|
|
|
A good deal of day 3 was spent shopping for parts, where I've realized much like many people who build MAME projects, I am going to go over budget. At least I'll be able to play Donkey Kong while I eat ramen from the Wal Mart Supercenter. Enough whining, on with the show!
Today started with wiring one of them 10 dollar shop lights from Lowe's, the problem with 10 dollar light fixtures of course is that you have to pretty much build the things instead of just mounting one of the under the shelf type units.
This is what they look like once you're all done with them, unfortunately they have a very very short ac cord, so I will have to use an extension cable inside the cabinet to make them actually work.
And just to show that they actually worked... these lights are brighter than my porch light at night. I have mocked up a marquee, but haven't tried it yet as I don't want to take the paper off the lucite until I get the marquee retainers in from Happ. You can also see the final mounting of the flat panel speakers (shown later on this page.)
I was able to hunt down some 4" non skid tape like what came on the front of this cabinet when I got it. Notice the damage to the contact paper on the bottom right corner, non skid tape is very unforgiving, so make sure you have it straight the first time!
I did a very bad routing job on the front panel for the CP, however it actually fits very securly.
Originally I thought to shim the front panel so I could run T-moulding between the side and front, but this was eventually done away with in favor of just getting the two pieces as close together as possible and then using joint compund to fill in the gaps.
The front panel was glued in place with carpenter's glue and then I added some L brackets for additional stability.
Here is my high tech solution for mounting the el cheapo Fry's special flat panel speakers.. Velcro! it provides a small gap that allows the speaker to still resonate, and I don't have to punch holes in anything to mount it. I went with flat panel because they were cheap and they have a very low profile so I don't need to worry about them casting a shadow from the light fixture above. There is also a small though over bassy power sub that goes with the speakers and it will get thrown in the bottom of the cabinet when everything is finished.
Finally, the top of the control panel. I had to break down and buy a router because it's just a lot easier than trying to use wood shims, and it provides a cleaner fit. What you see here is the freshly routed control panel top (bottom view) with the hing attached that will eventually allow me to open the panel up like a hood when the cabinet is completed. What you don't see here is the absolutely horrible hack job I did on the front panel, or the CP top that I ruined because I forgot to lock the adjustment on the router and it slipped and cut through the wood. Up next... re-covering the front of the cabinet with contact paper, more painting, sanding and maybe some sawing! |
|
|
