Cutting Corners

Not much progress over the weekend, unfortunately. Anyway, I did manage to sneak away for 20 minutes and finish squaring up the 4 inside corners in the side panels.

Here's a shot of the top showing the squared-up corner:

I know - try to contain your excitement. Making the cuts was actually way easier than I thought it was going to be - having the right tool for the job helped too. I used a Japanese hand saw (also called a flush saw) and a little patience to cut each corner exactly square. I placed the blade of the saw along the edge of the plywood in a position to cut away the excess material. Then I just moved the saw back and forth while making sure that the blade remained as tight as possible against the plywood edge. I'm actually surprised at how accurate the cuts came out using the Japanese hand saw - they almost look machined.

Here's a close-up of the finished corner:

I don't have a "before" shot because apparently I don't think that far in advance. I'll be routing out the slot for the t-molding next - sometime this week after work one night. So this is where I'm at for both sides now that the two interior corners are cut (on the top and where the control panel will rest):

It's slowly coming together. Cutting out the interior panels should be fairly easy so hopefully next time I have a few hours I'll end up with something three dimensional.

I've Ordered The Parts - No Turning Back Now!

I've been putting this off for a while since it's going to be expensive but it's probably time to order some arcade parts so I can get going on my control panel.

Here's the list of stuff I need to get started (again, all parts are being ordered from divemaster over at BYOAC):

• (22) BLACK Pushbutton - Horizontal Microswitch [58-9166-L]
• (4) Small Round Low Profile Pushbutton, White [57-0004-21]
• (2) UltraStik 360 Joysticks - BLACK Oval Top [with USB cable]
• (2) UltraStik 360 Hard Springs
• (2) UltraStik Round Restrictor Plate Kit
• (1) SlikStik Tornado Spinner (with BLACK knob)
• (1) Trackball (Happ 3" highlip) [56-0100-11HL]
• (1) Trackball Mounting Plate (for the highlip trackball)
• (1) Replacement 3" Trackball - BLACK
• (1) iPac2 [with USB cable]
• (1) OptiPac [with USB cable]

That's a lot of stuff. The total cost for everything (including shipping) is $522.25(!). I'm also planning to buy a coin door sometime down the road but I'm trying to spread some of the cost around. This should cover most of the mechanical parts for the control panel except for the wiring and some odds and ends.

Rotate The Monitor?

This will probably make me want to kill someone but I think it would be really cool if I could figure it out. Since the LCD monitor is not going to fill up the space between the two side panels I think there will be room to add in some sort of rotation mechanism. This will allow me to play horizontal (4:3) games with a horizontal monitor and vertical (3:4) games with a vertical monitor. This poses four major obstacles:

1. building a circular frame to allow the monitor to rotate;
2. implementing some sort of motor to rotate the monitor (clockwise and counterclockwise);
3. installing software to tell the monitor which way to face based on the game that is launched; and
4. hiding the fact that the monitor rotates (I don't want the circular frame to be visible).

I really have no idea how to go about accomplishing any of this but it will be fun to learn. I envision building something similar to the awesome drawing I made on the left - a circular frame that moves to position the monitor vertically or horizontally.

Several people over at BYOAC with way more skills than me have figured it out (especially THIS GUY) so hopefully I can follow their lead and get something working.

Check Out My Sweet Profile

Well I finally took about two hours this weekend and I cut out the sides of the arcade cabinet. I really like the slim profile now that I've seen it in person. It's a good height (I think) but it definitely doesn't look like it will overwhelm a room.

The first thing I did was lay out one of the sides on a piece of plywood in pencil. I used the factory edges for the rear and bottom edges after confirming they were square. Then it was just a matter of using the plans I posted a few days ago. I should note that they aren't accurate - the top dimension should be 16-1/4" and not 15-1/4" - it doesn't work otherwise (at least for me it didn't). Also, it took me a while to figure it out that the marquee area lines up exactly with the bottom corner of the front of the cabinet (16" from the rear). Finally, the 7" dimension isn't accurate either for the bottom of the marquee area - it's more like 9" or something but it doesn't matter because I didn't use a direct measurement for that line.

After the profile was laid out on the plywood I used my jigsaw to cut it out. I made sure to stay approximately 1/8" from the lines I drew. Once the rough shape was cut out I use my router and pattern cutting bit with a straight edge to remove the excess material exactly to the lines.

Now that I had one side cut out it was time to make an exact copy. I traced the side onto another piece of plywood (making sure the grain was going in the proper direction) and then rough cut that shape out again using my jigsaw. Next, I clamped the good side piece to the one I had just rough cut and used my router and pattern bit to make an exact copy.

This is what the pieces looked like clamped together prior to making the exact copy:

It took like 20 minutes to make the copy - easy!

Here's a shot of the finished side standing upright:

Next up is finishing the two 90 degree corners on both sides - as you can see in the picture both spots look rounded where a hard corner should be instead. The pattern cutting bit can't get close enough. I'll clean them up with a Japanese hand saw. I also have to route the slots for the t-molding that covers the edges... I'll probably post a more detailed writeup on that part though but likely not until next weekend when I have some more time to work.

It's nice to finally see some real progress on this thing though.

I've Got Wood

I finally made it out of the house and picked up the birch plywood for this project. I anticipate that it will take 2 full sheets to build the thing - one for the side panels and one for everything else. I've just got to be sure when I'm cutting stuff out that I remember to take the grain of the wood into consideration.

Check it out:

It's been a while since I've worked with this stuff before but I'm looking forward to it. It should make the cabinet fairly light but very sturdy. Plus, breathing in the sawdust won't kill me like using MDF would.

I'll be cutting out the profile soon.

The Cabinet Profile

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I think I've settled on a design but I'm not that thrilled with it... well, it's going to look awesome when it's done (hopefully) but the design I've chosen limits the monitor size to a 19" LCD. Not a big deal but I was originally planning on going with something a lot bigger.

Here's the profile:


I had nothing to do with this design - Knievel over at the BYOAC forums came up with this (among other brilliant designs) and I don't want to reinvent the wheel so I'm just going to use the dimensions he came up with.

My decision to use this design is mainly because I really want to make a "furniture-style" cabinet with a dark stained finish and a slim profile that doesn't overwhelm an entire room. If I am going to convince anyone that an arcade cabinet can be placed somewhere other than a basement it's going to have to blend in and not be an eyesore. The desired slim profile and a 27" arcade monitor cannot co-exist. If I adapted this design to fit the monitor I wanted I'd have to add about 8" to the overall thickness and also make it taller. This added surface area would throw off the elegant proportions and look a little off when stained. Oh well - I'll build the 27" cabinet for my next one.