Arcade Bones (Marquee & Dashboard graphics finalised)

[Bones]

young man without a title.

Ooooops, better scub that NFL Expert...... 

[Bones]

Saturday update

Today was my marquee retaining day.

Unable to buy anything similar to a Happs marquee retainer in Australia and further choosing early in my project to not order parts from overseas, I had to work out another way of mounting the marquee plexi glass.

I found some aluminium in a U shape during my travels, I don

[Bones]

I cleaned up the Aluminium brackets with some turps and gave them two coats of primer undercoat followed by a couple of coats of gloss black.

This picture sux but should give you an idea.

[Bones]

Next I mounted the pine piece at 90 degrees into the cabinet, and attached my speaker shelf after cutting out the speaker holes. The speaker shelf follows the profile of my cabinet and buts up tight to the pine piece.

[Bones]

Unhappy with the way the sides of my cabinet look after these pieces were mounted I have chosen to re-shape this section. Perhaps a job for tomorrow. Pain in the ass having to do another slot when I cut this hideous piece out

[Bones]

OK

[GameOver]

Really nice work, bones.  You've done a tremendous job on your cabinet & documenting your project.  Is a website in the works?

I don't think the area around your marquee looks 'YUK'.  Maybe you've been looking at it too long!  Great job.

[Bones]

Is a website in the works?.

Not at this time. I have never written a web page before and finding the extra time now to learn would be difficult. I have kept all my pics so perhaps when it is finished I will dedicate some time to this.

[Bones]

I don't think the area around your marquee looks 'YUK'. Maybe you've been looking at it too long!

Interesting comment and considering the routing difficulties I will endure with the bottom speaker shelf now glued & attached (unable to mount my slot cutter this deep from the otherside), I will put it to the vote.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=40394.0

[Bones]

Monday update....

After becoming somewhat aggravated over the appearance of the marquee area and due to it not looking the way my mind had imagined, I took some time off and did nothing on Sunday.

Cutting the pointy bits off the cab was not going to be an issue but putting the t-molding slot back into this area was a major concern. I simply couldn

[Bones]

Using a jigsaw I cut out some triangles and then fired up the biscuit cutter. The process was quite speedy and the results are not great, but they are acceptable. I will more than likely squirt some silicone in the grove when installing but now at least I have a guide and something for the t-molding to hang onto.

Pics show the new profile and results of my new slot attempts. I think from the front the cabinet has improved in appearance but I must confess to liking the old side profile much more. Alas, I can not have my cake and eat it too.

[tivogre]

Sure you can (have your cake and eat it too)!

Use that same biscuit joiner and add same new wood back on to that area in whatever shape you want.

With biscuits and glue, It'll be plenty strong;  You can use some fiberglass reinforced Bondo (auto body filler) on the seam;  you'll NEVER see it.

Fix the shape to something YOU will be happy with... or else you'll always notice it and hate it down the road.

[Bones]

The differences are subtle and the more I look at it the more it is now growing on me.

I think overall the new shape is an improvement.

[Buddabing]

Vector clarity surprised me.

This pic is with the game on pause (duller), but gives a reasonable idea. Forgive me not taking the protective plastic off the screen just yet

[Bones]

FYI you can run mame with -pause_brightness 2.0 for raster games and -intensity 2.5 for vector games to get a better picture when pause is pressed.

Thanks Buddabing, the software side is not something I have fully thrown myself into yet (still using mame32), but this is nice to know for when the project is finished and I want to take some final pics.

[Bones]

** Edit. Worked out auto trace function in Illustrator which made life easy!

I am at a stage where I am designing my marquee graphics and I have decided to stick to my idea and call the cab

[Bones]

Saturday night update.

I put in a huge day today and really have nothing to show for it. There was lots of repetitive and tedious work before the dashboard started to take form.

The dashboard in my design is somewhat necessary. If you cruise back to the final pics of the completed control panel in this thread you will be reminded about the administrator admin switches which are wired in series and hidden. (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=35285.msg337094#msg337094)

Having these switches gives me 100% control over my cab but unless they are easily accessible, they would serve no purpose. The dashboard is my gateway to these buttons.

To make the situation a little more difficult, the dashboard must be removable for monitor installation and also for accessing/cleaning/changing the monitor glass. (Although I have decided to use 6mm Lexan for this and not actual glass.) The dashboard will also house the cabinet

[Bones]

The speakers are mounted facing upward and will be screwed in place. I will put a rubber oring between the metal surfaces which should act a dampener and stop any vibration.

[Bones]

Next task was to make some speaker grills. These were made these from 6mm thick MDF as I wanted the profile to be subtle. I cut out two 100mm square pieces and drilled some mounting holes in the corners that also go through the dashboard. I then sanded and rounded the edges. 

I repeated the screw mounting process on the speaker grills as per the dashboard by countersinking, a nut underneath and putty filling the top. There isn

[Bones]

Final work for the day was routering the administration access panel which will house the barrel lock. Picture shows actual dashboard positioning but I will probably remove the clamps.   

[Bones]

I was bored and decided to sand the grills tonight. I also gave them one coat of paint which will need to be sanded and re-coated tomorrow.

They came out average but in the big scheme of things they will be completely covered in fabric anyway....

[Bones]

Sunday night update.

First thing was to give my speaker grills a second coating of black. Once they were dry I installed the speaker fabric. I was a little concerned about this mainly due to the wood thickness and I wasn

[Bones]

Next I cut out the access panel and sanded it to size

[Bones]

The need will arise to remove this shelf for initial monitor and glass installation/maintenance so it is held in place with some case clips. This seemed like the simplest way I could think of that didn

[Bones]

This pic shows everything in place with the hidden admin switches in reach of the access panel.

The only thing I really need to do now is install the potentiometer for volume control which will have to wait until next week.

[Bones]

And finally a pic of everything sitting in place.

[Bones]

Reinforcing what should be the obvious. Yesterday I did a lot of MDF sanding (by hand) and didn

[Bones]

I have posted initial designs for my marquee in the artwork forum. http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=40840.0

Feedback at the above link would be cool.

[Bones]

Saturday night update

[Bones]

Once my jig thingy was in place I put the yet to be cut-to-size monitor shelf under my jig and one of the future monitor supports under this. This held the shelf in place on one side. With the other side I adjusted the position of the shelf with clamps until I decided it was level. (By level I mean parallel with the other side.)

I used a tape measure, spirit level and right angle to get the position correct before attaching the monitor shelf support on the other side.

The shelf supports are held in by a plethora of screws that have been screwed and countersunk from the outside. They are also glued in place. The monitor shelf is held down by the same method.

[Bones]

To add additional support I attached two of the four steel brackets I brought. Pictures speak for themselves

[Bones]

I walked across the road and asked some tough neighbourhood dudes to do the lifting for me. They put the monitor into the cab pretty easy (from the front). We sat back and had a cool refreshing VB while I took in how the positioning looked. It looks good. My little jig thing worked a charm. The monitor matches the slope of the cab sides perfectly and the vertical position is how I imagined.

I will leave the monitor in there for now while I customise the fitting.

[Bones]

There is considerable space behind the monitor which is good as it does have to slide back a couple of inches to make room for the monitor glass and bezel. (If I decide to have a bezel.)

This probably concludes all work this week. Tomorrow is little Harleys 2nd birthday and dad wants to spend the day with him.

Happy birthday little man. 

[M3talhead]

Lookin good 'Bones. Everytime I look at your cab, I kick myself for not using a WG D9200. Maybe in the future....or for my next project.

[Freeplay]

Looookkkkin Good Bones.

I savin my beer money for a monitor like yours...... cause I just want one.

[Bones]

I gotta say, parting with the $1000 bucks (for monitor and transformer) was not exactly easy but I have put this much effort in and wanted a decent screen.

No regrets although I missed out on the fun of hacking monitor cables.

[Bones]

Today I spoke to a guy at work who is a welder about how I would go trying to bend some angle iron and make some brackets.

He told if I supplied him with some details he would make the brackets up for me.

I got home and cut the required angles into a block of wood with my drop saw and roughly sketched what I was after with the tolerances I could live with. (I will give the chunk of wood to him.)

These brackets are to hold the bottom of the monitor in place both at the front and back.

I will most likely screw the top front frame of the monitor directly into a support beam I will have to add to my cabinet.

I found some slight variances between the PDF file at Wells Gardner and my own monitor. Just small things like my monitor has an extra two mounting holes at the front. I have closely estimated the slant of the frame on a flat surface at 80 degrees at the front and 110 degrees at the back.

PLEASE, if coping these plans, check them against your own monitor!

I will post pictures on how the brackets turn out when they are finished.

[M3talhead]

As long as your numbers are all correct, and half-competent welder can make those cuts witout blinking.

[Bones]

Got my Brackets today.

They are made from grade 316 stainless steel. The rear brackets are made from 6mm thick material and the front bracket from 3mm.

Both feel incredibly solid and the weld marks are pretty clean. The front bracket has been polished up and the flash gives it a wavy look but this is not the case.

[Bones]

The nice guy who made them for me said if there was any problems to take them back to him. Both brackets are slightly out on angle but I reckon I could shim the difference on the monitor shelf. I will talk to him tomorrow and see what he says.

He also said I would probably struggle to drill the material myself so they might end up going back for dilling after I have discover for myself just how hard it is to drill stainless steel.....