryh is right tho, most of us have been there. I've rebuilt almost every single part of my cab twice due to stupid mistakes or unforseen issues. It's cost me tons of time and hundreds of dollars, but in the end it's worth every minute and every penny. Step away from it for a few days or weeks until you can see straight and start again. 

[Namco]

GOD How I hate redoing work. I'd rather do 3X the work on something new than to retrace my steps and redo something I already did and lost. Javeryh is right tho, most of us have been there. I've rebuilt almost every single part of my cab twice due to stupid mistakes or unforseen issues. It's cost me tons of time and hundreds of dollars, but in the end it's worth every minute and every penny. Step away from it for a few days or weeks until you can see straight and start again. 

There's some things about my cab that are not perfect. They diminish the value of my cab in my mind. I've redone the wiring inside about 4 times already and the front end about 3 times. I do not want to work on them any more and am willing to just move on and start another project sadly.

I see Gatsu's perspective about the loss of enthusiasm over a setback. Sucks to have to redo something tedious like that. The only way to get over a setback is to take a step back or work through it and get to the next level. Gatsu hasn't seen the motivating light at the end of the tunnel yet.

[Gatsu]

I was sure motivated to back over my dads buddy with a forklift......

[severdhed]

that sucks dude, i was really looking forward to seeing this cabinet finished.  i'd be laying a guilt trip on your dad and his friend, maybe try to get some help with the sanding process or something

[Gatsu]

I would talk to my dad about it. But he doesn't really see it as a worthwhile project to invest in to begin with so....thats a conversation I wanna avoid really.

thanks for the support and comments guys. But for now its on hold until I at least get it to the apartment. Then I can paint a piece at my leisure instead of having to make a trip to my parents place.

[jeef]

my condolences for your loss

[Gatsu]

alrighty. Been trolling the forum for the past few weeks....waiting and watching. And I've seen some candy & vewlix style projects that got my fire burning to finish my cab again.

I've moved all the components to my apartment and out of my dads garage. It seemed to be getting more & more hazardous for it there.

Steps to finish:
Finish cutting out the top bar pieces for the marquee area
Finish sanding and puttying the top piece of the control panel
Cut out joystick & button holes
Mount the control panel plate onto the full panel.
Re-paint the entire base & front pieces (thanks to all the crud that got on it from my dad & his buddies slapping tools all over it).
Wire controls & PC in base

There won't be a coin door for now. But I might add one later.

Here's a picture of everything in its new temp resting place until I start working on it this week.



You can see close to the center of the image the brown stain thats on the side of that piece. Yeah....thats the ruined paint-job I was talking about earlier. The base isn't too bad. Just needs to be sanded down to the primer and 2 new coats applied. Good thing I've got a spray gun otherwise I'd be pissed to have to use more rollers.

Im also working on 3 new sticks. 2 will be twin sticks for the Wii when Tatsunoko vs Capcom drops. The other will be a 360 Dan SFIV themed stick. All pink. Buttons, balltop....everything.

[emphatic]

Great to see you back on track Gatsu! 

[Gatsu]

thanky. you don't know how much it took to get me to even look at the cab again.

But after all the forum trolling and my friend bitchin at me about getting it done....then the weather got a little cooler. So I can tolerate being outside for a long time now.

Still got a lot to do. But its the "home stretch" to me. So it won't be too bad.

[bgspot]

Glad you're back and ready to finish your vewlix! You got me motivated to build my vewlix in the first place

[SpaceHedgehog]

Excellent news Gatsu! Now get to it, that's an order

[BurgerKingDiamond]

This is really cool. If I ever do another project (when I graduate and actually have a job ) I want to do sth similar to this. I would want to somehow figure out a way to have a rotating screen. I'm dying to play Dodonpachi on a big vertical screen.

[blackwatchplad]

I'm looking forward to seeing this bad boy complete.  good luck with everything. you're doing a killer job.
I think the next cab i make, if its not a huge old school upright, may be a vewlix.
you're at the home stretch, just imagine yourself playing some street fighter on it  when it's completed... that always motivates me.

[malelanct]

This is really cool. If I ever do another project (when I graduate and actually have a job ) I want to do sth similar to this. I would want to somehow figure out a way to have a rotating screen. I'm dying to play Dodonpachi on a big vertical screen.

the original vewlix, and a replica that matches the measurements allows the monitor to rotate, although its not easy to do.   if you stayed true to the design though, its very possible. 

[Gatsu]

with the plans I used for this cab its not possible. But if you were to modify how the tv fit into the case then its totally doable.

with this cab though the tv rests in slots cut in the 2 large white side pieces.

[BurgerKingDiamond]

Yeah, it's just an idea at the moment. I'm still finishing up my current one.

[VewlixKid]

Looks great so far Gatsu. I have been following the project on your blog. Cant wait to see the finished product. 

[Gatsu]

me either. Its sucked the past week. Been raining on and off. So the work area has been wet all week. So no updates yet.

I'm hoping its clear all next week. If so I should have it pretty close to being done. At least playable. That top rounded section is my only headache piece left.

[opt2not]

I'm so jealous of all you guys making Vewlix cabinets! I'm following this project for sure, and I know being the fighting-game connoisseur you are, I know you won't disappoint!

Hopefully the weather will be better for you to finish before x-mas, it would be awesome for you to have during the long break.   

[Gatsu]

If the weather doesn't clear up....I just might take it and some tools with me to the beach to work on in November.

That sounds like a nice beach vacation. Have some rum, sit on the deck a bit by the ocean....go downstairs and work on the cabinet.

[SpaceHedgehog]

That sucks about the weather. I got lucky and managed to get mine completed just before the weather turned. Keep going when you can and don't go drinking too much rum before you work on it 

[Epyx]

Hopefully it will turn around for you

Least you are down to just one headache piece

 

[Gatsu]

That sucks about the weather. I got lucky and managed to get mine completed just before the weather turned. Keep going when you can and don't go drinking too much rum before you work on it 

ah don't worry about it. I never operate power tools while intoxicated. Safety first. Especially when it comes to routers.

[Gatsu]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand its still raining. 

[Gatsu]

Small update. No painting or woodworking done yet thanks to a combo of crappy weather and some personal issues.

I started searching for a real candy cab a few weeks ago. Found a few deals here and there....had some offers from people which I appreciated. But then I got reminded of my current unfinished project by my girlfriend. She didnt say I couldnt get a cab....she just stated that "why would you need another cab when this one isn't finished yet? This one might be enough if you're happy with it."

Tis true. Though I will still get a candy-cab after new years with my tax return hopefully. got my eye on an Egret 2 and a Cybersled.

So. Im starting to put my energy and research time into getting my Vewlix done this year. Because if I don't get it done now....I might as well throw away everything I've done so far and give up the arcade love. lol. I've put too much time and energy to do that. So I gotta finish this.

Since the hiatus I've seen a few cool ideas in some other guys vewlix cabs that I think I wanna incorporate. Means I'll need to recut some pieces. But ultimately that doesn't bother me too badly.

Add-on #1 is a keyboard drawer built into the control panel. I need to make the front piece removable via magnets or some kind of locks so that the keyboard tray can just slide out. Problem is I dunno how bad this will interfere with the button wiring. I'll have to come up with some ideas and post some photos as I experiment. Keyboard and mouse can be wireless....so I may not even need a tray. Just a way to remove the top of the control panel easily and set it to the side. Think I can manage that.

Add-on #2 Better speaker system. I want my baby to yell. It can't do that with the crappy car speakers and little cheapo-chinese amp I got. So....I'm gonna go with this setup:
Pixxo SH-8606 5.1 Multimedia Speaker System

5.1 speakers with enough oomph to make my cab shake a tad. lol. Though this means I'll need to recut the speaker bars and find some 10" circular speaker grills to fit overtop of the holes. Will have to check the local car audio stores. Again not a huge setback. Easy cuts so it shouldn't take too long to do.

Add-on #3 LED lightbar under the move list on the control panel. Check out SpaceHedgehog's Vewlix project for that idea. Its in the original cab design too....so I need to add it.

Add-on #4 Headset jacks on the control panels underside so that I can play over Xbox Live and actually talk to people. Problem is....I can't seem to find the right audio cable extender for the 360 Headsets. If anyones got an idea or knows where I can find some....please lemme know.

Ok. So now I've got some more work to do. I'll post during the next week as I get these kinks worked out.

Here's the hardware & software going into the cab (finally):

PC running MaLa & Mame with all Street Fighter games, MK games and a few KOF goodies and Guilty Gear X2 Reload
Xbox 360 running Tekken 6, Soul Calibur 4, Street Fighter 4, DOA 4, BlazBlue, Battle Fantasia,
Sega Dreamcast running Marvel vs. Capcom 2 & Capcom vs. SNK 2

Its finally moving along gentlemen. Its only a matter of time now.

[emphatic]

Nice to see your girlfriend got you back on the build. It's really nice to have a factory made cabinet to play on while you build, because if you get your cabinet built so that it's playable yet not finished, it can get hard to turn it "off" to finish it.

I have some ideas how you can lock it down and also for how to incorporate a keyboard without interfering too much with your CPO. But now it's dinner time here. I'll be back.

[SpaceHedgehog]

Really looking forward to seeing some of those design ideas implemented Gatsu. I may put a headphone port in mine at some point. The Madcatz arcade stick headphone port seems fairly straight forward to extend to make it more accessible. It might be worthwhile looking at using the PCB from that.

[emphatic]

If you look at this Vewlix, it has a look beneath the panel:



My idea is that you do the same with yours, just add a metal bracket that hangs down from your top part of the panel that the lock goes into when engaged.

My poor sketch shows it a bit better:



You could use a fingerboard connector inside your main panel (the bottom part) so you just open the lock, lift the panel up and unplug the one connector. Now you could have another panel stashed near your cabinet holding your keyboard (if you don't want to use a wireless one, you could have the cabel going through that panel top into a hub or whatever inside the main panel)

On my EGRET II, there are two locks under the panel that I unlock (I usually have these unlocked though as the top part is on hinges) when I want to adjust the volume or switch between my 1 lever or 2 lever panels.

[opt2not]

Yay Gatsu!  Glad to see you're going to follow-through on this puppy!
It's going to be a beauty, I know it!
Reading your post reminded me of an old proverb I used to remind myself of re: following-through with things:  "in a 100 mile march, 99 miles is only half way there". I don't know if it was Confucius that said that, but it stuck with me.
It's hard to keep motivations up when there's a lot going on in your personal life, or if there path is difficult, or there's lots to do...but stick with it man. You got the passion, you got the need, and you got tons of resources here to draw on. Just keep up the motivation and you'll be happy with the results!

As for the keyboard drawer: The lock idea that Emphatic posted looks cool. I was thinking about an idea I had for my cocktail cabinet, I wanted to add small Lift cylinders to my cabinet top, so that I can just unfasten the latches, and have it hold up by itself. Lift cylinders are commonly used for propping up car hoods, and truck hatches, but I'm sure if we did a bit of searching, we could probably find some small project ones that don't use too much force.
Just an idea, it would a good alternative to having a sliding drawer, it would be so cool to have a "hood" for your cp you can just lift. Perhaps a combination of piano latches and small pressure life cylinders...just an idea...

Also, I've got to add headphone jacks to my Galaxbox at some point down the line. It's a nice feature to have, and every-time I school a scrubby Ken player in SF4 online, being able to talk back to their smack is definitely a plus!

Keep up the progress my man, even if it's small steps! 

[Gatsu]

If you look at this Vewlix, it has a look beneath the panel:



My idea is that you do the same with yours, just add a metal bracket that hangs down from your top part of the panel that the lock goes into when engaged.

My poor sketch shows it a bit better:



You could use a fingerboard connector inside your main panel (the bottom part) so you just open the lock, lift the panel up and unplug the one connector. Now you could have another panel stashed near your cabinet holding your keyboard (if you don't want to use a wireless one, you could have the cable going through that panel top into a hub or whatever inside the main panel)

On my EGRET II, there are two locks under the panel that I unlock (I usually have these unlocked though as the top part is on hinges) when I want to adjust the volume or switch between my 1 lever or 2 lever panels.

@emphatic - That is a great idea. And a lot easier than what I was gonna do. Thanks for that. I'm gonna try to implement it.

Sucks though because after really taking a good look at my current control panel....its too heavy and there are some eye sore spots that will take more than putty to fix. I'm using wood filler putty but its not quite doing what I need. Its too soft after it sets. Might need to get some bondo. But I've never really worked with it.

@opt2not - thanks for the inspiration and kind words.

[Gatsu]

Ok here are some photos of what I'm working with. I can probably salvage the CP I have right now. I just really need to clean up my shoddy router work and get some better filler. Never used bondo so Im not sure what all is involved in that.



Heres the whole control panel (minus the 2 side angled pieces, those still need some love...).

You can see the shoddy non-straight router work. Because I didnt take the time to rig up a straight edge. I just drew a line and tried to eyeball it. Impossible when dust & debri is flying everywhere. So I need to rig up a straight-edge and clean up those routered areas. Once I actually finish routing out those 2 sections it might end up being a lot lighter.



Closeup of the putty. Not quite doing what I want. I've filled that area probably 3 times and it still sinks in. So i probably need to sand it all off and try something better. Suggestions?



Underside & front of the control panel. So you can see how those angled pieces are fit together. It needs more love and filler. But its sturdy.



Base/mounting section of the CP. Yeah...that cable hole needs to be a lot bigger too. Its probably the only part of the control panel Im happy with actually....



Back of the CP base. Those 3 holes running a long the bottom are for bolting it to the main base of the cab. There are 3 more on the inside lip running parallel.

Overall what do you guys think? Salvageable? I'd hate to rebuild the whole thing again. But I will if it needs it. Its mostly cleaning up the routering and then getting a better filler and a smoother finish before I re-prime it.

[emphatic]

If you have someone that can do a metal control panel top piece for you, that's what I would do. Having a base where you can fit a metal plate on will give you an option to add a single player, a two player, or perhaps a spinner panel, or a trackball panel later on. The best thing is if you can get one plate made, you know the price should you want to further your "collection" of panels.

Let me know if you want some pictures of how the panel is done in my EGRET II. You can't really see details in this picture, but the locking mechanism is kinda visible on this picture (there are two on EGRET II):

[SpaceHedgehog]

You can try P38 car body filler. I used that and it came out great; it dries hard and sands smooth.

http://www.thesitebox.com/Store/Product.aspx?ProductId=182588&src=google-base.

Apply in a well ventilated area though, preferably outside.

Not tried Bondo.

[opt2not]

You can salvage this for sure.  I love wood filler, it hides all my shoddy woodworking skills!
 
Bondo is good, but if you want to give the wood putty/filler another try, I'd say this time cake it right on there. You don't need to sand away what you already have there, just add it on top. I've had to layer applications of putty all the time because of the shrinking/sinking. It's normal and it'll bond together even if the first app is dry. While you're caking it on there, tape or nail some boards on the sides so when it sinks, it has a barrier stopping it from "seeping" away.  Don't worry about it being flush right away, in fact, be generous and "mound" it in there...be sure to spread it onto the top of the wood surface so it has something to cling to and dry. Wait for a day or two for it to fully dry solid through, then sand it down to even it out.

[Gatsu]

If you have someone that can do a metal control panel top piece for you, that's what I would do. Having a base where you can fit a metal plate on will give you an option to add a single player, a two player, or perhaps a spinner panel, or a trackball panel later on. The best thing is if you can get one plate made, you know the price should you want to further your "collection" of panels.

Let me know if you want some pictures of how the panel is done in my EGRET II. You can't really see details in this picture, but the locking mechanism is kinda visible on this picture (there are two on EGRET II):

do you mean the entire CP or just the plate that fits the joysticks and buttons? If so I could ask my father to do that. He's got some metal working stuff.