Author Topic: LiquidMame - Out of the shop and into the house (Read 36902 times)

fiscap · « **Reply #40 on:** June 25, 2006, 10:16:38 pm »

Some daytime shots with the panels clamped in place:

fiscap · « **Reply #41 on:** June 25, 2006, 10:36:43 pm »

I made some significant progress today. I've started to assembly the modular pieces of the cabinet and so far things are moving along smoothly. I'm using 3/8" nuts and bolts to hold most of the assembly together - upper frame assemblies, top and bottom frames, as well as the upper and lower sides. This will give me the flexibility to break the cabinet down and move it with ease.

fiscap · « **Reply #42 on:** June 25, 2006, 10:40:49 pm »

More photos:

fiscap · « **Reply #43 on:** June 25, 2006, 10:49:43 pm »

Since I'm using 3/4" MDF to build the shell of the cabinet and MDF isn't that great at holding screws, I'm using nuts and bolts wherever possible for additional strength. In some cases I'm using t-nuts as well - as such the case for holding the coin door hinges in place.

fiscap · « **Reply #44 on:** June 25, 2006, 10:54:14 pm »

It was nice to finally have a whole day to work on the project and I got a lot done. I'll start work on the rotating control panel from here.

This is where my progress stands as of this afternoon:

fiscap · « **Reply #45 on:** June 30, 2006, 02:52:38 pm »

I've started the construction of the 3-sided rotating control panel. This is basically 1UP's design with a few modifications for strength and support. Despite using 1UP's panel as a model, I still needed to come up with dimensions that would not only accommodate all of my controls, but also fit within the confines of the cabinet without making it grotesquely huge - it was not an easy feat by any means. The layout on wood of the control panel side took 2-3 hours in itself. The easiest way (other than obtaining a full-size drawing from Kinko's to trace) was to inscribe the side panel within an equilateral triangle - you can kind of make it out from the first image.

fiscap · « **Reply #46 on:** June 30, 2006, 03:02:09 pm »

The control panel attaches to the sides of the cabinet with two 4" Lazy Suzan bearings. These bearings allow for 360-degrees rotation, however I will be limiting the panel to only 240-degrees of rotation so the wires will not become twisted and severed.

fiscap · « **Reply #47 on:** June 30, 2006, 03:15:41 pm »

One issue I needed to address is the lack of support on the cabinet sides where the rotating control panel is housed. There is a few square feet of MDF that is pretty much just flapping in the wind. I needed to devise a way to hold the two sides together square with the rest of the cabinet, as well as a system that would allow me to vary the tension between the two sides for the flip-down door and its roller-ball catches (the spring-loaded catches push the panels further apart).

I came up with a way to install a turnbuckle system through the virtual axis of the rotating panel. It appears as though this solution will address these two issues nicely.

KillerArcades · « **Reply #48 on:** July 03, 2006, 01:04:35 pm »

Looking good!

fiscap · « **Reply #49 on:** July 05, 2006, 09:07:23 pm »

Quote from: SKondris on July 03, 2006, 01:04:35 pm

Looking good!

Thanks for the feedback - much appreciated!

fiscap · « **Reply #50 on:** July 10, 2006, 06:11:04 pm »

I've made short strides during the last couple of weeks, but making progress as I'm still working on the rotating control panel. I've got all of the sides cut and the partial assemblies together - now I just need to assembly it. I also fabricated a sturdy pivot door with ball catches on either side to provide additional support to the rotating panel. The door was assembled with a section of 2x10 and two 2x4's laminated together with Gorilla Glue. I couldn't use metal fasteners as I needed to trim the angles after assembly - it seems to be very solid.

fiscap · « **Reply #51 on:** July 10, 2006, 06:13:14 pm »

A few more:

fiscap · « **Reply #52 on:** July 10, 2006, 06:25:53 pm »

While I've slowed down a little on the construction these past two weeks, I did take some time out this past weekend to try my hand at a little artwork. I've done a lot of research on the forums for ideas that I like and one that really jumped out is Pixelhugger's unbelievable artwork on Project Arcadeus. After I finished drooling over the post, I thought it would be cool to see what something similar would look like in 4-player setup.

Here's where I'm at so far:

fiscap · « **Reply #53 on:** July 27, 2006, 12:55:23 am »

Hey gang - no real earth-shattering updates this week. I spent this past weekend working a little on the rotating panel and building the shell of the 4-player panel.

I'm happy with the way the 4-player control panel is coming along so far. I've made it as shallow as possible with the ability to still house all of the controls. The reason for it being so shallow is because once it rests on the top of the rotating panel, it will be elevated and I wanted to make sure that the controls weren't too high and awkward to use. I even made a recession into the bottom of the panel so that it will sit further down on top of the cabinet.

At this point, I need to finish up the artwork so that I can cut the controls into the top and make sure everything lines up properly. I'm also going to attempt to use the postforming laminate I purchased to wrap around the exterior of the shell - hopefully it wraps smoothly around the curves and sticks properly.

fiscap · « **Reply #54 on:** July 27, 2006, 01:19:54 am »

I had a mock-up of the rotating panel strike-plates done a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't use the correct approach in fabricating them. I tried to measure and line-up the cuts with the holes I had already drilled into the sides of the rotating panel, but I quickly realized that being just slightly off in my measurements meant being majorly off in the results.

I decided to take a different approach and completely redo the strike plates using printed templates. This method produced much better results. I came to this conclusion only after I realized my printer has a very quirky 1.0390625:1 aspect ratio problem - an 8"x8" square prints out at 8 5/16"x 8" on my printer. All I need to do to correct this is to divide my horizontal resolution on my printouts by 1.0390625 and everything comes out perfect

I also rotated the position of the ball catches in the sides 60-degrees because they were interfering with the braces I attached on the inside of the control panel faces - as illustrated by the three now unused holes in the control panel sides.

fiscap · « **Reply #55 on:** July 27, 2006, 01:25:05 am »

Here are a couple of clips of the rotating panel in operation. The first clip is just one side and the second clip is both sides tied together. The ball catches work great with the strike plates and appear to have enough tension to hold up to very heavy gaming.

(dial-up users beware - clips are about 15MB)

I even decided to test the tension with a little weight - seems to be holding up ok with about 50 lbs of concrete sitting on the panel

fiscap · « **Reply #56 on:** September 12, 2006, 12:54:54 pm »

Wow - I can't believe my work blog has slipped all the way to page 4 of project announcements. I've really been slacking lately, but on the flip side I've also enjoyed a fantastic summer.

I haven't made any major progress on the cabinet build, but I have put a little effort into my artwork for the cabinet.

The plan I've had all along (but haven't disclosed until now) is to build the first liquid-cooled MAME cabinet. I know what most of you must be thinking - a liquid-cooled MAME cabinet?!? Yes, I agree it is a bit overkill for a MAME cabinet, but I have two other liquid-cooled systems at home now and I really like the look of them. I thought, how cool would it be to introduce the same thing into an arcade cabinet. I don't plan on introducing a performance boost with the liquid-cooling, but I am hoping it will add a nice look.

With the idea of liquid-cooling also came the idea of adding an aquatic theme. The name is LiquidMame and here is my marquee so far:

fiscap · « **Reply #57 on:** October 30, 2006, 03:57:16 pm »

It's been a while since my last update, but I have been making some progress.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm making use of a design originally used by Tivogre for attaching the side panels to a rigid frame. The difference in my design is that I'm using separate pieces for upper and lower portions similar to a UA II cabinet.

On the upper section of the cabinet, I wanted a nice laminate finish on both sides of the panel since some of the inside portion is visible. The process involved laminating the inside portion of the panel, drilling out and pushing the hex bolt through the finished side, epoxing and filling the bolt holes and then laminating the exterior side of the panel.

Here are some shots of the work...

fiscap · « **Reply #58 on:** October 30, 2006, 04:00:37 pm »

more ...

fiscap · « **Reply #59 on:** October 30, 2006, 04:09:11 pm »

finished panels ...

fiscap · « **Reply #60 on:** October 30, 2006, 04:14:29 pm »

Here are some shots of the upper and lower panels attached to the cabinet frame ...

theCoder · « **Reply #61 on:** October 31, 2006, 12:56:51 am »

Get back to work you slacker! Looks good. What are the holes in the bottom for?

fiscap · « **Reply #62 on:** November 02, 2006, 05:27:01 pm »

Yeah, I know I've been slacking a bit - hehe. The holes on the bottom of the cabinet are actually windows. I'm hoping to have a look similar to what my two other home systems look like.

http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?t=52103

Timoe · « **Reply #63 on:** November 02, 2006, 06:54:50 pm »

Thats a sweet design. I love epoxy and bondo though I have never used either. Your PC is gonna look great. Can you give any explanation as to how you made your guts looks so good?

Part numbers, product recomendations, etc?

somunny · « **Reply #64 on:** November 02, 2006, 08:40:09 pm »

I love it when people go all out. Spare no expense.

Looks great.

fiscap · « **Reply #65 on:** November 06, 2006, 04:28:53 pm »

Thanks guys. It's been a lot of work, but it's great seeing the hard work finally paying off.

Timoe - as far as parts, I highly recommend the folks over at FrozenCPU. They have a great selection and their customer service is superb. The glow from inside the case is just a few UV cold cathode tubes. I also used some UV dye in the cooling system. All of the wiring is loomed with UV reactive sleeving as well.

fiscap · « **Reply #66 on:** November 06, 2006, 06:06:06 pm »

I had posted some shots of my progress on the four-player control panel in the Artwork forum, but didn't update my progress here.

Here are some shots of the control panel:

fiscap · « **Reply #67 on:** November 06, 2006, 06:10:32 pm »

This past weekend was spent wiring up my big four-player control panel. I had hoped to have it mounted to the cabinet for some playing time this weekend, but the wiring took a lot longer than I had anticipated.

Here are some shots of the control panel pre and post wiring:

fiscap · « **Reply #68 on:** November 06, 2006, 06:48:39 pm »

more...

theCoder · « **Reply #69 on:** November 06, 2006, 11:24:13 pm »

Great job on the wiring.

tivogre · « **Reply #70 on:** November 07, 2006, 12:06:43 am »

Quote from: fiscap on October 30, 2006, 04:14:29 pm

Here are some shots of the upper and lower panels attached to the cabinet frame ...

Dude!

It is so cool that someone is actually referencing (and using) ideas from my project / site!!!

Looks awesome!


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