Terminus clone - Game Central

[mcseforsale]

Yeah, been there.  Had 5 or 6 of them stolen.  3 at different shows and a few from my BASEMENT. 

Here's some porn:

Hand painted:


Another hand painted.  Built the wheels on all of them, too:


Original chrome:


And, ME!



/hijack off

AJ

[Zzap]

Looking real good. I'm liking the blue too.

Much appreciated Mark, you came up with a brilliant design!

As for the marquee: use arcade if you want, but keep in mind you'll probably grow to hate it in the future (or just ignore it).

I feel that the colours and style (narrow white lines with the blue background) fit with the design of the rest of the cabinet, but perhaps it's just the wording that is detracting, if it was something more like this would it stand out more? (named after game central station in Wreck it Ralph)




Nice bikes guys

Back on topic, got a bit of progress of the last few days, got the base built, filled and sanded, came up nicely. Where there was slight overhang in the joins I also used the trim bit on the router to cut them flush, worked brilliantly.



Also got the slots cut in the sides for the t-molding today. I was a little apprehensive to get these done since I didn't want to screw up the sides, but they came out great. I did a few of the tricks I'd seen around here including testing pressing the cutting blade into a side of scrap the same width, then flipping the wood over to test it's exactly halfway, as well as a couple of test cuts to check it was even. I feel I may have been half a millimetre or so out in the final cut, but very happy nonetheless.

Only one minor blemish which is visible in the centre of the photo, I was careful to let the router wind down inside the slot on every cut until the last one, on that one I pulled it away just before it stopped and it caught a little. I count myself very lucky it didn't jump further and take out any more. Was a very windy day though, and standing just down wind from the router caused a crapload of mdf dust to fly under my safety glasses and into my eye. All rinsed now and seems ok.



Should be able to mount the top piece onto the base tomorrow and start priming and painting.

[PL1]

perhaps it's just the wording that is detracting

That's what I was trying to say earlier.

Thanks for expressing it more clearly, A1pharm.

Which do you prefer?
  Lowercase - game central (the "g" is the only letter that dips under the line)
  Title case - Game Central (identifies it as a proper noun)
  All caps - GAME CENTRAL


Scott

[Zzap]

I see your point on the the lowercase g being the only letter below the line...

Here's the modifications with the various capitalisations, the all caps looks far too busy, perhaps the title caps looks ok.





And thanks for all the input guys, I may be a little slow on the artistic uptake, but I'll get there

[PL1]

Title case looks good.

How would it look using a slightly smaller font size so that the space between the words is the same as the space above/below/right/left of the words?


Scott

[Zzap]

Like so?

[PL1]

Looks pretty good to me, but I'll gladly defer those with more artistic talent.   


Scott

[jongunz]

Think it would be cool if you called it Game Central Station.  Kind of a spin off of Grand Central Station in New York. As far as your artwork.  I think you need some kind of overlay on top of the blue not sure what though.  It would just keep it from being too much blue.

[Zzap]

Think it would be cool if you called it Game Central Station.  Kind of a spin off of Grand Central Station in New York.

Heh, that's exactly what I was thinking, from the movie Wreck it Ralph Here's a version with that full name, I think it's a bit to much writing?



Also played around with the control panel artwork today and realised that when I follow a proper button layout, the joystick and buttons need a bit more spacing than I had previously, so no the nice rounded rectangles encroach on each other if I keep the planned design. I can join them together like below they lose a lot of the neatness from before...urgh, will require more thought here...

[a1pharm]

Think it would be cool if you called it Game Central Station.  Kind of a spin off of Grand Central Station in New York. As far as your artwork.  I think you need some kind of overlay on top of the blue not sure what though.  It would just keep it from being too much blue.

+1

Also, maybe putting an overlay on the CP would be easier on the eyes, too.

This is coming along nicely, I'm glad you ditched the generic "arcade" marquee!

Cheers!
 

[Zzap]

Can you explain what you mean by overlay for this? You both mentioned it so it must be a good thing, but I don't have any idea what sort of thing to add

Thanks for the kind words 

[Zzap]

A little progress over the last couple of days, got the base completed, I thought I'd run some t-molding along the front, it seems like it's only really visible from some angles, but should make it look a little nicer. Got the wheels attached too so easier to move around now



Also got a box built to enclose the car speakers I'll be using. Also got the speaker panel, rear air intake panel and top fan panel jigsaw cut and tidied up for mounting speakers, fans and flyscreen mesh for the lower intake.



A minor change to the control panel, rather than encircling the separate controls, I think these lines might do the trick? (ignore subtle read silhouettes, they are the underlying template cuts, I just quickly stuck coloured button shapes over the top)

[ron310]

Yeah, been there.  Had 5 or 6 of them stolen.  3 at different shows and a few from my BASEMENT. 

Here's some porn:

Hand painted:


Another hand painted.  Built the wheels on all of them, too:


Original chrome:


And, ME!



/hijack off

AJ

Man those are some nice bikes (and the scooter).
Worst mistake i made was getting rid of my Mongoose Decade Pro (hot pink and chrome).
Alright, I'm done wrecking this thread.

[Zzap]

Got a few things done over the past few days in including the speaker box complete with working speakers and lighting. Got the car speakers installed, needed to add some door rubber seal to get a nice snug fit into the holes I cut, but besides that it all went pretty smoothly.



I hadn't worked with this LED strip lighting before but it worked as expected. I soldered on a standard 4 pin molex connector to make the wiring a bit more modular. When I tested the first length there was a segment of 3 LEDs that were flashing, and 3 others that were dead, so I'm glad I tested before hand. This LED strip was also a "weather proof" one, so I had to peel back the silicone coating and snip it off each end to do the extra wiring. It was also much easier to solder them once they were mounted to their board (I discovered this after trying to move them when they were soldered together).



Also got some work done on the MALA theme for the cab. Found a nice image of Game Central Station from Wreck it Ralph where the colours fit in great with the colour scheme of the cab!



Also got the control panel front curves routed out today, so should be able to build them up shortly, get a decent sense of how the monitors will be mounted in relation and get the sides up.

[jammin0]

Looking good.  I'm interested to see how you tackled some of the small details to this cab like the bend on the front.  I like the addition of t-molding underneath the CP on that straight part.  Not easy to see but if you are down low and looking up it is definitely there.  What size monitor are you going with?  I was lucky enough to find the 28" Hannspree and it seems like it is the perfect size.  They made a lot of them in funny bezel shapes (football, basketball, apple).  Not sure what they were thinking but it might help to get one for a little bit cheaper.  I think I payed $160 for mine.

[Zzap]

I'm going with a 27" monitor as well as an 8" monitor for showing controls. I looked around for that nice 28" 16:10 monitor, but unfortunately the only one I could find was second hand, and I realised if I have difficulty finding one now, there's no hope in many years if I may need to replace it! I also toyed with the idea of a 32", but decided 27" would be sufficient.

Will be testing out a few ideas for the control panel front curve today, including bending some 3mm and 6mm mdf.

[jongunz]

To make station fit you should use a different font.  and you can make it smaller. Quick example.




 As far as overlay I'll use my CP as an example.



The white honeycomb pattern is an overlay on top of the grey.  I used it to break up the just plain gray look, I also added a black gradient on the top and bottom.

[jongunz]

Here are some free grid overlays.  May look cool....

http://www.premiumpixels.com/freebies/20-seamless-photoshop-grid-patterns/

You could also play around with some white half tones.  I've never done it but it looke pretty cool...

http://www.backgroundsy.com/tutorials/halftone-pattern-photoshop-tutorial

[Zzap]

 As far as overlay I'll use my CP as an example.

Thanks, I appreciate the ideas. Your control panel is great! I did send my artwork off to the printers yesterday but it's not yet finalised with them, so it may be possible to incorporate one of these ideas.

Got the front box and front curve of the control panel built. I used two panels of 3mm mdf on the front, glued together and to the 4 verticals and tacked in with small nails. Hopefully that should do the trick! Will countersink the nails and fill.

[Zzap]

Got the control panel drilled and trackball hole cut. Corner holes for the mount aren't quite in the right spot so will need to get a file onto them.

[mcseforsale]

Football!



AJ

[sabreerbasAlpha]

Got the control panel drilled and trackball hole cut. Corner holes for the mount aren't quite in the right spot so will need to get a file onto them.

Looking nice that cp.

[Zzap]

Football!



AJ

Used that one, and out by around 2mm on the four corner holes, doh! Measuring the bolts, seems they are 6.1 inches on mine, may have been bent out slightly in the last installation?

[Zzap]

Got the furring strips glued and screwed to both sides today, should have something more substantial in a few days!



Also got the front all painted up, pretty happy with the results, I think the photo makes it look a bit more purple than it is in real life...

[Zzap]

It's upright!

Got a good deal of paint onto the inside of the sides (2 coats of undercoat, 3 of top coat). While I was doing those I realised I had a fair bit of paint in the paint tray left over after coats, so thought I'd use a bit to try on the back panels. Turns out 2 coats of black topcoat work very well for the back panels, I may do a third, but seems this paint is thick enough to not need priming on the mdf (especially for back panels).

I'm pretty happy with the alignment of everything so far, having lots of clamps to make it all fit is also a necessity! (had a few extra trips to the hardware store to pick up wider clamps to fit the 690mm width).

[mcseforsale]

What paint are you using?  The best I found so far is Rustoleum Painter's Touch black.  It's so awesome.

AJ

[Zzap]

I'm using Taubmans Endure NG for the black and Dulux Aquanamel (water based enamel) for the blue. Using a small foam roller which leaves a very fine, but even texture (most consistent surface I can get!)

[Zzap]

A bit more progress, here's a shot of the back at the top where you can see a few things going on. At the top there's the fans (2x 140mm, fairly high airflow rate). They are connected via molex connectors to the LEDs at the front, and a cable that runs down to the computer in the base. Speaker cables are coming out of the speaker box, and there are 2 small angle brackets that are holding in the smoked acrylic that will sit in front of the monitors.



Got the monitor stands also installed today, forgot to grab a photo of those.

Below photo shows the progress with the control panel box attached, seemed to work ok as a single unit. The pinball buttons on the side were a little trickier to cut out as the hole inside the control panel box had to be large enough to take the button and the button wrench for installing. I ended up drilling the button holes, then cutting in from the other side using a multi-tool (vibrating buzz cutter as I refer to it as). Marquee has been secured in place using 25mm black PVC angle. Was very happy I discovered this in a local hardware store after hunting around for something suitable. The MDF coloured panels in the screen area and marquee area are acrylic with their protective paper still attached.



Next up painting the sides, applying artwork, wiring, playing?

[jammin0]

Looking awesome 

[Zzap]

Sides painted, t-molding added and CP artwork added!

Need to move this inside now to do the last few bits - final monitor attachment, acrylic marquee, acrylic front screen, buttons, joysticks, electronics etc

[mcseforsale]

Wow.  that looks great. 

AJ

[Zzap]

Thanks! It's definitely come along well.

With the control panel vinyl, I had sufficient overhang on all straight sides to tuck it fully over the edges and staple underneath. Also enough to bend it over the front and tuck in with the front t-molding. I wasn't sure if the vinyl adhesive would definitely stick, but now it's stapled down it's not going anywhere!

[jongunz]

Looks really good.  The less is more was very well executed here.

[jammin0]

Looking Classy

[Zzap]

All done! As many have mentioned in the past, it's hard to get a good shot of a lit marquee without everything else looking dark, but this is lit up very nicely and consistently. All is running very nicely, and the two fans at the top are sucking plenty of air through the cabinet. I tested my PC the other day with 10 minutes of Mame and 10 minutes of the Model 3 emulator, and measured the max CPU temp at 54 degrees celcius. Installed in the cabinet this test resuted in 60 degrees celcius, so I think that should be ok.

The grey acrylic in front of the monitors has worked very well, I won't require a bezel as everything is very dark behind that.



I built the following admin panel in the coin door to access a few functions a little easier without pulling the keyboard out.



Some minor issues I ran into in this final phase:
 - The right pinball flipper button and the bottom right player 2 buttons were very close to each other. Both had to have their microswitches rotated to just the right angle for them to not bump into each other.
 - The Happ Super joysticks I used were just a little to long and scraped on the bottom of the control panel box when installed. I managed to cut the bottom actuator "hourglass" in half which raised the bottom, and then added an extra conical piece to the topside of the joystick. It shaved 10mm off the bottom which made it fit, and wasn't too detrimental to the throw distance at the top.
 - The PC I am using is drawing too much current when in standby so my Eco Powerboard (smartstrip) thinks it's turned on all the time, and keeps all the other connected devices turned on too. I have gotten around this by just turning on and off at the powerpoint.

All up, it's been fun, looking forward to getting some friends around and giving it a workout