LED LIGHTING
One of the coolest things I came across on the forums was the use of RGB LED lighting to light control panel buttons and trackballs. But, I only had a Tank Stick and I wasn't ready yet to build my own arcade controls. I HAD to find a way to implement LED lighting in this project. I honestly had NO idea what I was going to do with them, but I went ahead and ordered 30 pre-wired RGB LED's and a LED-Wiz from fellow member RandyT at Groovy Game Gear. NOTE: One LED-Wiz can only control 10 independent RGB LED's. I was able to hook up all 30 lights by piggybacking them; basically hooking up 3 RGB LED's to each LED-Wiz output. Therefore, all of the lights hooked up to the same output will act the same. You can hook up quite a few LED's to each output, just make sure you don't exceed the maximum load recommended in the product's tech notes.
Three days after I placed my GGG order, I was shopping at Goodwill and found a pair of Radio Shack new, old stock, chrome automotive 6" speaker grills, still in their box that looked like it was from the early 80's. I mounted them in front of the stock speaker vents. They were just what I needed! Here's what one looks like flush mounted to the cabinet:
When my GGG order arrived, I installed the LED-Wiz just inside the marquee area:
I then mounted 5 LED's inside each of the chrome grills, 4 around the outside, and 1 in the center using the permanent double- sided foam tape. I taped both sides of the circuit board so it wouldn't short out on the metal grill. I stripped the really thin wires with an $8 adjustable wire stripper I got at Radio Shack. My regular wire stripper didn't go that small. Next time though, I would mount the LEDs directly to the cabinet instead of the grill, you can see the tape securing the LEDs in a couple of places if you look closely. When I finished wiring the right side I fired it up and got it working. NOW I was onto something. They looked even better than I imagined they would, with the lights sparkling through the holes in the chromed grills. It took me quite a while to figure out how to set everything up in the LED Blinky software. Not due to the software itself, it was just a stretch for me in computer terms. I also had a few moments of desperation after I got the lights working and a few weren't working right. I didn't have those wired in the proper RGB sequence.
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img]http://s105854797.onlinehome.us/stage/stageb088.jpg[/img]
Below: If you look closely, a few strips of the tape are visible. In real life, you don't even notice them. But, one of my future improvements is to mount the led's directly to the cabinet, instead of mounting them inside the speaker grill.
Now I just had to find a home for 20 more RGB led lights.
I mounted 6 of them on the sloped back of the cabinet, 3 on each side. I mounted them inside some plastic wire molding which is intended for use in extending an electrical run on the surface of your wall. I drilled holes for the LEDs in the top cover. Then I opened it up to reveal the inside channel where I mounted the LED's in the channel by using some of those orange, soft, moldable ear-plug wax pieces that I had on hand (sorry, lost the pictures). They basically wedge the LED's into place, holding them very securely once the cover is closed.
I was going to disassemble these LED's to paint the wire molding, but decided it would be easier to just dolly the cabinet outside real quick, do an easy masking job, and spray paint them with the LEDs in place (they weren't taped down to the cabinet yet and had about 1' of slack in the wires). On the way back in, the cabinet fell off of the side of the dolly (no strap) as I crossed the door threshold bump. Later I realized that 1 of the tires on my dolly was low on air. Luckily, the cabinet landed on the opened house door, causing a deep gash in the edge of the wooden house door. I was able to stand it upright before it fell completely over. The front corner got crunched pretty bad, but It could have been worse.
Here's another copy of the picture in case you missed it earlier:
The ends of the wire mold pieces were open and needed some kind of end cap, so I tucked a small piece of black weather-stripping foam inside each open end.
These lights shine up onto the ceiling and the area at the top of the wall. They look great! I just get more and more excited every day I work on this machine.
JUKEBOX (HUH?)
One day, on a lark, I started to read the Jukebox/Audio forums. BIG mistake. It was then that I realized that music had been just as big of a part of my teenage years as video games. The only thing that I would rather do at that time period than play video games would be to go to a rock concert. I guess listening to music and playing arcade/Atari games were the first things in life that I was really passionate about and that were "mine"; not having been influenced by my parents or by my teachers.
In the jukebox forums, I saw pictures of Rowe Ami CD 100 jukeboxes, like the one we had at the pizza place where I worked when I was 16. After closing, we would crank that jukebox up SO loud. It made quite an impression on me. It wasn't long after that I purchased my first high power, Yamaha car amplifier and MTX 3-way speaker boxes with 10" woofers that I belted into the back seat. I was one of only a few kids at my high school who had an amp in my car.
It was settled. I was bound and determined that my arcade game would be a jukebox too. But, I wanted more than just the software jukebox experience, It had to look and sound like a jukebox somehow.
In storage, I had a 12" JBL ported subwoofer tube. It would be perfect for what seemed like such a large empty space in the back of my cabinet. I proceeded to cut a large hole for it in the Maple plywood shelf for the subwoofer tube to sit in, facing up towards the top of the cabinet. The sub enclosure is suspended about 4 inches above the floor of the cabinet. The subwoofer is secured below the shelf with 2 small "L" brackets. I then cut more of the vinyl/rubber cove base to cover the small gap between the hole in the plywood shelf and the sides of the subwoofer tube. This acts as a trim between the cut out and the sub tube and also adds a little support.
I bought a decent 75 watt 4 channel Alpine amplifier for only $35 on eBay and mounted it to the inside wall of the cabinet. It's powering the round pioneers in the original speaker positions and the other channel is bridged to the sub. To power the amp, I combined several of the 12 volt power wires coming out of the power supply and connected them to a couple of 10 ga. wires, which go through a fuse block and feed the amplifier. That fuse block powers all of the 12 volt devices except for the computer. I didn't remove any of the unused Corsair power supply wires, I just hid the ends of them. I think they look cool- they have a nice wrap on them and are rather "meaty" looking. Now, my cabinet was rockin'! The sub really bumps. But, the sound coming out of the back of the cabinet was too bassy (sp?), the only mids and highs were coming from the Pioneer speakers in the marquee area in the front of the cabinet.
Then, I remembered the 3 silver Realistic Minimus-7 bookshelf speakers that I had laying around in my garage. These are heavy for their size, metal enclosure speakers with a metal grill that sound pretty good. Someday, I'll do the custom mod you can apply to make them sound even better. Yes, I do seem to have a lot of cool stuff just "laying around" in my garage. I honestly saved some garage space now that all of this stuff is inside the arcade cabinet. I had picked up these three speakers 1 by 1 at garage sales over the years. As luck would have it, the 3 of them fit almost perfectly along the width of the cabinet on the shelf, right behind the subwoofer tube. They sounded great and added a nice balance. I run them at 90% on the receiver volume with the treble at 80% and the bass at 0. Then, I added a piece of shiny angle steel that I used to aim the speakers up a little bit. Once in place they looked good, but the grills were a little dinged up. Then one day, when I was working in the shelf area, I dropped one of the Minimus speakers from the shelf and into the subwoofer hole, landing on my drill laying on the cabinet floor. It tore a gaping hole right through the grill. Thankfully, the speaker wasn't damaged. I considered buying some replacement Minimus-7 speakers for better grills, but they are $40-$60 for a pair and the ones I saw on eBay had grills that were no better than the ones I had, with the exception of the heavily torn grill I damaged. Oh well, I hadn't planned on them being visible anyway.
I came across an older 50 watt alpine 2 channel amp to power the Minimus-7 speakers and installed it on the lower cabinet wall opposite the other amplifier. That really did the trick, filling out the sound nicely. The center Minimus-7 speaker is for looks only and is not hooked up at this time. Unfortunately, that amp died about 3 weeks later, leaving me with nothing to power the Minimus-7 speakers. Back to the garage...
I have this old 1980's Marantz stereo receiver that I bought at a garage sale years ago and was using it for my garage stereo system. I've been known to hoard vintage electronics that I find at garage sales and thrift stores. When I was 11, I wore out the back pages of the giant JC Penny Christmas Wish book. That's where the big money Kenwood and Pioneer RACK systems were located and I wanted one so bad that I took the time to write out my wish list with the exact specifications of each of the components in the rack system I wanted. I never really knew or cared about hi-fi, I just liked it loud and clear. Meanwhile, I listened to my AM/FM 8 Track Record Player Combo and played my Atari 2600 for days on end in my bedroom. Ohhhh, I'm getting more memories now. Sorry, getting off track! This small Marantz receiver is only 25 watts per channel, but a QUALITY 25 watts per channel. Knowing full well that I was venturing at high speed into possible crapmame territory, I decided anyway to use it to power the Minimus-7 speakers. It IS "period accurate" after all, just like the Minimus-7 speakers. I set it on its end, with it's top against the side of the cabinet. and used an "L" bracket to attach it to the support that holds up the shelf above it. I placed it towards the back of the cabinet, keeping it in the background.
The original owner had proudly engraved his driver's license number on the silver face FRONT of this receiver. And, a couple of the front face screws are missing. It was ugly, but only $3. It was meant to be in this cabinet where it can display its beauty and hide its ugliness.
All of the bulbs in the receiver are burnt out, giving the dial and everything else a "blacked out" kind of look, which also makes it perfect for this application. I installed a few 12 volt blue led lights that shine on the receiver's silver face from underneath the shelf.
I also installed a few more of those blue LED's to shine on the amplifier and the computer motherboard (even though you really can't see much of the computer motherboard unless the subwoofer tube is removed from the cabinet). I ran the rear channel speaker wires from the Marantz up through the top of the cabinet for some speakers that I put up there on occasion. These speakers are very similar to the Minimus-7's, only they are black and a little newer. I'll have to put some Velcro up there and on the speakers so they won't rattle off and hit you on the head when its up really loud. As odd as it is, this system really rocks. It pounds just like that Rowe-Ami cd100 I remember so well.
Throughout this project I often marveled at how much empty space there was in the cabinet. Even after I put the sub inside it still had a lot of space. And now I had this nice maple plywood and blue LED's. Such a shame to hide it all behind the back door.
I know it sounds crazy, but the more I looked at the back of the opened up cabinet the more it resembled a concert stage. I know what you're thinking, but please bear with me. First, you've got the actual stage platform (the maple plywood shelf). Then, the slanted monitor area inside the cabinet is the back wall of the stage, kind of like at an amphitheater. Then, you have the area below the shelf which has all of the inner workings and their blue glow from the 12 volt LED's I put down there- that's the "backstage".
"The Stage" was born. It was then that I realized I had kind of vaguely "emulated" a rock concert stage That's the way the concerts were that I went to during the early 1980's. My first concert at age 15 was Blizzard of Oz with Motorhead opening. . Basically it was just a plain stage with spotlights and the band. Maybe a platform on the stage but nothing too fancy. Oh yeah, I forgot about the fog/smoke effects on those stages (memories coming quicker now). That would be awesome on my machine. Seriously.
(See the Ozzy video below that I saw after writing this)
I cut another piece of the maple cabinet plywood to cover the back of the monitor area inside the back of the cabinet and screwed it down. This gives me a backdrop for the stage.
Then, I piggybacked onto the Led-Wiz terminals from the chrome grill LED's and installed 6 more LED lights (3 on the left side and 3 on the right side) shining onto the "stage" area and onto the new Maple plywood I just installed behind the monitor. They are pretty well concealed. Some are shining down from the top onto the upper and lower Maple plywood pieces. And a few are along the front inside edge on both sides of the cabinet back, shining forward onto my new shiny, custom multi-speaker grill. Once lit, they really do have an effect similar to a concert spotlight! I place them in several different positions before I settled on the final look. The light shines warmly on the finished Maple surfaces and the reflection off of the dark-black cabinet vinyl covering looks good. I think it creates a neat contrasting look. I trimmed the edges of the backdrop with some 3/4" wide aluminum stock. It was too shiny so I toned it down a little by placing a strip of the Graphite vinyl adhesive shiny stuff on each side, covering about 3/4 of the aluminum strip.
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Topic: The Stage ~~ VIDEO ~~MAME Cab & Touch Jukebox w/ RGB LED's (Read 12138 times)
