Game Grid -- *ALMOST FINISHED* Rotating panel and rotating monitor.

[phildo77]

You better hope none of those wires ever, ever comes loose...  lol

Riveting. Reminds me of an amusement park ride! The wiring alone about made my head asplode.  

It was a LOT of wiring and really most of the wires are channeled and heat wrapped.  There are a few Power and Ground wires that are loose but color coded, a few wires connected to optical encoders that have to be loose (two rotating joys and two spinners) and the rest of the loose wires are the giant black USB cables from all the boards in the panel box, of which I had no control over the length (6 LED WIZ and 1 OPTIPACK + 1 USB HUB).  So its not as bad as it looks.  Those USB cables are really the bulk of the rats nest.  So troubleshooting any wiring problems shouldn't be too tough and there's really no risk of shorts with all the heat wrap.

Just a quick question...why not go LCD for this project?  I know in my strange ranking queue I put Arcade monitors/Scart tvs highest and rank LCD just under that but above Svideo/component tv.  It will solve your degaussing issues and with the right tweaks look better than the component signal.  You will also get a progressive signal as opposed to an interlaced one which will be easier on the eyes.  Just a thought.

AGREED!  The CRT has been nothing but a design nightmare with the rotating monitor setup and it weighs a ton.  It finally works though (except for degauss), and I will be definitely moving to LCD if this CRT bites it.  I'm too far along now to want to make that change right now.

In all honesty, when I first started reading about your plans I had some doubts. But you've really put it together well, it's impressive. I love the green. I want to do a green and black cab for my next one.

Thanks man, I really appreciate that, it was a lot of work.  Believe me when I say I had my doubts too.  Not to toot my own horn, but I really REALLY like the blinky buttons and backlights.  Like REALLY.  My favorite part!  Thats a lot of LED wires. Kudos to the Headsoft guys for making a kickass plugin for GameEx!  (I like the kick plates too, but just so heavy!)

I'm not sure if the green turned out like I wanted it to.  I was aiming for a black and neonish purple cab with neonish green highlights.  The Green is so powerful though that it almost detracts from the whole cab.  

Personally, I think you should have just built a dedicated horizontal and vertical cab.  It would have been easier, probably would have cost the same, and probably would take up the same amount of space as that best does, and I think it would have looked nicer.  I would have ditched it and started over

Yeah, I'll be the first to admit that I bit of more than I had time to chew.  I wanted to do everything in one, got greedy and didn't have enough time to really do what I wanted.  In fact I axed the third panel on the rotating part that was going to be analog flight yoke/driving wheel.  Can you imagine what the inside of the console would've looked like then?  Lack of time was also the exact reason I didn't want to start over.  On the other hand I really wanted to GO BIG.  I wanted the biggest monitor I could get in there so I did the maximum width (34") to fit in a standard home entry door (which is not the same size as interior doors BTW). I wanted to utilize the whole screen vertical or horizontal hence the rotating monitor.  I wanted 4 players so D&D (and like games) were a possibility.  I wanted dual sticks and xenophobe playability.  Spinners, trackballs all with 2 players+.  I got all that .  What I didn't get was the analog stuff. :/   I learned a lot and will be considering a juke project and a counter-top project after this one is FIN!  I couldn't of done it though without this community.  Whoo boy!  You guys rock!  It amazes me what some of you guys can put together.  Looks so freakin' pro!


Anyway...  I'm still looking for advice on the Degauss (besides LCD replacement, thanks for the suggestion Donkbaca) and am also wondering if someone knows where I can find some steel or aluminium raised speaker grates.  I mean GRATES not GRILLS.  I'm hoping to put some raised grates on there that are like made out of criss crossed aluminium or steel "wires" (not flimsy though, kind of like a glass protector grate or something).  I thought I saw someone else on this forum that had found something similar but now I can't find it. :/  I guess I could do grills but I'd prefer the grates.