Just a quickie for now!
I've finished off the control panel wiring and here is a little sample of the result!
Saturday 8 September 2007
Saturday 1 September 2007
Building a Control Panel Pt 1
...SATURDAY
So now to today and time to make an Arcade Control Panel. If my experience in DIY and general woodwork was low, then my understanding of electronic components is through the floor!
A mass of buttons, switches, dials, wire and little metal things awaits me.
To start with, I tried to assemble the joysticks. Wondering why they wouldnt work properly, I went onto the forum for help and was told that apparantly if I dont use all of the parts provided to me in the kit, then what do I expect!! OK, lesson learned - now constructed properly, the joysticks are working...
Already, fingers are sore from screwing (cordless drill out of charge!) and fidling with springs and washers.
The next part was simple - adding all the buttons to the holes! Yah, something easy and fun :-)
And here is the back of the control panel - with all controls installed. The trackball (large thing in the middle!) went ok in the end - though cabinet purists will not like it. It works for me and is solid, so that is fine. I basically mounted it using bolts through the Lexan - but also through the plastic template part provided - bit unusual I'm sure, but heh.
The next part was installing the LEDs and circuit board controllers. The circuit boards were pretty straight forward - just screwed into position on the board.
The LEDs were provided with the buttons and come on a little tiny circuit board that has a resistor on it to control the volts to the LED and a lead for connection to an LED controller. The LED Controller (and buttons) are very clever - once working, it will not only light up the buttons needed ONLY for the game currently playing, but also the actual colour it was in the original game. So if the game used red, green and orange buttons originally, my buttons will also change to that colour - neat eh?!
The LED controller will also allow for things like 'attract modes' - I'm sure you've all seen in arcades where buttons flash all different colours all over the place when nobody is playing the games to 'attract' you to them. So all in all, looking forward to seeing this in action.
Anyway, this is what it looks like at this stage...
Bit more confusing! Next was to start the actual wiring. I managed to hunt down 2 reels of 18 guage wire to do this - one red, one blue. First job is to wire all the switches 'COM' ports (dont ask - really dont, I dont know either!) by daisy chaining each COM port to each other, then finally to the controller shown above and to the left.
Again, this was realtively straight forward if a little sore on the old fingers again - I'm not cut out for manual labour I'm sure! Lots of wire stripping, crimping, twisting etc. But the upshot is something akin to spaghetti junction!
Quite neat if I say so myself!
Thats about it for now folks - I'll just leave you with a 'money-shot' of the actual Control Panel - thanks for tuning in!
So now to today and time to make an Arcade Control Panel. If my experience in DIY and general woodwork was low, then my understanding of electronic components is through the floor!
A mass of buttons, switches, dials, wire and little metal things awaits me.
To start with, I tried to assemble the joysticks. Wondering why they wouldnt work properly, I went onto the forum for help and was told that apparantly if I dont use all of the parts provided to me in the kit, then what do I expect!! OK, lesson learned - now constructed properly, the joysticks are working...
Already, fingers are sore from screwing (cordless drill out of charge!) and fidling with springs and washers.
The next part was simple - adding all the buttons to the holes! Yah, something easy and fun :-)
And here is the back of the control panel - with all controls installed. The trackball (large thing in the middle!) went ok in the end - though cabinet purists will not like it. It works for me and is solid, so that is fine. I basically mounted it using bolts through the Lexan - but also through the plastic template part provided - bit unusual I'm sure, but heh.
The next part was installing the LEDs and circuit board controllers. The circuit boards were pretty straight forward - just screwed into position on the board.
The LEDs were provided with the buttons and come on a little tiny circuit board that has a resistor on it to control the volts to the LED and a lead for connection to an LED controller. The LED Controller (and buttons) are very clever - once working, it will not only light up the buttons needed ONLY for the game currently playing, but also the actual colour it was in the original game. So if the game used red, green and orange buttons originally, my buttons will also change to that colour - neat eh?!
The LED controller will also allow for things like 'attract modes' - I'm sure you've all seen in arcades where buttons flash all different colours all over the place when nobody is playing the games to 'attract' you to them. So all in all, looking forward to seeing this in action.
Anyway, this is what it looks like at this stage...
Bit more confusing! Next was to start the actual wiring. I managed to hunt down 2 reels of 18 guage wire to do this - one red, one blue. First job is to wire all the switches 'COM' ports (dont ask - really dont, I dont know either!) by daisy chaining each COM port to each other, then finally to the controller shown above and to the left.
Again, this was realtively straight forward if a little sore on the old fingers again - I'm not cut out for manual labour I'm sure! Lots of wire stripping, crimping, twisting etc. But the upshot is something akin to spaghetti junction!
Quite neat if I say so myself!
Thats about it for now folks - I'll just leave you with a 'money-shot' of the actual Control Panel - thanks for tuning in!
Big Update!
Having had a week off from work, I've had a chance to really crack on with the cab. Got lots done this week, so not had time for blog updates! So without further ado...
TUESDAY
After a bit of a rest from a weekend away, Tuesday afternoon began with cutting out the control panel. This went well as you can see below... or so I thought! The more experienced cabinet makers looking at this pic will spot the deliberate mistake. For the rest of you, just marvel at some fine drilling!
After drilling the wood, I then sandwiched a piece of 'Lexan' (like Plexi-Glass) between a piece of scrap wood and the freshly drilled panel to recreate the holes in what will be the top of the control panel.
From what I have read, this can be tricky with the plastic cracking whilst being drilled, but I took my time (and it took some time!), but again, it came out well.
WEDNESDAY
After finishing the drilling, I then painted the cabinet on Wednesday and left it to dry completely, which lost a day....
THURSDAY
Now then, as I mentioned a bit above, the more experienced cab builders would have recognised a big error - the large diamond shaped hole in the middle of the wood is a space for the trackball unit to go.
Having used the router properly for the first time, I was dead chuffed how this went... until I realised I'd routed the hole upside down!!! I didnt think to check the orientation of the trackball unit and now my neat work was ruined! The only choice apart from starting the panel again, was to make the diamond shaped hole a square and losing some stability in the trackball unit.
So I routed out a square shape and whilst at it, routed out a space for the joystick units to install...
Ah well, its not so bad!
FRIDAY
Few jobs for today - find some wiring (harder than I thought) and get everything ready to be wired. I had decided earlier in the week to not have a 'Control Panel Overlay' (which is basically graphics to go under the plastic top of the control panel - making it look nicer.
I was going to just paint it black ("...I see a red door...", sorry!) with the glass on top and have the silver t-molding round the edges.
I'd toyed with a few overlay ideas, but couldnt really get anything nailed down that I liked. I thought I'd have one last go before I started constructing the panel and I had some time to kill. With Claires assistance, we managed to come up with something we both liked at the last minute! I'm not a real big Sci-Fi fan, but the space scene seems to suit this cab - its mainly black, a bit of silver, some muted colours and of course the old skool Space Invaders.
I phoned up our local printers (Print Hub) and big thanks to them for printing this up for me straight away...
TUESDAY
After a bit of a rest from a weekend away, Tuesday afternoon began with cutting out the control panel. This went well as you can see below... or so I thought! The more experienced cabinet makers looking at this pic will spot the deliberate mistake. For the rest of you, just marvel at some fine drilling!
After drilling the wood, I then sandwiched a piece of 'Lexan' (like Plexi-Glass) between a piece of scrap wood and the freshly drilled panel to recreate the holes in what will be the top of the control panel.
From what I have read, this can be tricky with the plastic cracking whilst being drilled, but I took my time (and it took some time!), but again, it came out well.
WEDNESDAY
After finishing the drilling, I then painted the cabinet on Wednesday and left it to dry completely, which lost a day....
THURSDAY
Now then, as I mentioned a bit above, the more experienced cab builders would have recognised a big error - the large diamond shaped hole in the middle of the wood is a space for the trackball unit to go.
Having used the router properly for the first time, I was dead chuffed how this went... until I realised I'd routed the hole upside down!!! I didnt think to check the orientation of the trackball unit and now my neat work was ruined! The only choice apart from starting the panel again, was to make the diamond shaped hole a square and losing some stability in the trackball unit.
So I routed out a square shape and whilst at it, routed out a space for the joystick units to install...
Ah well, its not so bad!
FRIDAY
Few jobs for today - find some wiring (harder than I thought) and get everything ready to be wired. I had decided earlier in the week to not have a 'Control Panel Overlay' (which is basically graphics to go under the plastic top of the control panel - making it look nicer.
I was going to just paint it black ("...I see a red door...", sorry!) with the glass on top and have the silver t-molding round the edges.
I'd toyed with a few overlay ideas, but couldnt really get anything nailed down that I liked. I thought I'd have one last go before I started constructing the panel and I had some time to kill. With Claires assistance, we managed to come up with something we both liked at the last minute! I'm not a real big Sci-Fi fan, but the space scene seems to suit this cab - its mainly black, a bit of silver, some muted colours and of course the old skool Space Invaders.
I phoned up our local printers (Print Hub) and big thanks to them for printing this up for me straight away...
(Click for bigger image)
Again, a frustrating wait now for the overlay to fully dry, so I carried on getting ready for the wiring.
To be continued...
To be continued...
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