Turnarcades QuizJuke Touchscreen project - updated 9 Dec pics+vids

[Turnarcades]

Hi folks. It always shocks people when I tell people I don't even have an arcade machine to call my own; the last I had was my first build I'd had for years and was sold last year. I've spent way too long without any kind of cabinet of my own so I've decided 2010 is the year to get the games room built I've always wanted, and fill it with some machines to call my own that can also be demo'd to customers.

First off, I've been looking at doing a new touch screen project for myself after the first I did had to go and was not documented. I love the idea of a universal touch machine that anyone can use, but is loaded with software that will appeal to anyone in my family. I've been experimenting with Simpletouch FE and put together a nice software installation that will include SWP pub quiz type games, a touch-screen jukebox feature, some simple arcade-style games that can be played with a mouse, some 'seek and find' hidden object games that my wife loves, plus movie playback and music videos for general background entertainment.

In terms of design, the machine design is borrowed heavily from Mountain's jukebox project, a jukebox machine I saw down our local pub and the classic Wurlitzer 'curved top' shape. It is being designed to be both wall mountable (it will be just 8" deep) and will have rubber feet for desktop standing, but will be wall-mounted in my new games room once finished next Summer. I'm not a PC artist by any means, but I've put together my plans and come up with this quick mock-up which is virtually to scale:



In all, the machine will feature:

• 17" touchscreen LCD monitor (already acquired)
• 2.6Ghz P4 PC with large hard drive (PC acquired, will see what drive I have lying around)
• Basic stereo speakers with audio outputs for connection to an external audio system too
• Chrome T-moulding all round
• Sound-reactive blue neons (frequency responsive so will act like a graphic equalizer)
• Lit marquee in a similar curved shape to the cabinet
• Possibly adding a drop-down keyboard at the base for programming

The sound-reactive neons are really cool and no jukebox is complete without lights and a bit of bling:



I've decided to try and get this machine ready before Christmas as it can be slotted in alongside our regular orders (Christmas we get swamped!), and will wait until the Spring to begin work on my own personal arcade machine. Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome and in the meantime I'm ust waiting for some gear to arrive.

[Franco B]

Looking good Craig

Everything looks to be nice and in proportion.

Those neons look pretty cool, I haven't seen them before. I actually had a dream about them last night after reading your thread, I think I need a break!   

Maybe you could mount them behind some frosted or opaque acrylic. I think that would look quite nice.

Did you manage to get that touchscreen/PC up and running?

I wouldn't bother with a drop down keyboard. You may as well just add a USB port or two if you are not planning on them already and use a USB keyboard or even a wireless one.

Your game room sounds interesting. you will have to give us some more details on that when you have them

[Turnarcades]

Thanks Franco. There were plenty of sound reactive neons available but they all just flashed in time to the music - these add a bit more flair, even if they are a little pricier. I may also recess some standard neons in the sides to illuminate backwards towards the wall and create a nice glow behind. I will most likely be fitting a mirrored 'V'section behind the neons to create more illumination - I may go with some frosted film I've seen down the DIY to create a glow and diffuse it slightly.

I have decided to ditch the keyboard drawer idea as I will be putting small rubber feet on the bottom so it can be stood on a counter if needs be as an alternative. I've used a different touch screen for this - if you look at that thread you will see that I can't get the unit to power up, and have asked for some help from UK techies but no-one's repliuess it's a lost cause, unless you know anyone who could take a look...

My game room will be a custom build in my garden and will double up as both a Summer house and my game room as our house is not that big and I need space for my poker games!

[Franco B]

I have some 'scraps' of 3mm white opaque acrylic and will have some pieces of frosted clear acrylic once I have finished a job for a customer. There should be plenty enough for you to do what you want to do. You are welcome to them if you want them to try them out. Would save you buying some film etc if it works.

Yeah I was following your thread with the other screen, I thought you may have managed to get it working. How much was your 17" touchscreen? Do you know what model it is? I have a spare one that I need to sell at some point.

The rubber feet are a good idea. If you are mounting the mobo on the inside back of the juke you will want a fan in the base and the rubber feet will lift it off the surface to provide decent airflow.

What finish are you going for? Paint/laminate...?

 

[Turnarcades]

Hi Franco and thanks for that. I know you're pretty handy with acrylic so if I give you the dimensions could you cut me a couple of strips and send them out to me? I'll pay of course.

The motherboard and PC components will be mounted on the back (or as it's laid down, the base I suppose), whilst I will need to be creative to mount the other components in the tight space. It certainly won't be pretty in there and I want to avoid routing inside if I can, but from my plans it should all fit. I might pick up a blue neon fan for the top and bottom, whilst I'm thinking of doing some creative routing if I get chance to cast some simple neon light backwards from the sides for some ambience.

The touchscreen is a Semicom EFL-1703X, which to be honest I know precisely dick all about touchscreens. It's nice and crisp though with a solid touch surface and no 'hazing' as you get from the touch matrix inside some touchscreen glass. It runs on the 3M touchscreen drivers which installed with no hassle or extra calibration, and supports touch dragging really well, which as I understand not all touchscreens do.

The shell parts are cut and the 'face' will be cut tomorrow. I usually just paint all my cabinets in our usual industrial-spec paint for robustness, and although I usually stick with my 'function over finish' motto and won't be doing any fancy sculpting or routing with my own cabinet, I will be substituting the black paint in this instance for some black satin finish fablon, which will give the surface a nice smooth finish and a light sheen to it. I could go with laminate but it's pricey and as with the Turnarcades machines, I like to excercise the point that you don't need to spend top dollar to achieve a good finished cabinet.

I will post pics tomorrow as the shell comes together. I won't be able to go too far with this until the rest of the parts arrive, but will get the shell prepped ready for when they do and post pics as this comes along - should have some more tomorrow.

[Turnarcades]

As promised, here are the first pics of the project coming together. You can see from this first pic that the front is fairly true to the mock-up, just with a bit less curve to the neon and speaker zones. Some of the other dimensions have also been altered slightly to ensure best fit of the components and to make the cabinet a litle shorter - this is normal practice for me as I believe it's better to follow a concept image than dimensions, which can be clarified as you go along:



This shows the upper and lower edge alignments - the upper edge has been recessed by 1/8" to allow the face to flush fit when the hinge is attached, whilst the bottom edge will sit flush against the bottom edge:



This gives an idea of the interior space - the face is now extremely light with all those holes cut and the neon holes are literally just wide enough so as not to expose the cabinet or monitor edges at the sides:



Finally for now, here's a quick picture test-fitting the monitor up to the face:

[unclet]

btw: You will get better reflective quality with a nice white background than you will with a mirrored background.   

[Turnarcades]

Thanks for the tip. I will likely just create a 'V' shape out of some PVC plastic edging then, to cast the light forward.

[Turnarcades]

Some more progress today. The corners have been more evenly sculpted, curves smoothed out and I've temporarily fitted standard hinges to test the catch alignment and lift, which are both just as I want them:



The 'face' now lifts up to go just over 90 degrees as intended so I'm not tempted to force the hinges when it's finished where the top of the face touches the cabinet top. I may add some kind of 'bonnet-lift' strut once all the components are mounted to keep the face up whilst wall-mounting the unit or tampering inside. I may decide to brace the monitor to the face, else it will mean having to un-mount the monitor in the event I want to mess with the PC:

[Franco B]

No worries on the acrylic, just give me a shout.

Personally, I think it would look nicer if the whole juke had the same profile as the front piece. I'm not really digging the angled back section with just the facia on it.

If you did want to go down the fully curved route and since it is fairly thin it would be pretty easy to make a piece like the attached picture and then template route it and build up the layers.

A 3/4" front and  a 1/2" back piece plus 9 3/4" profiles would give you your 8".

Obviously its more work and you have already made some progress but its just a thought.

To use even less material and less work you could have your sides and bottom as you have now and then just template route some pieces like in the right hand side of the picture.

[Turnarcades]

Thanks Franco, will get the dimensions tomorrow. I made a bit over an oversight in the design in that the side areas where the neons fit go right up to the edges of the monitor and the cabinet sides. This means that any acrylic fixed to the back would foul on the monitor and cabinet sides so I've had to route a small recess into the back for when we fit the acrylic it will be flush with the back surface of the face panel. I will explain with a picture tomorrow.

I understand what you say about the cabinet shell and had time and cost not been an issue I would have gone with a full curved shell. I want this cabinet ready quick as we've got Turnarcades orders all due by mid-December too 'til we pack up for the 'til the year, plus this cabinet is being built from spare wood we currently have available so I didn't want to have to go buy anything.

There are also a couple of design aspects that the angular box is better for. For one, I wanted the front hinged at the top so the top edge is fixed and gravity will help keep the front closed in normal use, which wouldn't be possible with a curved top. Also, with the cabinet being so slim (I got it down to just 7 1/4") and wall-mounted, the side profile is largely irrelevant as it will only really be seen from the front. Having flat slanted upper sides gives a nice flush surface for adding a power button that won't really be seen from the front and can still be accessed whether wall-mounted or standing on a surface. Plus having solid, flat inner sides helps a lot when it comes to making interior framework and fixings.

It's not an ideal shape for me either, but it fits with my 'function over finish' design aspect I mentioned initially and will really not matter once it's mounted and in use.

Tomorrow I'll get you some dimensions for the acrylic - it's basically just a couple of thin rectangular pieces. You wouldn't happen to have any suitable wire mesh lying around too would you? I need some for the speaker grille area but as I need so little don't want to have to buy a large sheet of it.

[Turnarcades]

Quick update.... cabinet has had 2 coats of paint to make the surface less porous ready for the self-adhesive vinyl covering, and has been rubbed over with fine sandpaper to remove surface imperfections before it's applied:

[Turnarcades]

Still waiting on the neons to arrive from Hong Kong so can't really think about fitting all the interior components until they're all here. Some progress in the meantime though, as the face was carefully skinned with the satin effect vinyl for a shinier finish to go with the other blinging bits of this build. The vinyl was tucked over the edges then the chrome T-moulding fitted, which unfortunately raised a problem. Where I had routed the slot for the T-moulding on some of the interior areas, the remaining wood left holding the frame in one piece was very thin; as I fitted the T-moulding, the interior split, meaning the wood would not grip the T-moulding spine (note the loose areas at the sides of the monitor hole and neon areas):



The T-moulding problem was remedied by a quick application of hot glue in those loose areas, which both secured the moulding spines and clamped together for a few hours, re-bonding the wood back together:



Tapping the moulding into the very corners of the interior holes proved to be a bit annoying as there was no space to 'swing' the rubber mallet to tap it in, so if I built one in future I'd probably go with more rounded corners using a 28mm spade bit at least for a comfortable radius to tap the moulding into. The chrome T-moulding looks great and will be even shinier once the anti-scratch film is removed (anyone who's used the stuff will know) and it will enhance the glow from the backlit marquee area (now fitted with the acrylic screen) and neons once they are fitted too. The vinyl will be applied to the rest of the cabinet shell once I've worked out how it will all fit and appropriate fan and output holes have been cut.

[Turnarcades]

So the neons have finally arrived from Hong Kong but for the first time ever don't include a UK plug adapter - D'oh!

Luckily, having read the info on the box and the label on the transformer it's simply a 12v DC 600mA output. Surely rather than buying 2 adapters, does anyone know if I could splice the connecting plug to the PC's spare IDE connectors OK? Remember there will be two of these lamps and a cold cathode tube lighting the marquee all being connected, so will I have problems? I know how to tap a 12v wire but will the mA draw be an issue?

[Drakin]

I don't think you'll have any isues, Look on the power supply that your using and see what the total amp rating for the 12v line is.....should be a sticker on the PS. As long as you don't exceed the rating you should be fine.

[Franco B]

Looking good Craig. 

I'm afraid I dont have any mesh. Mountain kindly sent me what spare he had left from his for Pinky.

In regards to your PSU question AFAIK each 12v lead from a typical PC PSU guarantees 18A without triggering the current limit so unless you are running 25+ of them you should be fine

[Turnarcades]

Thanks guys. After Drakin's response I got impatient and just went for it. I got the first one cut and spliced into the floppy drive power supply 12v earth and it runs just fine. I will hold up hooking the other one up until the rest of the components are installed. I've just taken a quick recording of the neon running on my test rig and it's pretty cool. It runs sweet and although it's responding to the high frequency of the treble from my monitor speakers, it will be set up to respond to the bassline in my cabinet:

 

Franco, if you're still cool to provide that frosted acrylic, I need 2 pieces of 34cm x 6cm doing. If you can pm me about this that would be great. I'm toying with the idea of just using a piece of coloured acrylic for the speaker grill area, maybe drilled in a similar pattern to the metal mesh on mountain's juke. A piece of translucent blue acrylic perhaps would look cool with the blue of the neons and my marquee, and I may be able to add an obscured blue cold cathode tube at the back to subtly make this area glow blue too. As you work with acrylics frequently, what do you think? Is this also something you could do?