DrunkenOverclockers::Cabcreator();

Don't Forget Your Thandwichez!!! 09/11/2005 @ 9:00 pm

And it goes a-little somethin' like, like, like this:

First off, I want to apologize for the lack of pictures that accurately depict what I did to the cab; my brother's cam was on the fritz. Sooooo you've probably noticed some changes from the last update. Essentially, after we got all of the side panels on and in, I wood puttied the hell out of all the screw holes. Then, we put the cabinet on its side and cut the slot for the trim using a 1/16" slotting bit for the router, and we made two passes about the edge (one slightly offset from the other, so it ended up being about a 3/32" slot). With all of that work done, we moved the cabinet to the front garage, and I primed it with a coat of the darker grey variety, since I was going to paint it black. It took about two coats, only slightly more. If you want your cab to look smooth, use spraypaint or a latex paint sprayer - I used a brush, and it gave the MDF a very fine-grain wood look. I love it. Once the paint was on, we pounded the trim in with a rubber mallet (lightly, so we didn't bend the edges of the MDF) and moved it downstairs.

Once we got it downstairs we mounted the monitor, since there wasn't much woodworking left to do. It's held in place by two sections of angle iron and a metrix ton of 2 1/2" long 5/16" bolts, secured to the top pine plank and the crossbeam just behind the control panel. With that in, I mounted the marquee and the speaker panel, which has a hinge attached to the top of the bezel mount, so it swings down and I can do speaker maintenance or pull the marquee out to change the mini-marquees. With that in place I mounted the bezel and a piece of Lexan over the top. I didn't glue these screws, just in case I ever needed to service the monitor. Oh yeah - by now the thing was a little HEAVY. I mounted the front door on with a keylock hasp, and shoved the coin door in there too. It was starting to look so good the cat wanted a tour.

Hokay. Now I put all of the fun crap inside, the wiring. FYI - I suck shit at this. Only once I got everything in did I realize it would've bee a lot easer to try to run the wires from the left side. The catch is, if I did that and flipped the motherboard around, then the volume control would have been inaccessible. So I guess there was a method to my filthy madness.

Mounting the control panel was a snap. I just screwed the brackets straight into the MDF. Once agian, no glue because I'd want to remove it if and when I move the damn thing. I also drilled a hole in the back and placed a plate with a grommet for the power cable. This thing should PROBABLY be on a surge protector so as to not blow fuses whenever there's a power spike while playing games.

Speaking of playing games.....

All done! That's it, we can go home now.

Well, after I finish the next project anyway. It's already about a third done, actually. But no hints. (It's a PC that plays older DOS and Windows games, designed to be hooked up to a TV. All games and CD images will sit on its HD. It should also work to stream content wirelessly from other PCs in the house.) *cough*

HINGE'D!!!11 LAUGH OUT LOUD 06/14/2005 @ 11:59 pm

There will be little text and many pics, for I am teh tired. I finished up the control panel. Below is the wiring for the LEDs,the CPO once it's applied to the top panel, then the lexan added and the joysticks and buttons put in.

Once that was done I could tighten the nuts on the joysticks, use a pushbutton screw for the buttons, and add the microswitches to the buttons. I mounted the memory card reader and the headphone jacks, and ran the cables.

Finally, I cut some trim to length and rubber-hammered it in, then pounded a finishing nail into each end so it would stay put. No glue required. Under the hood you can see the hinge I added, after getting it wrong a couplea times. I just wasn't taking it back far enough. Not shown: a couple of felt pads added to the top to prevent slammage.

Onto the cab itself, since the CP is done. Cut and added rear panels and put vents in the top and bottom ones for airflow. I get the feeling all this'll do is make it dusty in there, but better safe then sorry.

That's it for now, chapz. Next will be to either add the topmost panel and marquee mount, or to add the bottom front door. My vote goes to the door, since right now the cab is kinda back-heavy. We'll see.

 

In Control 06/08/2005 @ 09:45 pm

One of the most identifying pieces of any cabinet is probably the control panel. Not only is there a decent bit of electronics, but we get experience with some sanding, routing, and even drilling some lexan.

First off, here's a look at the top piece. The button holes can be bored out with a 1 1/4" bit, and the joystick ones with a 1 1/2" bit. Those rectangles at the top are for credit LEDs, and the clearance on the display is about half of the thickness of the wood, so I routed out the edges of those for the screw holes. The pic on the left is the top of the CP, the right is the underside. The rightmost picture is the bottom box - to attack the sides we just using some 1"x2" strips to mount everything. Once those were on I put wood putty over the screws (countersunk...hell what screw isn't at this point). I also sanded the hell out of it.

Now I've got my decal, and I placed it over the wood and clamped it down so I could flip it over and use an x-acto knife to cut out the holes. These can be left a little rough - the extra bit around the tops of the button will cover it all right up. Also, the lovely Lexan that goes over the top - we got the side piece we needed by scoring it, then just cut it the same way as the wood. To test, we shoved a button through to make sure it fit. If it didn't, we used a handy spindle sander to take off a bit extra. PAY NO ATTENTION TO TAHT MAN BEHIND TEH LEXAN.

Last but not least, the first coat of pain went on the top tonight. I suppose we should have primed it, but very little of this paint is actually going to be visible - a little on the underside because it overhangs the box, a little on the back edge where there's no trim, and about half an inch on either side of the CPO. We'll put the second coat on the top tomorrow and begin the bottom as well. Once the top is dry, I'll attach controls. Those are what actually keeps the Lexan in place by the way - there's no extra screws needed.

P.S.: God approves of my cabinet. Yon light shone upon mine whatever I'm not finishing this sentence.

Addendum: The box got teh paintings today.

Rollin on Rubbah 06/01/2005 @ 10:45 pm

Cabinet's got wheelies now. Four total - two 3" swivel casters in the front, and two 3" fixed casters in the rear. Each caster is held on by four 5/16" x 2 1/2" bolts, each with a washer, lock washer, and nut.

Couple items to note: the sides hover just over the floor, giving a bit of clearance even for thick carpet if needed. Make sure the swivel casters won't brush into that side panel - I lucked out and my measurements ended up giving me a free 1/16 of an inch. For the rear casters, make sure you get them back as far as you can without getting too close to the edge. Pay attention to where the bolts will go, as you won't want those 2"x4"s to get in the way of tightening the bolts.

That's all for now. Short n' sweet. Hopefully the control panel comes up soon - that's a fun side project that gives a good impression of every aspect of the cabinet, from drilling lexan to sanding, painting, putting on a hinge, and even some wiring.

*cough* 05/31/2005 @ 9:30 pm

The following is a collection of the past three weeks of work or so - sorry for a lack of more photos for the construction of the frame, but it was kinda put together in my absence, heh. The frame was put together using six 2x4s, a 2x6, and a 1x12 piece of pine for the top. All the joints are half-lap joints cut using a dado blade mounted on a table saw. The dado cuts require a few passes, and create an ASSLOAD of sawdust; you have been warned. All the joints were wood glued together and then attached using #8 1.5" wood screws - the holes for those were pre-drilled and countersunk so the screws would be flush with the side, since the side panels need to go over them.

Okay, with the frame done, we moved on to the side panels. These are cut out of two 4' x 8' 3/4" MDF sheets. The measurements were pre-drawn on one side, which was made easier by just laying the frame on top of the MDF sheet and tracing it out. It there's any tweaking that needs to be done, I'll say make sure you do it now - almost all other measurements are gonna be based off this puppy. The second sheet is a lot easier - just lay the other sheet on top and trace. These cuts were all done with a circular saw, except for the rounded corners, which were done by jigsaw. They cut like buttah. The sawdust made me kinda sneezy - it's really fine and floats around a lot. I'd recommend getting a mask if at all possible.

Next, we attached the sides to the frame using wood glue and #6 1.5" wood screws, using a countersink bit for pre-drilled holes as well.

The next step will be to cut and place a sheet on the bottom and mount the 3" wheels. After that, the 1x2 ledgers will go in for the interior panels. After THAT, we'll probably route the slots in the side panels for the trim, even out the area where the control panel sits, then paint, and then slap the monitor into it. Once the monitor is in we can add ledgers for the bezel and the lexan that goes over it.

...You have no power over me! 04/19/2004 @ 11:00 am

Since I've got the supplies for it, I figured it was time to build the power board yesterday. For this project we'll need the following from Bob Roberts: an AC line cord, fuse holder with fuse, AC line filter, AC distribution block, isolation transformer, switching power supply, a buttload of wires, and a buttload of quickconnects (.187 and .250 sizes). If you ordered the AC and DC power kits from Bob, you'll already have all of these.

For mounting the parts I used a piece of plywood that was about 3/4" thick. Judging from where I wanted the power cable to come in from. Since I'm putting the board in the back right of the cabinet, that's where I put the fuse holder. I put the line filter in the back center of the board, with the distribution block across from it. The switching power supply is on the right side, and the isolation transformer on the left. I suppose I could have switched these, but the wires that go from the power supply to the JAMMA harness are long enough that it shouldn't be an issue.

First, I crimped a .183 quick connect to the black wire on the AC line cord. I attached that to the fuse holder, and attached a wire to the other end that had a .183 QC on one end, and a .250 on the other. The larger QC went to the leftmost prong on the line side of the AC line filter. The green ground wire and white white both got .250 QCs also, and then where attached to the middle prong and the left prong, respectively.

Next is line is the power switch. From here I used a green and a black wire and crimped two .250s on them and attached them (shoulda used something other than green though, since on the AC line cord green is ground). These wires need to be long enough to reach to wherever you'll be mounting your power switch for the cabinet. I crimped .250s on the other end of those wires as well, and ran them to the middle prongs on the switch.After this, I created another set of wires with about the same length, and srimped .250s on one end, and .187s on the other. I ran those from the top prongs on the switch to the botton prongs on one side of the AC distribution block.

Next are the wires to the isolation transformer. I uhh...was kinda running out of green and black wire, so I matched a red wire to the green side, and an orange wire to the black side. Now my board has a holiday theme. I put these on the opposite bottom side of the AC distribution block, and ran them to the bottom tabs of the isolation transformer. Note: the tabs on the iso seemed a little flimsy. Be careful, they may break off. Notice my gratuitous addition of cable ties. Even at the end of this project and the JAMMA harness, I still hadn't used HALF of the ties that Bob sent me.

Next, I ran my remaining green and black wires to the bottom two screws on the switching power supply. One end gets .187 QCs, the other gets forked terminals. I connected the QC ends to the AC distribution black on the tabs above the power input, and the forked ends to the power supply.

Next, ground wires - I ran a blue wire (because I already used all of my green) with a forked terminal from the "FG" screw on the power supply, to a ringed terminal on the mounting screw on the isolation transformer. On the other side of the iso, I ran a ringed terminal to another ringed terminal attached to the mounting screw on the AC line filter. Lastly, I ran a wire with a ringed terminal from that same screw to the power switch. I had to kinda rig this up - I unscrewed the mounting nut and squeezed the wire in there. All of these are basically the "oh shit something has gone wrong" wires. If any of the parts' frame get electrified somehow, the juice will go out through the field ground connected to the AC line filter, instead of through, uh, you.

Once that's all done you can plug her in. Throw the switch using a set of insulated pliers, to keep from shocking yourself if something isn't wired right - keep an eye out for smoke, smoke is bad. Also, use the digital multitester from Bob to make sure that power is where it needs to be - the top two prongs of the iso should read somewhat over 120 AC volts, mine said about 130.

The final VERY important step is to adjust the DC power output of the switching power supply. Make sure the +5v terminal is outputting 5.00 DC volts even by adjusting the screw at the top of the power supply. After you do that, check the -5v output, it should be fairly close. The Neo Geo board doesn't even have inputs for -5v, but some other JAMMA compatible games use this terminal, so you can wire it anyway. The 12v output should be somewhat close to 12 volts as well.

Here's my final product, all zip tied up and with the power supply connector I made for the JAMMA harness. I tested it out a bit earlier by plugging in speakers to the MVS, and powering it on. I actually got the Neo Geo intro sound, so all is well! Except for the video thus far - I'm going to be ditching my craptastic 19" Neotec monitor in favor of a refurbished 25" monitor. More on that later.

Setting up the JAMMA harness and switching power supply 04/15/2005 @ 10:30 pm

I spent a majority of the past couples days preparing a set of correctors for the power supply and the JAMMA harness, including a set of in-line molex connectors for the player 1 and 2 controls, the coin door, and the JAMMA-to-power supply connection.

I went with a 12-pin molex connector for the power supply, so I could supply the harness with four +5v, three ground, two -5v, and one +12v for power. I then twisted and crimped the wires to forked terminals, and attached them to the power supply to see how they should look. The bottom wires I also cut from the extra Bob sent, and attached forked terminals to.

For the coin door, I improvised by using two of the two-pin molex connectors sent by Bob, and a one-pin molex I salvaged from a separate JAMMA harness I have available for scrap.

One 2-pin houses the +5v connections for the player 1 and player 2 coin microswitches, and the other houses the +12v connections for the coin door lights and the four ground wires for the lights and microswitches. The 1-pin molex is just a field ground attached to the frame of the coin slots, and the other end will eventually be attached to a ground on the power supply board. I also crimped the JAMMA adaptor connections for the door using the coin 1 and coin 2 wires, along with the leftover ground wire from the power bundle end of the adapter.

Here's the player 1 bundle crimped up with an molex disconnect about a foot or two from the ending quickconnects. This bundle includes one ground, the 4 joystick inputs, the ABCD buttons, the p1 start button, and the "select up" wire used for changing the game on a multislot MVS. These were run through 12-pin connectors. The P2 bundle is exactly the same, only it lacks a select button. Notice the daisy-chain of ground wires; this runs to each microswitch ground. The P1 bundle has 10 connectors for the ground loop, and P2 has 9.

Lastly are the bundles for the speakers and the service panel - the speakers have a left and right positive terminal, along with a ground wire, which was daisy-chained similarly to the player 1 and two bundles, only with a foot length and just two connectors. The service panel bundle has a similar ground loop with much a shorter wire between the two terminals, and also has the test and service wires. The test switch will cause the machine to boot into a test mode, which lets you test the video and set the game dip switches. The service switch will just be a momentary pushbotton that automatically coins up the machine for testing purposes. These will both eventually have 3-pin molex connectors in-line, but I still am waiting on them from Happ Controls.

Lastly, on the right, is the monitor bundle - I have no idea what type of connections these will have just yet. I'll probably be selling the 19" monitor to replace it with a 25", and then I'll crimp these for the proper connection type.

Notice the gratuitous use of cable ties/zip strips - I reccommend tying these up as soon as you get the chance, as it'll make the entire ordeal a lot less messy as you go along.

Setting up the coin door 04/04/2005 @ 10:32 pm

Here's a delectible update for you - I received my coin door yesterday, but took a little time to clean it up and make it a tad more presentable, as well as get the coin mechs in place.  Let's take a look at how to get these put in and how to test them before hooking it all up.  Here's a picture of the coin mech, with a can of caffiene as a size gauge.  The coin enters the mech at the top left, then slides down and to the right if it's the correct weight, width, and diameter.  If it's too wide, it gets stuck until you press the coin reject button.  If its too light, the rotating arm never lets it pass, and you have to hit the reject button.  If it's too big in diameter, the adjustable slide on the back directs it automatically to the bottom left, which goes to the coin rejection bay.

The picture on the right shows a side view of the mech, from the left side.  There's two screws to hold the mech in place.  The same two holes exist on the opposite side, but aren't used in this coin door.

Now on to placing the mech into the door.  This particular door is a Coin Controls model, circa 1988.  It's a two-player setup; you can see I already placed the player two mech in on the left hand side, and am about to put in the player one mech I have in my hot little hands. (I mean, damn, they're so sexy.)

As you can see in the middle and on the right, I loosened the screws on the back, put the front end of the mech in place, then just swivelled it into place.  After that, simply tighten the screws.

Below is a look at the microswitch at the bottom of the coin mech that actually coins up the machine when a quarter trips it.  The microswitch is the blue thing.  Sorry about the blur.  Those red and yellow wires on each switch are +5v connectors that come from the JAMMA harness, and the black wires are grounds.  I'll go over that more later when I actually hook everything together.

The picture on the right shows how the coin return lever works.  The red button pushes a white plastic lever, which in turn pushes the metal spring lever on the coin mech itself, hopefully causing any stuck coins to pop loose.  The player two slot seems a little wide open at this point, sometimes quarters get stuck in between the mech and the white reject lever.  I think something as simple as a folded playing card may keep the coin from jumping out of the slot.

Below we have an ouside view of the over and under coin doors and an inside view of the lower door.  Look at all those amazing features!  Notice it mentions two D-cam locks, and they're completely missing from the doors.  I might just replace them with keyless latches instead, so if I lose my keys I don't have a treasure trove of laundry money unclaimed.

Now...onto the testing.  Phase 1: Test for success.  Put a quarter in each slot aaaaand.....  Hey, it worked!  I'll be damned.

Now, a test for failure.  I'll put a penny in the left, and a nickel in the right for good measure.

And thusly below the pallid flesh and the rusted swivel doors, there lieth sixpence in thine change.  Huzzah! That's all for now - we'll return to taking a look at the actual electrical parts of the door when we hook up the lights behind the reject buttons and the microswitches.  Maybe if you're nice I'll take a photo of me putting in some new cam locks, you ungrateful...uh...ingrate.