Arcade Bones (Marquee & Dashboard graphics finalised)

[DrewKaree]

I can honestly say I have never toked on a cannibal.

Choked, sure.  Toked, nope.

Hey, I just need a few small pieces of plywood, can you send me some of those plywood leaves from your MDF trees?

[Bones]

Hey, I just need a few small pieces of plywood, can you send me some of those plywood leaves from your MDF trees?

Sorry, they are an endangered species due to all the damn MDF termites.

[cdbrown]

Excellent work so far Bones.  Keep wanting to see the next update.  Where are you getting all the lexan stuff from.  I'll need to get some for my cp soon.  Will be making sure to go for the grey tinted safety glass.  How much did you pay for that piece?

[Bones]

Excellent work so far Bones. Keep wanting to see the next update. Where are you getting all the lexan stuff from. I'll need to get some for my cp soon. Will be making sure to go for the grey tinted safety glass. How much did you pay for that piece?

I have been fortunate in not having to pay for any of the Lexan. It has all been supplied free of charge through plastic companies I deal with at work. All pieces have just been off-cuts otherwise it would have cost me big time, especially for the 8mm thick stuff.

The laminated glass cost $105 and it measures 695mm x 575mm x 6mm. I did receive a few quotes that were all in within $10 of this price so I suppose this is what to expect. However.... another member told me he received a quote of (from memory) $35 for a similar size piece so perhaps it is worth looking around.

Disturbing avatar dude, very disturbing.

[cdbrown]

Disturbing avatar dude, very disturbing.

It fits in this part of the forum
Project Announcements and HoF

[Bones]

Saturday & Sunday update.

I am pleased to announce that construction is pretty much finished.

This week I fixed the fit of my coin door, mounted the speaker remote control, adjusted the height of the monitor glass and did a lot of puttying and sanding.

I have also been busy making the speaker grills that fit on the marquee shelf. I will put together a DIY speaker grill tutorial and post it here when they are finished in approximately 1 week.

I don

[Bones]

Mounting of remote control.

[DrewKaree]

You need to dump a bag or twelve of sand on your driveway and fill in those gaps.

[Bones]

You need to dump a bag or twelve of sand on your driveway and fill in those gaps.

Yeah, I got problems.

I was going to clean the drain but the driveway is trying to fall forward and I know I won't get the drain cover back on if I mess with it.

The drain is filled with sawdust, Lexan shavings, screws, putty, wire etc etc etc. If you could somehow remove and re-assemble this material to it's former state,  you could build a miniature and fully functioning Arcade Bones and probably also get a six pack of VB from all the dregs poured down there.....

[paigeoliver]

What is the indentation for? To insure that the machine will be hard to transport!! 

[Bones]

What is the indentation for? To insure that the machine will be hard to transport!! 

The back profile is for appearance only and If I ever have to move the cabinet I have enough room to mount a small block V8 behind the coin door.

My plan is to one day remove the back paneling, sit in the space behind the monitor shelf then smoke the bags and blow this joint leaving behind nothing but a big black hacky up my driveway.

[Santoro]

Paige never misses an opportunity to bash the cosmetic back indentation...

[paigeoliver]

Paige never misses an opportunity to bash the cosmetic back indentation...  He is passionate about it.

But he is right,  it is a bltch to move because you can't just pop it on a hand truck.  I still like mine though, I like the look much better.

Your right. I don't.

It was something one guy did on a machine designed with almost no reference to any actual cabinets, and then copied, over and over, and over, and over again. It complicates the design, makes the cabinet harder to build, easier to tip over, and harder to move.

[Bones]

Well I own my house, have one kid enrolled in school, work close by. I ain't going nowhere soon....

[Santoro]

It complicates the design, makes the cabinet harder to build, easier to tip over, and harder to move.

Yeah, but it's pretty.

[Bones]

I am extremely keen on having everything in my cabinet come to life with the push of a single button. I also like the option of having my cab in sleep mode where monitor & speakers are powered down and can be switched back on with a keyboard (control panel) keystroke.

The obvious choice is a Smartstrip which seems to get a hit in just about every topic posted here regarding single button power-up options and furthermore I could not find a bad comment regarding the product.

Here in Australia we have 240V out of our sockets and a different shaped plug. I made enquiries with Smartstrip hoping they manufactured an Australian version and had a distributor of the product here. Unfortunately this was not the case but in my prompt reply from Smartstrip they advised they did have a working prototype version for Australia which should be available here in around 6 months.

Discussing power requirements with my buddy Misstasmiff (who has the ability to find the golden needle in the Internet haystack), he came across an Australian product known as the

[Bones]

And put it together I must....

I really didn't expect to get what I finally received. I dunno what I expected, maybe I thought I may have to push a fuse into place, or perhaps screw a power cord together or something simple. I was way wrong. 

This is real DIY and for a bloke whose only experience with stuff that has wires was a train set when I was 12 and an IPAC now at 35, it is rather intimidating to say the least......

I see 3 options.

-I try and succeed.
-I try and fail. Sparks fly and I burn down my cabinet.
-I wire it incorrectly and I am transported back to the year 1885 where I live as a blacksmith in the wild west.

[DannyH]

Man that looks like you will need a few cans lined up in the fridge for after...and something to kick!.

Sleep mode makes it hard but I opted getting my electrician friend to splice a wire and make a switch which I mounted to the back of the cab. I would have done it myself but didnt feel like renaming my cab to "illegally wired cab" or "melted burnt out pile of ash on the round cab" basically I use thsi switch to turn everything on and off and set the PC to boot when power s restored. The switch is just an on off switch cut from the powerboard cable

[Bones]

Yeah powering the computer and switching it on or off is no problem, getting the arcade monitor and marquee light to do the same when in sleep mode is what I am really trying to achieve.

My kingdom for a real smartstrip.

[DannyH]

good idea, but looking at that kit all I can say is best of luck champ I do not envy your task 1 bit

[Stingray]

Holy sack of mystery bits, Batman! Best of luck to ya, Bones. That looks roughly on a par with open heart surgery.

-S

[webgeek]

I'm no expert at electronics but I have put a LOT of electronics kits together. A few suggestions:

Get a good soldering iron and practice with it a bit. This will pay off many times over. DON'T USE A SOLDERING GUN! It's much too hot for this and can damage your components. Make sure you tin the tip of the iron before you use it the first time.

I'd suggest getting a "Third Hand" tool. Here is an example of one. This isn't required but I find it invaluable in making clean connections. I generally have one clip holding the board and one clip holding the component. Then I hold the solder in one hand and the iron in the other. Without the Third Hand, you end up setting the board down and hoping it will balance on the component and hold it in place. This never works out well.

I'd also suggest a "solder sucker". Here is an example. This way, you can easily remove a glob of solder that you screwed up on. It WILL happen and a solder sucker can pull the molten solder right off the part and leave things ready for another attempt. A spin-off of this is "solder wick". I don't like this nearly as much as you have to really heat things up to draw a lot of solder off but it works too.

Clean the circuit board with a light abrasive before you begin. Something like steel wool works wonders. You want the contact pads to be nice and shiney. That will make your soldering much easier. Be gentle though as the pads can seperate from their foundation on a poorly made board.

Bend the leads of your components with a pair of pliars before you place them in the board. Not only will this look much better, it keeps you from forcing components too much. Certain components (like ceramic caps) are easy to break and a beast to replace if you don't know exactly what it was to begin with. Many of them are very poorly labeled if at all.

Take your time, go slowly. Triple check that the component you have selected IS the right one. Many of the components like diodes, ICs, electrolytic capacitors, etc. have a polarity or orientation that must be correct. Be mindful of it when you place the parts. When you do solder something, try and heat the pad and the lead at the same time. Apply the solder to the work, NOT the soldering iron tip. A well soldered connection is bright and smooth. Solder will "flow" around the joint when things are heated properly.

Personally, I like to start in one corner of a board and work to the opposite corner. This seems to give me the most room for component placement and just makes things easier in general.

Your board has nice large traces so this shouldn't happen much but if you accidentally bridge traces, you can use an x-acto knife to cut the solder between them in a pinch.

As solder gathers on your iron's tip, you need to clean it off. An easy solution is to have a folded square of damp paper towels. You can just rub the iron tip across this a few times and the crap will come off and leave the tip clean.

Don't let things get too hot. Almost all electronic components are heat sensitive to varying degrees. If things start heating up, stop for a minute and let them cool down. This goes for you too ICs are the most suseptible, but other components might be as well. It's best to play it safe and just keep things as cool as possible while still getting good joints. This often means that I have to stop a joint and redo it once it's cooled down. It sucks, but this prevents you from buying another kit if you screw up a hard-to-replace part.

One last thing, WEAR SAFETY GOGGLES! Everyone assumes you can't get hurt with solder, but if it splatters in your eye, you can be blinded. I'm on another mailing list where a guy had a component explode and the solder nailed him on the upper cheek. A few millimeters higher and he would have lost sight in that eye permamently. Safety goggles are a small price to pay for that piece of mind.

-=-

Whew, I didn't realize I had written so much, sorry about that. I hope this is useful to you. Good luck!

Mike

[Bones]

Thanks for the time taken in your reply geek.

I have now read the accompanying instructions twice and a few more times won't hurt. Great thing about this is that it can be done at my leasure, or put differently, I can still have a working cabinet without it.

I am normally not pessimistic about things but I get the feeling my chances of success on this one are low.

If I can pull it off I will definitely take some knowledge away so I am going to give it a shot.

[DrewKaree]

I know I'm gonna have to hunt around for it, but I am 99 ¹/₃% positive I saw some discussion about using a regular ol' ordinary power strip and infusing some basic parts to do this, which looked like more work than it was worth for me, since I have access to all the good American bits over here.

To me, it's worth it to look for you, if only to help give you the satisfaction of sending that conglomeration of frustration back to them and a big "eff you" note inside. 

Is Sears in Australia?  I also seem to remember Sears having something VERY similar to this, or at least serving the same function. 

I'm off for a bit, but PLEASE, for the love of Pete, DON'T unwrap any of that crap before taking a look or waiting for my reply.  I flat out HATE being treated the way it sounds as if you were, and I make a conscious effort to hose those companies and alert as many people as possible about my experience.

Circuit City, I'm talking to you.  Tape your "return policy" to a 10' pole and shove it where the sun don't shine.  Sideways.

[webgeek]

oops, I was just re-reading my reply and forgot to mention that when you start from one corner, also start with the smallest parts first. Makes placing things easier. Whatever your decision, good luck!

Mike

[Bones]

I know I'm gonna have to hunt around for it, but I am 99 ¹/₃% positive I saw some discussion about using a regular ol' ordinary power strip and infusing some basic parts to do this, which looked like more work than it was worth for me, since I have access to all the good American bits over here.

To me, it's worth it to look for you, if only to help give you the satisfaction of sending that conglomeration of frustration back to them and a big "eff you" note inside.

[dakka68]

Im sure there was mention here, and also another JAYCAR Kit that switched on a power socket from a USB connection, was very simple, just grab the +ve from the USB pins and run that into an opto coupler that drives a TRIAC which switches the 240VAC, needed less than 10 components to do all the appropriate interfacing and triac snubbing (probably too much info...).

Just found it
http://www.siliconchip.com.au/cms/A_102979/article.html

didnt know it actually sells as an Aussie product, cool does not look like a kit but the page shows all the part numbers!.

[Buddabing]

Peale built a simple relay-based circuit which turned on a power strip.

Here's a link to the thread

[DrewKaree]

Peale built a simple relay-based circuit which turned on a power strip.

Here's a link to the thread

Bones, that's the one right there.  Thanks budda

[Bones]

Peale built a simple relay-based circuit which turned on a power strip.

Here's a link to the thread

Bones, that's the one right there. Thanks budda

And here is the irony. I decided against that method because I found it too difficult and thought an off-the-shelf solution would suit me better.

[DrewKaree]

sucka foo'

[elvis]

What I've done for every cab I've ever built so far:

1) Grab a standard AU$5, 4 or 6 point power board from anywhere

2) Grab a AU$4 standard 3-pin australian power connector from Jaycar/Dick Smith/whatever ( Link here ).

3) Drill an 8mm hole in the back of my cabinet

4) Cut the plug off the power board

5) Feed the cut cable through the hole

6) Reconnect with the plug from (2) (no solder needed - just strip the wires and screw in as per the instructions)

7) Jump into your PC BIOS and tell it in the power management section that it should power on after a "Power Failure".

Plug everything else into the power board (monitor, speakers, whatever).

9) When needed, plug your cabinet into the wall and turn it on.  Everything powers up.  When finished, power down your cabinet via your frontend (I use both MAMEWah and AdavnceMenu, and they both support this feature).  Turn it all off at the wall.  Next time you power on, up comes the PC again!

No crazy power strips needed.  If you're afraid of chopping up power boards to add the plug, you can just drill a bigger hole (say, 40mm or so diameter) and feed the original plug through that instead of a smaller hole for just the cable.

Even trickier, if you have a rear door on your cabinet, where the door meets the next panel you can drill a small 8mm hole on the side edge, so that you can easily place the power board cable there, shut the door, and it fits nice and snug.

If all of that sounds too confusing in writing, I can post pics of all three solutions in action.

[Bones]

Yeah but I really really, really want the sleep mode function!

[elvis]

Yeah but I really really, really want the sleep mode function!

What for?  No trolling intended, I'm just very interested.

My cab takes all of 30 seconds to power up to a fronend, and all of the frontends I use have some sort of slideshow-based screensaver.  A sleep mode for me is completely pointless in something as task-specific as an arcade cab.

[Bones]

What for?  No trolling intended, I'm just very interested.

My cab takes all of 30 seconds to power up to a fronend, and all of the frontends I use have some sort of slideshow-based screensaver.  A sleep mode for me is completely pointless in something as task-specific as an arcade cab.

I just read somewhere about the option and it really appealed to me. The truth is without something like this my machine would end up running night and day due to my careless nature.   

My hope is to never turn the PC off but rather let the computer shut everything down when it detects zero activity after awhile.

Something about instand on demand gaming really tickles my fancy.

Besides, I brought this crazy kit now so to not attempt assembly would be a almost as stupid as attempting to assemble. Errr..... Or something like that. 

[Bones]

Should have also mentioned.....

If after reading the instructions and looking over the parts another 10 times and I still feel I am completely out of my league, where I work there are about 12 electricians and 2 electrical engineers so I might send out an email advertising a free case of beer for assembly and see what happens.

However, much of me yearns to take up the challenge myself so the decision to have somebody else assemble it doesn't sit well at the moment.

Time will tell.

[Sinner]

Should have also mentioned.....

If after reading the instructions and looking over the parts another 10 times and I still feel I am completely out of my league, where I work there are about 12 electricians and 2 electrical engineers so I might send out an email advertising a free case of beer for assembly and see what happens.

However, much of me yearns to take up the challenge myself so the decision to have somebody else assemble it doesn't sit well at the moment.

Time will tell.

Maybe you could get one of them to look at the kit and give some advise, before you start...I don't envy you that's for sure...good luck...

[Stingray]

Just because you're dangerously underqualified is no reason to not do it. Look at me, I do crazy stuff all the time and only land myself in the emergency room every once in a while.

Disclaimer statement: Hey kids, just because Stingray is a moron doesn't mean you have to be one too.

-S

[patrickl]

Disclaimer statement: Hey kids, just because Stingray is a moron doesn't mean you have to be one too.

You stop being a "moron" by learning. So I 'd say it's a good idea to try things out. Of course there are limits ...

I have put several of these kit things together and I know little about electronics. You just solder in the components.  How hard can it be? It can't be more difficult than a jigsaw puzzle. Allthough I must admit this puzzle looks a bit more daunting than the ones I tried.

[Bones]

Saturday update.

Update about 5 hours earlier than normal today. I have a visitor coming over soon and a plan has been put in place to drink beer, lots of beer.

For a few hours today I did more sanding and then re-puttied some of the areas I wasn