No More Sanding...

Finally finished sanding the cabinet this weekend (It was a long weekend here in Australia for ANZAC day). I had to borrow my father-in-laws Belt Sanding to sand down the wood left from the old arcade monitor stands. This worked really well as the surface is now nice and smooth and ready for my new TV mounts. I filled some hole and cracks with wood cement and sanded these down aswell giving the outside a nice even finish. I also finished sanding down the rest of the cabinet I did not finish last weekend ready for priming and painting. So the sanding is finished and i'm am ready to move onto the next stages of building the Control Panel.

I also hurt my back on Monday while I was working on my cabinet. It happened when my lovely 2 year old Labrador stole my dust pan and brush, and when I went to get it off her I stretched in the wrong direction and wack, I had a lower back spasm and have been in pain ever since. So the downside is I might not be doing much physical work on the cabinet until my back is better but I can still finish constructing the Computer and installing the software.

Sanding Back the Paint

Spent 2 hours this weekend sanding down the cabinet back to it original finish. Prior to starting the sanding I removed the T-Moulding which was not in as good a condition as I thought it was originally, so it looks like I am going to have to buy some new stuff as some point. I also removed some more of the old arcade monitor support and again this had been glued and tacked in. The mess this has left will need to be sanded down but I currently only have an Orbital Sander and this will not do the job, so it looks like I am going to have to borrow a Belt Sander for next weekend.

Finally got onto sanding the Cabinet and got the Right Panel, Front Bottom Panel, Part of the Top Panel and Half the Left Panel Sanded before I lost Light and had to go inside for dinner. The Right panel has a lot of Chips, Scratches and old Screw Holes so this will need to be filled with Wood Cement and sanded next week.

Wiring the Test CP

Joystick Wiring

IPAC Wiring

Started off by wiring all the Ground connectors to the IPAC. This gave me some good practice in cutting, stripping and connecting the Quik Connects. Next I connected each button to its assigned connection on the IPAC and after this I did the same with the Joystick. I was really eager to test the CP now so I hooked it all up and it worked, well except for the small problem of me wiring the Joystick around the wrong way, I had the Left and Right & Up and Down connected opposite as I forgot the Joystick actually presses the opposite microswitch.

Button Wiring

Constructing the Test CP

Mounted Buttons onto my Test CP, some of which are a little loose due the the holes being a bit larger than they should due to my poor cutting skills. I had to remove the T-Stik Plus rod to mount the joystick correctly. This involved removing the button nut and then each part on the Rod, noting in which order I needed to put them back. The Joystick and Rod mounted correctly with no issues.

MameWah Backgrounds Finished

My Mamewah main, options and message backgrounds have been completed today. I created these in Macromedia Fireworks and exported them to a JPG format. The Images are from Capcom and SNK fighting characters.

I also completed the MameWah layout customisation today and this is available from my downloads sections. The layout currently only supports one emulator and that is Mame. I will add other emulators at another time, so stay tuned for an update...

How to Drill Crap Holes in your Test CP

Created a test Control Panel template today with Microsoft Visio to use as my template for the holes that need to be drilled. I used some 4mm MDF I had in my shed for the Control Panel test and taped the visio template to the MDF. I drilled the holes for the Buttons and the Joystick (T-Stik Plus) using a 1 1/8" Spade Bit.

The holes I drilled ended up being really crap as the MDF moved when I was drilling. The actual holes where a bit out of shape because of this as shown in the photo above. What I have learnt from this is when I come to do my Final CP I am going to put another piece of wood below the CP and clamp it to my bench so there is no movement while I drill the Holes.

Wire & Quik Connects

Went to Altronics today and picked up my Quik Connects and 100 metres of 18 Gauge Wire (This is what the guy in the store recommended when I explained its purpose and that 20 Gauge Wire is used in the US). I am going to split the Wire with a friend who is making a cocktail cabinet.

Buttons, Joysticks & an IPAC

Got my Buttons, Joysticks and IPAC from Ultimarc out of storage today. Still need to test all this equipment in some kind of test enviroment.

Joysticks

Microswitches

Buttons & Microswitches

IPAC (Keyboard Controller)

Cabinet Removed from Storage

Removed the old cabinet from its storage position in my garage and took some photos and measurements.

Coin Box

Marquee

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