"Project" (Working Title / Work Log)

[Zensouken]

So I've decided to undertake constructing my own arcade cabinet after a whole lot of lurking and gathering information.  At the moment I've got most of everything that will be needed to slap this beast together but I'm stuck on two/three things.

1. I will 99.9% assuredly be getting my acrylic from TAP Plastics and am eyeing their Transparent Solar Grey. I want to try and order everything at once and I need to get some white opaque acrylic to go behind the Transparent Solar Grey to help filter the light of the marquee and control panel displays. So If anyone has ordered from TAP, mind letting me know which of their white opaque acrylic choices gets the job done. They have a few options with varying percentages of opacity and I'm not too certain which is best.

2. I have two 12v cold cathode lights for the marquee and the control panel which seemingly need to be powered by a power supply. I'm looking at these Happ power supplies and trying to figure out which works best. I've wired things up before but this is confusing me as I'm not certain how this works without molex connections. I understand how screw terminals work but I am trying to see if I can wire many connections to one screw terminal without blowing anything up.

http://na.suzohapp.com/powersupplies/80021500.htm
http://na.suzohapp.com/powersupplies/80006400.htm

3. I need to find good 12v fans (ideally 3x3) that can be wired up to either one of those power supplies so I can keep my cabinet ice cold and my electronics happy. Any leads?

Here's a picture of the ballast/inverter (?) for the cold cathode light, thanks in advance for any assistance. I'm really stuck here and definitely need some help.

[Zensouken]

Reserved for eventual work log updates and information. - Z

1/24/13

The work area and tools/materials. It being on the roof of my apartment building means I'm at the mercy of the elements. And it's too damn cold outside right now so I've brought everything inside until mother nature gets kinder later this week.

[Yvan256]

I know you want to order only once, but I would do a small order of samples to test the various opacities offered, then once you're decided you can place your final order for the actual sheets needed for your build.

A small pack of samples, if they are available, would not cost much to ship.

[Zensouken]

Actually I did order some samples of their varying Solar Grey acrylic but I neglected to gather some white opaque pieces at the time. For the 2 opaque pieces I need it costs about the same as the samples so I was hoping to avoid that. 

[Zensouken]

Weather in NYC's been either brick or snow which makes handling power tools and moving materials outside torture. So I think I'll bring everything to my folks' house in Jersey next weekend since there's better weather and less restrictions out there. Still trying to figure out this lighting issue but I'll take the extra week to refine the plans and see if I can reduce the amount of MDF necessary to cut.

I could probably just do this on the sidewalk but MDF goes everywhere and I don't want to hear it from anyone. Oh well.