Someone call the cops! I stole a Jukebox!! MAGNETS??? [03.05.2009]

[Martijn]

your right oldman

i found out only the mdf pieces i glued with contact cement and plexi bended

all other parts are fine

must be a reaction

[DaOld Man]

Or it could be temperature changes.
One material expands faster than the one it is bonded to, warping both materials.
Same way a thermostat works.
But I have not seen this problem in my two projects yet.

[javeryh]

Well, I shouldn't have opened my mouth.  The laminated back panel that I made ages ago has now warped (probably due to temperature changes).  I don't have any laminate leftover to make another one so I'm just trying to flatten it out.  Hopefully the 10 rare earth magnets that I am planning to use to secure it in place will work, otherwise I'll just have to screw it in place.

Anyway, tomorrow (for the first time since November) I'll be without the wife and kids for the morning into the early afternoon so I hope to get the majority of the remaining work completed on this thing...

[Martijn]

same thing happened to me, i think the glue and laminate warp the mdf

ill just insert 2 screws and it will be fine

hope to see your progress this weekend

[Martijn]

how did the building go 

[javeryh]

eh, I got a little bit done.  Everything takes so freaking long!  I managed to install the magnets in in the frame on the back of the juke which will (hopefully) hold the back panel in place.  I had to drill 10 evenly spaced 1/2" holes 1/4" deep.  There's no turning back now either because the magnets are in place and there is no way I can tell to remove them without doing some serious damage.  Just that took about 2 hours and then the kids were home!  I'll post some pics later.   

I did manage to get my dad to help me move Bella's Arcade to her bedroom (the wife finally caved after like 2 years!) so that took some time too - it looks great and matches the room perfectly - even my wife said so when she got home. 

[Kaytrim]

I did manage to get my dad to help me move Bella's Arcade to her bedroom (the wife finally caved after like 2 years!) so that took some time too - it looks great and matches the room perfectly - even my wife said so when she got home. 

Sweet 

[javeryh]

I did manage to get my dad to help me move Bella's Arcade to her bedroom (the wife finally caved after like 2 years!) so that took some time too - it looks great and matches the room perfectly - even my wife said so when she got home. 

Sweet 

yeah, and most importantly, my daughter loves it.  She was so excited to see it up in her room next to her bed.  All she wants to do is play it - she even asked me when am I going to start building a blue one for her little brother! 

For some reason she wants to play nothing but Strikers 1945III.  She has finished it twice now and we must have put in $100 of fake money!  It's so funny.

[DaOld Man]

 

[javeryh]

OK, I'm back at work on this thing right now.  I just installed the volume knob spacer - it took me like an hour to drill out the hole, test fit and bond with epoxy.  Why does everything take forever?!?!?!?

Anyway, I am having a bit of a problem with the t-molding on the back.  The slot is a little messed up and the t-molding doesn't want to stay in place.  Any ideas?  I have a band clamp and I was thinking of putting some glue in the slot and then clamping it up but I don't know if this will work - what type of glue should I use? 

I'm nearing the finish line.  I need to install 10 metal washers on the inside of the back panel for the magnets.  I might be stuck using a utility knife here because the panel is ~1/8" thick (1/16" for the hard board and 1 mm for the laminate) so I have to cut away the hard board down to the laminate (but not go through) and then I need to glue the washers in place (epoxy, right - I'm going for it).  What a pain!!!

After this is finished I have to cut a hole in the bottom for the admin panel and then I can permanently install the components.  The only things I can't finish right now are the artwork and the admin panel but I should be in good shape by this afternoon.

[Kaytrim]

OK, I'm back at work on this thing right now.  I just installed the volume knob spacer - it took me like an hour to drill out the hole, test fit and bond with epoxy. 

Yea progress 

Why does everything take forever?!?!?!?

Because you are a perfectionist buddy.

Anyway, I am having a bit of a problem with the t-molding on the back.  The slot is a little messed up and the t-molding doesn't want to stay in place.  Any ideas?  I have a band clamp and I was thinking of putting some glue in the slot and then clamping it up but I don't know if this will work - what type of glue should I use? 

Good 'ole hot glue.  Nice thing about that is it can be undone easier then any other glue.

I'm nearing the finish line.  I need to install 10 metal washers on the inside of the back panel for the magnets.  I might be stuck using a utility knife here because the panel is ~1/8" thick (1/16" for the hard board and 1 mm for the laminate) so I have to cut away the hard board down to the laminate (but not go through) and then I need to glue the washers in place (epoxy, right - I'm going for it).  What a pain!!!

A small razor sharp chisel would work well here.

After this is finished I have to cut a hole in the bottom for the admin panel and then I can permanently install the components.  The only things I can't finish right now are the artwork and the admin panel but I should be in good shape by this afternoon.

Don't forget to post 

[javeryh]

Thanks Kaytrim.  Good advice on the hot glue.  I tried using the chisel for the magnets but one of them took a while and I was getting impatient so I decided to set up the router and freehand it - it was a little sloppy but it worked!  I still don't know if the panel will stay tight to the back though since it is warped a bit.  I'm tying to reshape it with some weights right now and I'll probably test it out this week sometime.

[javeryh]

More progress... I've done quite a bit but I don't know how much time I'll have today to organize my thoughts and pictures - here's some kind of old news:

After installing the monitor and shelf in place, I made sure to get the computer up and running before putting the rest of the components inside.



After that was finished (and I played around for a while), the next step was making sure the motherboard and power supply fit properly. I placed the motherboard on one side (using PCB feet) and the hard drive on the other (using velcro) and tried installing the vertical shelf.





I was worried initially that since the ports were facing down and the whole thing was off-center that the fan underneath wouldn't keep things cool but boy was I wrong. After leaving it on for at least 6 hours it was cool as the other side of the pillow in there.

Here is the power supply in place:



More later!

[javeryh]

After getting the motherboard and power supply in place, the rest of the components just kind of worked themselves out. This is just a test run (since at this point I still had to cut the hole for the volume knob) but I will use some velcro to secure the speakers in place behind the speaker grill and I wired the power button to the pins on the motherboard (temporarily since it will ultimately be installed in the back panel).

This is a shot of the speaker bar in place from the bottom. You can get a good look here at the support for the shelf as well as the computer fan mounted underneath.



This last shot basically shows what the thing will look like from the front (if you can imagine the protective paper on the Plexiglas peeled off and the marquee in place). The speaker grill is installed and matches the vent on the back as well as the chrome colored t-molding and volume knob.



It looks pretty good!

More later.

[deoblo85]

 almost done looks real nice but isnt there supposed to be a beer thier 

[mountain]

Yes James....make sure to include a photo of your juke with a beer, for scale of course! 

[javeryh]

There will be plenty of time for beer when the power tools are put away!  I FINALLY cut the hole for the volume knob and got everything installed.

I used a step drill bit and cut out a 7/8" hole where the volume knob goes. All that I had to do was drill a hole big enough so the guts of the knob would fit through but I had to be sure it was smaller than the spacer I created. I also had to worry about the knob being dead center (which is harder than it sounds) because this would be the focal point of the entire juke.

Here is a shot of the hole completely drilled out:



After drilling out the hole I had to use a file to remove a little more material to get the guts of the knob to fit properly - ideally my step drill bit would have been able to cut a 1" hole but oh well. The next step was to put the spacer in place and trace it with a pencil so I would know how much of the protective paper I could remove. Once that was done, I used a two part epoxy for plastic to bond the spacer to the front panel.



The epoxy I used set in 6 minutes (less actually) and I was able to remove the clamp fairly quick and install everything. here are some shots without the knob in place:





This is what it looks like with the knob installed.





This last shot I tried to get head on so you could see how I managed to get the knob dead center but the flash was messing everything up. Oh well.



I can't wait to remove the brown protective paper but you should be able to tell what it will look like when I finally do. 

More later.

[mountain]

Looking real good. Another way to do it would be to use a forstner bit from the back side using the original pilot hole as a guide. Then, I whip out the router and flush trim bit to cut the accrylic from the front.

I can't wait to remove the brown protective paper but you should be able to tell what it will look like when I finally do. 

I have an idea what it may look like 

[javeryh]

Looking real good. Another way to do it would be to use a forstner bit from the back side using the original pilot hole as a guide. Then, I whip out the router and flush trim bit to cut the accrylic from the front.

I can't wait to remove the brown protective paper but you should be able to tell what it will look like when I finally do. 

I have an idea what it may look like 

I thought of that but the original hole in the MDF was the same size as the spacer so I wasn't able to use it as a guide with the router - of course I had to do it the hard way - I ended up stacking three 3/4" sheets of MDF to drill through for the step bit.  I had to stop every time I went to a new diameter to vacuum out the dust and scrap - it took forever!

I forgot to mention a huge thanks to you Mike for soldering the volume knob for me.  I am not sure how to get it working though - I plugged it to the USB pins on my motherboard (assuming that the red wire was for the +5V (does it matter?).  The computer didn't recognize that a USB device had been plugged in (it typically makes a noise when I plug in a mouse or external hard drive or whatever).  Is there something I need to activate to get the motherboard to recognize it?  I haven't installed the Griffin drivers yet (that hopefully would take care of it) but I thought the computer would at least tell me something was plugged in.   

Oh yeah, there are lots of people here who can tell what it looks like - we are building an army! 

[Martijn]

looks good !

why do you people make a spacer? i just drilled a hole the size of the pin+screw part to go throught the plexi and placed the bolt on it

i think you soldered wrong because it should  be detected

make a pic of the soldering then i can compare

[javeryh]

The spacer allows the knob to sit about 1/32" off of the front panel.  Without it the knob would press too hard against the front (I think). 

I doubt the soldering is wrong - mountain did it himself.  I'm sure I'm not installing it properly or maybe the drivers need to be installed to be recognized.  I'm going to get it working over the weekend.  I'll snap a few pics.

[javeryh]

The Feet!!   

Here is some exciting news - I finally installed the rubber feet! I bought them at Home Depot for a few dollars and they came with the screws.

Since I do not have a bottom panel the first thing I did was cut out some small triangles out of MDF and glued them in place in the back. I did not have to do this in the front because the panel here is actually 1.5" thick (2 MDF panels).

I just eyeballed the locations, drilled the holes and fastened the feet to the bottom. This may not seem like a big deal but it makes it so much easier to place on the table or wherever to continue working on it.

I also trimmed the t-molding to final length and fixed the slot in the back - it had broken off a little since the slot is so close to the edge (to compensate for the thickness of the back panel). It is solid now and looks great.

More later!   

[Martijn]

nice nice

my bottom is closed for the sub to work so i just stickied 4 of these units



also nice to see how you unit didnt warp in any way, my sides where way off after time i had to glue the bottom plate and use strap bands to hold him tight

[javeryh]

My back panel is warped to hell.  I'm hoping 10 rare earth magnets is enough to hold it in place.  The magnets are really strong.  I'll know for sure this weekend.

[Martijn]

i am flattening my backpanel with a solid piece of flat metal what i will glue to the inside back

[javeryh]

i am flattening my backpanel with a solid piece of flat metal what i will glue to the inside back

Wow - really great idea!  I might have to give that a shot if the magnets aren't enough to hold it in place...

[javeryh]

This next part is kind of tricky and I don't even know if it worked yet. I wanted to connect the back panel to the jukebox shell without any visible screws. I'm not even exactly sure why since screws would have made everything much easier. Anyway, I ordered some rare earth magnets from Rockler. They are strong!

I measured around the outside frame of the back of the jukebox shell and laid out 10 points where I would install magnets. Here is a shot sort of showing how I laid them out:



Here's a close-up of the magnet casing:



I needed to use a 1/2" forstner bit and drill down to precisely the depth of the magnets in order to make them flush. Easier said than done - once you put the magnet in place there is virtually no way to remove it. I ended up drilling down a little too far in some spots - hopefully the magnets will be strong enough anyway.

Each magnet cup (holder?) has a hole in the bottom so it can be screwed into place.



Here is what one of them looks like:



Here is what all of them look like when put in place:



Finally, I put the magnets in there. I cannot get them out so there is no turning back now.



The magnets are a cool idea (at least I think so) but I just hope they end up working like I think they will. It should be easy to remove the back panel by tipping the jukebox forward and going up from underneath assuming the panel locks into place. We shall see...

More later.   

[mountain]

Those magnets are strong as hell! 

I think your setup will work great...and look great   

[Martijn]

i spy with my little eye no t-molding at the bottom back 

taking the easy way out  ??

[javeryh]

Those magnets are strong as hell! 

I think your setup will work great...and look great   

I hope so!  The back panel is a little warped but I am in the process of trying to flatten it out with some weights.  On a side note, any ideas about what could be going on with the volume knob I mentioned up a few posts?  The computer is not recognizing it as plugged in...

i spy with my little eye no t-molding at the bottom back 

taking the easy way out  ??

Heh, there is no t-molding on the bottom of this thing at all!  I never planned on it - I used mountain's as a guide (obviously) and he didn't put any on the bottom either from what I can tell...   

[Martijn]

wow your right, never saw that.

i did mine.

 

[reko19]

What kind of material are you using around the monitor opening? I assume this is to close the 1/8" gap between the monitor and the plexi?

[javeryh]

What kind of material are you using around the monitor opening? I assume this is to close the 1/8" gap between the monitor and the plexi?

Black foam weatherstripping.  The pics show the protective paper still on the back.  It's not a *perfect* solution since I'm so anal but it does the job I guess.  If I had to do this all over again I would make the front out of 1/4" acrylic and then route a 1/8" channel for the wires on the front of the monitor so everything would be nice and flush.

[Martijn]

i also tried this weatherstripping but the touchscreen part became unstable

[DaOld Man]

Your right marti..

The foam weatherstripping on my juke has made the lower right corner of the screen unstable. For some reason the foam in that area appears to have grown, it is much tighter against the screen in that corner than elsewhere. Or maybe the plastic front has warped??
You have to "touch" that part pretty hard to get a response.
I plan to fix that by shimming the monitor a little farther away from the front.
If I could only find the time.

Edit: BTW james, great work !!!

[reko19]

Interesting idea with 1/4" plexi. Keep in mind, 45 degree bevel would be around 0.7" long on a 1/4".  I thought about it, but will probably stick with 1/8" especially since it is already ordered and received. Perhaps foam is not the best material. If not for anything else, I would expect it to change thickness with age and humidity variation.  Anybody has a close up of how the gap between the mon and the plexi looks? Regards.

[javeryh]

Edit: BTW james, great work !!!

Thanks!

Interesting idea with 1/4" plexi. Keep in mind, 45 degree bevel would be around 0.7" long on a 1/4".  I thought about it, but will probably stick with 1/8" especially since it is already ordered and received. Perhaps foam is not the best material. If not for anything else, I would expect it to change thickness with age and humidity variation.  Anybody has a close up of how the gap between the mon and the plexi looks? Regards.

I wouldn't do a full bevel.  I didn't even do one on the 1/8" plexi I used.  It looks more like this"

    /
   |

if that makes any sense.  Also, the foam I'm using does not appear to have moved in the 4 months since I installed it nor does it have any effect (as far as I can tell) on the usability of the touch screen.  I'd love to hear some other ideas though... 

I do have a tough time getting touching the edge of the screen all the way around but that is due to the thickness of my finger and not any malfunction.   

[mountain]

I posted a nice illustration from ELO a while back, here. It gives a good visual of the many ways to approach the problem of the transducers.

Jav,
Not sure what's up with the Powermate. These thing are a little flakey. I think the key to getting a good one is to buy the original (rev. 1?) My Dad's juke has not had one issue with the Powermate. I know Knievel used one on his Metal Station and reported that he never had any issues either. Weird. I would be more than happy to look at it again if you like.

[reko19]

interesting, so they have no problem with the foam being pressed to the screen (last illustration on the right). if this is the case weather stripping should work fine

[javeryh]

I posted a nice illustration from ELO a while back, here. It gives a good visual of the many ways to approach the problem of the transducers.

Jav,
Not sure what's up with the Powermate. These thing are a little flakey. I think the key to getting a good one is to buy the original (rev. 1?) My Dad's juke has not had one issue with the Powermate. I know Knievel used one on his Metal Station and reported that he never had any issues either. Weird. I would be more than happy to look at it again if you like.

I'm going to play with the Powermate this weekend - if I have any troubles I'll let you know.  I've honestly only spent 10 minutes with it (I just tried plugging it in and when it didn't get recognized by the computer I moved on to something else).  Worst case scenario is I'll actually buy one from the manufacturer instead of eBay so I know what I'm getting.

What I am going to definitely need help with is wiring the power.  I have three plugs (as shown in the attached picture) that I want to wire to this thing:



Is it as simple as splicing all of the wires together or do I need to worry about voltage and other issues?  The power brick can be disconnected from the Dell speaker bar (as you know) but I'm guessing I still have to crack the brick open like you did.  Is this doable for someone who has very little experience with this stuff?  Any help would be great.