Project: Ultimate Arcade!

Greetings, everyone.

It's about time I'm getting started on this mod and actually contributing some work of my own to these boards, so here we go - the Ultimate Arcade Machine!

As you can see here, I'm the lucky recipient of one awesome piece of nostalgia - an authentic Galaga arcade cabinet.

While not a true PC mod, I still think this will be pretty interesting to some of you that visit this board. My plan is to take a fully modded Xbox and install it inside of this machine, complete with a new controller, new screen, new speakers, custom marquee and paint job, new lights and more.

The cabinet was donated by the good fellow geeks at my local games and hobbies shop, Docking Bay 93, and I must give them props. They had this one in their storage unit and were kind enough to let me take it for free, as long as I hauled it off.

The cabinet itself is not in the greatest of shape, so a lot of the preliminary work will be restoring and remodeling it to fit my new vision. I spent some time yesterday measuring everything out for the box, and have drawn out a rough schematic of the current layout, below.

Below are some more photos of the cabinet in it's original state.

The rear view of the cabinet, before removing the monitor.

The side. What a shame to have to lose that great graphic.

As you can see, there is substantial damage to all of the graphics and the surface finish of the machine. This is but a small sample of the damage.

The speaker, which sits in the area above the monitor, behind the marquee.

The underside of where the speaker sits. This grill covers the speaker.

The particle board along the back is the most damaged, but this will be cut off and sanded down. The t-molding around the outside is in rough shape, as well, and will need to be replaced. At my work we use 1/2" T-Molding all the time, but unfortunately this stuff is 3/4", so I'll have to get new stuff ftom a hardware store.

This is the kick plate on the bottom. THere is substantial damage to it and to the wood above. The kickplate and the tray behind it will be removed, the kickplate itself replaced, and the rest of the wood in front will either get cut away or repaired, depending on how it fits with my overall plan.


So far, the only major progress has been removing the monitor and taking full measurements. I also removed the bar and metal grill that encircled the opening on the front above the kickplate. That and the plan drawing was all I was able to get through yesterday, as I had another appointment to get to and only had a little over an hour to do all this.

My plan for the monitor is to raise it up to a much more vertical position and install a television. The Xbox will sit below, where the coin door was originally. It will be connected to the house network, allowing me to connect to the file server and stream music, movies and television shows into this box, providing the main entertainment for the garage. I have old surround-sound speakers that I'll be installing throughout the cabinet to provide a much richer sound than the old mono speaker that is currently in there. I'm going to get the X-Arcade Dual Control stick (see picture below) and use it for the primary controls, but also have standard Xbox controllers available for use.

I've got a few other things up my sleeve, too, but this is the over-all goal. Work on it will be slow, especially at first, as we have a lot of work to do on the house and the garage (if you couldn't guess) since we just bought this house. It was originally owned by a bunch of meth-freaks who just let it go to hell. This is my primary concern, getting the house nad garage up to snuff, and this is a side project, but I will keep it posted with plans, questions and photos of my progress.

As my last step before leaving, I set off a couple flew bombs in the garage. I finally managed to kill or chase off the last of the rats (I hope) that are living under the garage, but I'm still working on the fleas. I'll keep you guys posted on my workspace, as well - heck, I don't even have electricity out here yet. :mad:

Looks like it's going to be a good mod. What I would do is actually install a PS2, XBox, PC and GC in the same unit and then have a switch that can switch between them all. It's only an idea but that in my opinon is the ultimate arcade machine ;)

Believe me, I considered something like that, and I do have a PS2 and GC, as well as my PC, but I don't want to take it that far.

The Xbox will run emulators of SNES, MAME, NES, Atari, Sega Genesis, you name it. Even original Playstation games. Plus it will be hooked to the network, so it really will be a full entertainment system. I'm thrilled with it as it is.

I may look into incorporating my other systems into it, but I want to keep having to fiddle around inside it to a minimum. As it is, I have to open it to boot the Xbox and have to turn the television screen on separately, as I can't just have them both power up with one switch. The Xbox requires a custom boot-up to get the mod to run - you have to hold down the power and eject buttons for three seconds or so for it to activate.

This way, though, I'll be able to back up my xbox games onto the hard drive (160gb, baby!) and run them all through the console there, so I won't ever have to switch out game discs. That's the real beauty of it all.

I should be getting my Xbox tomorrow, fully loaded. I'll definately post shots of it and any further progress as soon as I can.

Thanks for the comments!

The Xbox just showed up!!

I ordered a custom-modded Xbox off of Craigslist, and it finally showed up! I'll post a couple screenshots and photos later tonight, when I get home, but now the agony of having to wait to get off work to play with my newest toy! ARGH!!! 8)

Well, my parents are getting our basement finished, I really should build one of these as well. Not sure how though. I will be paying attention to this work log!

Here's Yoshi's

http://www.gearlive.com/index.php/ne...-mod-09280209/

Heh... I was just talking to one of my firends at school about how cool it would be to have a Xbox and a PC in the same Case. The ultimate game station for where I live. Halo, Halo2 and PC games are the lead types here.

Its a beautiful machine and really good starting canvas. Youshould try to save the artwork on the sides. I would tape them off with painter's tape and then do a whole new custom paint job on the rest and try to incorporate the colors and theme's of the oldschool grafix and look with the modern gaming technology. It would be a shame to loose that artwork (the side grafix). I do have to say that you got one heck of a deal and a great find too! Good luck and keep the pics coming. 8)

The more I think about it, the more I think I'm going to have to keep at least one of the graphics. They're not so beat up that I can't at least try to paint-patch them, but it will stil be noticeable.

I've been spending the past couple days drawing plans and configuring (and playing) with the Xbox. This thing is great - I've backed up about 20 games onto the hard drive, and have about 650 SNES roms already set up. I'm working on getting MAME and NES roms, probably a number of SNES and Genesis roms as well, and whatever else I end up cramming. I'm actually uploading music to it right now.

I've got a plan to widen the area aroudn the coin door, reinforce the area behind the top and sand and Bondo that area to smooth it off, replace the kickplate with a custom paint job, and pull out the old cointray box that was in there. I think I want to put a clear plexi door on it with an aluminum hinge and latch, and build a black box inside to house the Xbox itself. I'm planning on building a small pedestal for the Xbox to sit on, with a locking latch to fit it in to prevent shifting and theft. Inside the box, behind the lip around where the hole is, I'll mount 2 sound-activated UV CCFLs, and paint the inside and the Xbox itself with clear/UV-Green paint, so that it will look normal when it is quiet, but when music is playing or someone is playing a game, it will flicker with UV/Xbox green. Should be a pretty cool effect.

I've got a few other plans in the works, too, but I'm still working on them. One thing I may need a hand with is programming LEDs to light in sequence. Anyone have any experience with that? Billybob, I saw your work on programming the random LEDs on your R2 server, you know much about setting them to turn on in sequence?

Thanks. Pics coming soon, I just have to find my digital camera (I feel so bad! It's a great camera, and I have no idea where it is! All this moving and stuff is killing me!).

Rock,

I'm working with a $9 Microcontroller to driver some other LEDs on R2Server. It has 8 Outputs so depending on how you them to light up it may work. The nice thing about it is that you can program it Via your Pc's serial port (Rs232) (to do this you need to order the Easy RS232 kit ($10)). The commands are easy to uderstand and the owner Mike S. answers q's on the forum there quickly.

Here's a Link to the Site I'm using the Athena HS (the HS is faster so the PWM out to the LED's are smooth, I need this because I'm makeing the LED's fade as well as flash)
Kronos Robotics

These Chips have shown up in Nuts and Voltz and Servo sevral times, As mike Writes some good articles for them using the chips.

Let me know if you need more info.

I'm also thinking that you could make 1 power button to turn on the whole system, you'd have to "Mod" the power switch for the TV and Xbox.. There would have to be a time deley on the Xbox power and Reset (for 3 secs). I don't have a curcuit yet but try searching the net It's been done before.
I'll let you know when I find it (I'll look as soon as work slows down a bit!)

Crazybillybob

Setbacks.

I've been trying to relocate the cabinet into the barn at the house I'm staying in now, where we have a full woodshop set up. The rain here has been pretty much relentless, and I don't want to move this thing when it is wet, because the thing is basically constructed with particle board. Even if I wrap this thing up in a tarp completely, the half-hour drive in the back of a pickup would ruin it. So, I play the waiting game and keep drawing plans and getting ideas. Once I get it to the barn, I'll post more pictures (found my camera, but can't find the mem card for it, lol). I'm going to show off some of the plans I have, but want to wait till I get it to the barn first, so I can take more accurate measurements and actually post the true plans with accurate dimensions and such.

I'm still looking for the last main components - the sound system, if I don't want to go with the car stereo amp, and the television - and waiting on ordering the controller setup next week, after I get paid again. Once I get the TV and the controller, I can plan more, as I'll know the exact dimensions of the internals so I can craft around them. Right now, it is all guesswork.

Sigh. Soon enough, though, I'll have good updates. I'll keep ya posted.

Oh, here's a good deal I found from Computer Geeks - 1000 feet of CAT5 cable for under $50, with all the tools!

Also, if you are like me and use about four or five different computers throughout the day, you might be interested in Del.Icio.Us an online bookmarking site/community. I'm always emailing myself links to cool sites I find at work or at home, and keeping them all in my hotmail account is a pain in the butt, but this looks like a neat site. You can keep all your bookmarks online, sort them by tags, and browse others with common interests.

Anyway, I'll post more info soon.

I don't know what happened, I think there must have been a rollback on the boards or something, because I'm missing a post out of this thread. (EDIT: Just read CrimsonSky's post in the operator assistance board on the site update on what happened to the forum. It explains everything.)

Anyway, the other day was nice, which is unusual for this time of year in Washington, so I carted the cabinet into the back of the truck and hauled it into the barn. Now I've got great tools, materials, and the best part - electricity! I cna actually work on this at night!

Tonight I'm going to be taking the rest of the measurements I need, and I think I found the television I'm buying, so hopefully I can pick that up tomorrow. I'm working on writing out a heirarchy of the project's needs as part of my plan, as a new experiment. You'll see what I mean.

This weekend will probably be filled with working on the house and carving pumpkins with my family, so I'll see what I can do to get actual work done on the box, but things are coming along.

Oh! I've got the networking all set up on the Xbox, and it is working SO great! I installed about 900 or so NES ROMs onto the system, and have been haing a blast playing all the classics, as well as tons of great games I had never even heard of. Bubble Bath Babes is a current favorite - think bubble bobble meets Tetris meets half-naked 8-bit woman on the bottom of the screen. Lol.

Also - Tribal, you think that mouse is bad, you seriously should see the size of the rats in my garage. I finally chased off the last of them a couple weeks ago, only to have another one move in somewhere. I'm continuing to bait them, so hopefully this wave of vermin will be chased off soon, but UGH! I'm tired of burying these nasty things!!!

Not much visible work yet, jsut a bit of planning. I picked up the television for the unit last night, and it is still in my car, as I have been busy with family stuff lately - we all get together for a big birthday party for a bunch of the younger kids at this time of year, and carve pumpkins. A lot of us can't be together for Thanksgiving, so this is our get-together before Christmas.

Mine got a lot of laughs - I found an image on the web of one I wanted to do, and took the image into Freehand and built a pattern of it. I think it turned out pretty cool, what do you think?

When I brought it home to my girlfriend's house, where I'm staying until we finish the remodel, everyone got a good laugh. Her father had never seen the movie, and coincidentally, it just started right after I lit it, so we all went in and watched it. Good stuff.

I also did this one from a drawing I did before we had dinner.

Now that I've got the screen for the cabinet, I'm going to be spending tomorrow morning getting some more measurements and figuring out the mounting for it. I've got to go to Seattle for another family dinner tomorrow afternoon, so I can't get too much more done, but I'll get more this coming week. Now that I have the screen, I can get a lot more done.

Talk to you soon!

Progress, at long last!

I've got everything moved into the barn now, and look! I've got TOOLS!!!

This is SO much better than the garage at the house I bought. Heck, it has electricity, and NO RATS!!!

I'm sure that my next mod will end up in that garage, but after I finish this cabinet, all my work is going into that garage and house to get it liveable. We're almost ready to start work, we're getting the plans soon, and can start making some headway on that enormous project.

I got the TV on Friday, and it's been int he back of my car ever since. I finally got to open it up and do a thorough examination of it. Take a look.

I've torn out almost all the rest of the hardware inside the cabinet, and am saving everythign I've taken out, except for the old monitor. Here's what it looks like inside.

I'm going to be replacing the entire front panel, and I think I have an old sheet of MDO that is almost exactly the same size in the garage. I'll look tomorrow. I was using it for a drafting board before, and it was too large. I'll just have to riip down about 3/4" on one side, and about 3" off of the top.

My project for today was to create the base for the television. The first step was to get an idea of the footprint of the thing. I turned it over and took a look.

I cut a piece off of the box it came in and took some measurements, and ended up with a decent model of the footprint. It wasn't quite right, so I used it to make the second one, below.

I poked around in the scrap pile for the garage we're building at this house (how many dang projects can we have at once?!? Seriously, it's getting rediculous.) and found a scrap piece of plywood that was perfect! Exactly the right size. THe interior of the cabinet, from left to right, is 23.25" wide, and the piece of plywood was exactly 23", and was perfectly deep enough for the television.

I love it when things work out.

I sanded the scrap piece down to a smooth finish. Then, I had some thin strips of MDO I salvaged out of the Free Wood box at work, and lined them up around the footprint, creating stops to keep the TV from sliding backward.

The TV will be mouted at a slightly upward-facing angle, so this should work great. The top of the shroud inside the cabinet will be cut to fit around the back of the TV, keeping the top part steadily in place, and this will prevent the bottom from slipping.

These will be hidden from site, so they don't have to be pretty. I took a strip of the MDO and cut it in half, creating thin stops for under the forward-facing part of the footprint, and used a taller strip at the very back, to fit just perfectly with the contour of the TV. I used some roofing tacks to hold them in place, and was all set.

Once it is completed, this whole piece will be painted flat black, as it is structural and not cosmetic. Very little, if any, of it will be seen anyway.

I had the old monitor mounts left over, and wanted to mount them to the bottom of the board. I found another strip of MDO and cut it to size, to act as a riser to give the screws something to grip when I attach the mounting brackets.

Here is a picture of the mounting bracket just sitting on the riser, to give you an idea of what I mean.

I drilled the pilot holes and counter-sunk the screw holes for the four screws I used to attach the risers.

Countersinking the screws allows the mount to sit flat on the risers.

I attached the risers, and was all set for today.

I flipped it over, took a couple pictures, and congratulated myself on the first day of actual progress I had made so far...

And that was when I noticed I attached the mounts on backwards.

It was easy enough to switch them back around, and have it all finished now, but my stomach is rumbling and it's time for dinner.

THe only other thing I did was order the controller. I am JAZZED! I went to the website (X-Arcade.com) and found that they had the very controller I was looking for, the two-player stick setup, on sale for $100 flat! It was factory refurbished, and still featured the lifetime warranty, so I snapped it up. I still have to get the adapter so it will fit the X-Box, but that's only $20, so I ended up saving about $30 off of what I was expecting to pay. SWEET!!!

I'll post more as progress warrants. Things are falling together now, so I'll have more to share.

See you soon!

A little more progress today.

I tore off the old front of the cabinet, and work was nice enough to donate a sheet of MDO to replace it with. I trimmed it down to fit, and it looks like it will work out perfectly.

I also hung a strap from a rafter and hung up the TV rack and spray-painted it black. Hanging is by far the easiest way to paint things, as I can walk all the way around it, making sure I get all sides, and I don't need a spray booth (the barn is plenty ventilated with the doors open). Plus, it hangs all nice until it's dry.

I spent the rest of my time today drawing up plans for the box that will hold the Xbox itself. I've settled on a design, and just need to get a few final measurements and I can get started, hopefully as soon as tomorrow.

I just ordered a pair of 12" sound-activated UV CCFLs and a can of Clear/Green UV reactive paint (see the Lotus Blossum mod for an example) from FrozenCPU, and four six-foot extension cables for the xbox controllers, so they should all be here by this weekend, as should the two-player arcade-style controller.

So stoked! I can finally get things done! I'll be drafting up my plans in AutoCAD (took drafting all four years in high school, and a couple classes in college to keep sharp) as soon as I get the last couple measurements, sot hat will probably be most of what gets done tomorrow.

More soon!

And let me know what you guys think! I've got a lot planned for this thing, and I know it's not pretty now, but with any luck, it will be fabulous when it is done!

I've got materials and stuff on the way, and I spent a little while in AutoCAD drawing out some more plans for the mount fo rthe Xbox itself. I've got it about half done,a nd will finish it tonight, and hopefully get started on some of the cutting for it. I didn't get home until late - I have a freelance project I work on most Tuesdays - so I should have a lot more time to get work done tonight. Plus, my girlfriend is gone all night to go see Weezer and Foo Fighters play in Seattle, so I've got the place to myself. I'll post the drawings up as soon as I get them.

Quick update - I've finished the basic plan for the stand that the Xbox will sit on. It may be a bit hard to tell from the drawing here, but this is what I have (note - I've reversed the colors to make it easier to see on screen. Click for the full-size plan). I know the colors and line sizes are goofy, I didn't follow standard specs for those things, because it has been so long I can't remember them. This is just to remind me of how to put this together once I get into the shop with the wood. :p

The xbox will sit just nice and snug in this area, and still leave easy access to the controller ports. The back is just slightly lower than the back of the xbox, so that it will be slightly hidden, but will prevent it from being pushed off the stand. The holes in the back allow the cords to tuck out and then back under the stand, where they will go to their various components. The circular holes in the back are to allow air flow, as they sit right behind the fan. The holes in the front, below the stand where the Xbox sits, are where the controller cords will feed from.

I've got to wait to get the wood for this until this weekend, I think. This whole piece will sit inside a box behind a plexi clear door where the coin door is on a standard arcade machine. The door will likely be too small to get an xbox out of, to prevent theft. The back door of this box will open and lock, allowing me access to it as needed, but keeping it secure. Inside will feature a pretty cool paint scheme, if my idea works out.

Keep checking back. More to come! 8)

Lookin' good, Rank. I'm anxious to see how this comes out.

By the way, how are you faring on the sound-sensitive LED bars?

I'm working on it. It may be a week or two before I can get the components and actually test out the circuit design that CrazyBillyBob found for me. I will definately let you know how they work out - I'm excited about it.

I didn't get anything done last night - I actually ended up leaving work early with some sort of stomach bug. I'm feeling a lot better now, and hope to have some time this weekend to at least make the pedestal that I have outlined above. I've got a few other plans too, but I want to get this part built and try to install the television mount - a tricky process, as I have to cut the shroud around the back of the TV, and it is a very difficult shape. I have no accurate way of predicting, at this point, exactly what shape or size to cut the shroud to make it fit right, so I'm still puzzling over that one.

I'm going to look tonight for the amp that will power the sound system - I have a car stereo amp, but I just don't want to have to use that if I can avoid it. The power transformer itself is nearly $100, and it still wouldn't give me the features and flexibility I really want.

I'll let you know.

Lots of progress today!

I got a ton of scrap MDO from work yesterday, and spent all day in the barn building the custom stand for the Xbox itself. Take a look at it, with all it's majesty there.

Oh, how I love it so. Hehe.

I plan on modding it a bit further, once I get a few more supplies in. Ideally, I'd like to cut out the top bubble and add a fan, but I don't think there is room inside, and a fan on the top would look... goofy.

Anyway, I brought the Xbox out to double-check the measurements I had in the plan (see the above post), and sure enough, I was off by a little bit - I had designed the stand about 1.5" too wide. I redrew some plans and adjusted a few things, and spent some time drawing out the actual patterns on the wood before I went down to the tablesaw and started cutting - planning saves lives, kids. Always measure, and re-measure everything before you cut it. And once you're ready to cut, measure again. Nothing is worse than getting to assembly and finding out you cut something a quarter inch too short.

Except getting eaten alive by electric eels, I would imagine, but I'm not exactly an expert in that field, so we'll just let it go.

I cut all the pieces out, and ended up with some... cut wood with pencil marks on it. See?

Now, it was at this point that I realized we don't have a scroll saw, or anything similar to it. I am a true woodworking newbie, so I'm playing things safe here. I needed to cut out the big holes in the top, with rounded corners, somehow, but wanted to puzzle over the best method, so I started drilling the holes in the front.

The front is going to feature five holes along the bottom for controller cords. I drew them out and drilled out a pilot hole in the center of each one.

I then started drilling out the actual bores for them.

I decided that the easiest way to cut out the back holes was to use a drill to take out the corners all nice and rounded-like. I had a band saw I used for the bottom slot, and it turned out really nice, but I had no way to feed the blade through the holes I had. I cut out a couple grooves near the lines (just on the inside to allow myself some fudge-room) with a small circular saw, and got ready for the next step.

I then took a hand saw and cut out the rest of the inside, as close to the inside as I could. I took a grinding wheel bit for a dremel and set it up in the drill press, set it at the correct height, and slowly ground down the insides to a nice, smooth line. It took a while and might have been faster with a router, but I don't know how to creat the templates for the router, and just wanted to get through this. It worked pretty well, but I'll end up using the router later for larger holes for the cabinet.

Pay no attention to the shape of my thumb - I have a terrible habit of picking at hang nails when I don't have anythign else to do with my hands, and I sometimes end up with fingers that look like they've been through a meat grinder. My girlfriend is sure it's mild obsessive-compulsive disorder or something, but then again, she's a Psyche Major, so she diagnoses everything. :p

After a bit, I ended up with the back all smoothly cut out.

The large holes on top are where the network, video/audio out and power cords feed through. They go out those holes, and then feed back into the bottom hole, disguising them so they don't show up.

The squares marked off in the center there are where I needed to drill out a number of holes for the fan to breathe. The xbox sits pretty snug in the case here, so I had to make sure that air flow wasn't going to be a problem.

I marked off the holes a quarter-inch apart, and used a slightly smaller drill bit to start digging them out.

After a few minutes, I had them all set to go, and the hard part - cutting and preparation - was done.

The only thing left to do was assembly. I started by plotting out where my screws would go - I found a quarter-inch piece of very sturdy wood in the scrap pile that the Xbox will sit on, so I added some three-quarter inch strips of MDO below it to support it and accept the screws in the sides, hanging about a half-inch from the bottom. I drilled pilot holes for each screw and counter-sunk the surface to allow the screws to sit cleanly inside with a low profile. A few screws later, I'm good to go.

Here you can see the front, all drilled out, with the countersinking done. You may also notice that I rounded off all of the edges a little bit to prevent scratching myself when I'm reaching in, and prevent the corners from having the paint rubbed off when I have to reach in to turn it on, reset it or change controller setups.

This is the completely assembled stand, without the base itself. The base sits atop the runners on the sides, and has black carpeting to pad the Xbox from noise vibration. I sanded the surface of the board to give the glue a good surface to grip to, put on a healthy layer of wood glue, pressed the carpet down on it and clamped another piece of MDO on top of it to keep it tight while it dries.

See? Isn't it fun to watch glue dry? Also - in the background you can clearly see a jug of Gatorade. I've become a junkie for this stuff since I quit drinking energy drinks all the time. This particular flavor is their raspberry lemonade. Good stuff. ;)

The only other step was painting. I hung up the stand and hit it with the first coat of paint. The whole thing will be painted flat black, but will have some other cool details I'll show off later - assuming my plan works.

I'm hoping to get some more materials in this week, and am planning on doing some circuitry work for some lighting effects next weekend. I'll keep you posted as things happen.

Sound activated cathodes to backlight the kickpanel or overhead? that would be sweet.

Minor update. I spent the weekend applying coats of flat black to the parts I need, and made a shopping trip Sunday morning and found the stereo that will serve as the sound system controller for the cabinet. The best part? I found it at Value Village. For $5.00. And it turned out that it was half off.

It's just a dinky old component amp with stereo input and output, with RCA jacks. It has a tape deck and dual channel volume control. Nothing fancy at all, but exactly what I was looking for. And on the bottom, it even had the complete component diagram stapled to it, so I can always test and replace any electrical component in it if I need to.

I'll be testing it out this week, and figuring out the speaker placement, along with building the rack that will hold it and the Xbox stand itself. I'll keep you posted.

This is a cool project. One thing I thought of is your comment about having to go into the cabinet to boot the XBox because you have to hold the two buttons for 3 seconds. There are two ways around that. I assume they are both momentary switches just like the power switch on the PC. So that means you could simply wire them up with an extension and put the buttons anywhere you want, or even wire them together so that it is just one button.

Heck you could even do both and end up with three buttons: Power, Reset, and BootMod :)

Interesting thought... I'll consider it. Thanks DN.

wow!!! its usually 2 am in the morn when i come here to post, and i usually just update and go :(

but seeing this in the front page made me come for a looksee!

sooo glad i did mate! this is shaping up awsome, ive seen ppl dickaround with pc's inside these but the idea of using the xbox is soo darn perfect!!! i love it!!

WTG mate can't wait to see more :)

Thanks Defyant :) I've got some really hot ideas for this, this is just the beginning. In the next week or two, I should have some of the really cool supplies coming in - I just heard back from X-Arcade, who I am getting the control stick from, and there was a problem with my order - my own fault, not theirs, so I wont be receiving the controller until early next week, which is a setback, but there is still plenty to get done on this, so I wont let it slow me down too much.

I'll be doing some more work on this tomorrow night, and should have more to show after that. Tonight I'm busy with a freelance design job, but I'll have some pretty cool things coming up soon, with any luck at all.

How was everyone's Halloween? I went with my girlfriend and some friends to see Rocky Horror at the nearby university, and had a good time. Nothing like a whole crowd of people shouting "SLUT!" at Susan Sarandon every time she appears on screen. :)

Quick update - I received some supplies today and bought some more at Michael's Craft Store. I'm still waiting for some others, but things are coming together.

Sorry for the vague post, but I promise I'll have a big update tomorrow, with details and pictures. I'll be able to start some of the more artistic aspects of this project tomorrow evening.


Edit: Almost forgot - if you liked my pumpkins above, you really ought to see the winner and honorable mentions from Blizzard's World of Warcraft-themed pumpkin carving contest. All I've got to say is :omg:

Well, this isn't the big update I was planning on having. I did some preliminary painting last night, after cutting out a stencil, and I have to say I am not pleased. The paint ran underneath and the ClearNeon paint works, but not as well as I was hoping - on fine lettering, the stencil actually wicked away the paint while it was wet, preventing it from leaving a good coat.

I'm going back to the drawing board on the painting thing. Anyone recommend a good way to stencil, or a cheap way to create small silk-screens?

On the plus side, I left the memory card for my camera at work, so I didn't get any ugly pictures. :p I'll take a couple to show you what NOT to do tonight, if I get a chance, while I puzzle over how to fix it.

Rank,
What did you use as a stencil? paper Cardboard?.....With out knowing try thin plastic, or better yet stop at your local sign shop and pick up a couple feet of vinyl paint mask (it's thinish clear or frosted vinyl) cut your pattern out then peel the back off and stick it to your work area, paint over it let the paint dry. Then peel the mask off (may need to lightly run a hobby knife around the edges if they look like they'll pull up paint.) Pro's use this allot for custom paint Check out this article (it's over at pimprig...They've got a great paint guy!)
Painting with Stencils

Good Luck (pics please!!) ;)

Crazybillybob

I used clear Contact Paper (very thin vinyl, used for cold lamination) and a repositionable spray adhesive.

I'll take a look at some of that stuff. Thanks CBB.

On a side note, I did some looking around today and found some home silk-screening equipment, built almost like a toy, for making cards. If I can find it and take a look at it, I may invest in it, as it would be very handy. It came with a tiny exposer unit and everything.

New delivery!

I jsut received in the mail four 6' extension cords for the Xbox controllers, AND THIS!

This is a big box of electronic components. I went to Jameco and ordered their grab bag of LEDs and their grab bag of other components (resistors, switches, capacitors, etc etc etc), as well as a couple ICs and mics. I'll have more to show soon, but I wanted to get this up to show off.

/excited!

Rank,
If find more out about the silkscreening thingy post a link..I've got some electronics projects where labels would be nice and silkscreening is the way to go!


Crazybillybob

I sure will.

I spent yesterday doing the electronics thing, and got the sound-activated circuit working on a bread board - it actually hooks right up to the speaker wires, and is volume-dependent, and works perfectly. I soldered the first of two on a small circuit board in basic form, without the LED leads or the power leads connected - I have to create the boards that the LEDs mount in and create a way to connect it to the Molex clips for the 12V PSU. All in all, it worked out great, I've gotta head down to the local Radio Shack and get a few more pieces before I can finish it, and I will be posting pics as soon as I get it all done.

I also picked up a mouse and tore open an old Xbox controller with a malfunctioning button to convert into a Rumble Mouse. I might be able to finish this today, in working form, before I get all artsy-fartsy with it :p . I've got a cool idea for it, and will post a complete work log as I get it done.

So, in other words, progress has been made, but I don't have pics yet. I'll have more to show off soon, however! Thanks for everyone's help on the sound-controlled circuit - I ended up finding a circuit diagram from the IC manufacturer that worked perfectly, and it works with either a 3V PS (think 2 AA batteries) or a 12V PSU, and is a really simple circuit to build. The soldering is the hardest part. It would make for a really cool way to add active LEDs to any computer mod.

Anyway, I'll have more tonight, with any luck.

I am kicking myself right now, because I got all kinds of neat stuff to show off...

...and I left my camera in the barn. I'd go grab it, but it's darn cold outside, and it's nearly bed time.

THe arcade controller showed up in the mail today, and it's looking great! It was the past piece that I needed before I can start designing the front panel.

I got the actual circuit board assembled for the first sound-sensitive LED array. I also cut the array housing backboard out and drilled the holes for the first part, and got some nice pictures of it all.

But, you're gunna have to take my word on all of it, because, again, I'm an idiot that left the camera in the barn. A lazy idiot that doesn't want to go grab it.

Oh well. Heh. I'll have pics up SOON, I'm way overdue for them.

Okay, as promised, here are the pictures, WAY overdue.

I didn't get a chance to do much tonight, as I had freelance work to get done, but Saturday my friend and I split these huge grab bags of electronic components, as I mentioned. Below you can see us sorting the 1900 LEDs.

...and some switches...

...and more stuff. It took about 2 hours to get everything sorted and split.

We followed the circuit diagram, very similar to the one CrazyBillyBob found on the Q&A forum thread earlier and were able to get the circuit running easily on a breadboard. The stereo speaker wire hooks into ground and pin 5 on the IC (LM3915N). You can see the example below - the only thing you can't tell from the picture is that pin 8 has to connect directly to the ground (the resistor is covering the wire in the photo).

I spent some time soldering the circuit to a board, below.

These helping hand things are awesome. They make soldering and any fine painting and stuff much easier. If you do any fine detail work, I highly recommend them.

I've got the circuit completed, sans power leads and LED leads, below.

Not the prettiest layout, but it should be functional. I need to finish the first LED array layout before I can test it.

I got started setting up the LED array mounting bracket last night, and drew it out and cut it out of 1/8" Cintra PVC board.

I drilled the holes at 17/64" and slipped the LEDs and mounting clips through for a test fit. Not bad at all.

They will be hooked into the sound system and light up higher, according to volume. There are five green on the bottom, then three yellow and two red.

The last thing I did was tear off the stencil I did on the front of the Xbox mounting stand and took a look at the damage. I had used Contact Paper, adn it peeled away badly and let the paint seep in. It looked terrible.

On the bright side, however, the ClearNeon paint I used for the blacklight sensitivity worked out okay, but it too came out unrecognizeable.

This is okay, however, as I was planning on cutting the holes in the front all the way down to the bottom. It turns out that I will have to to get the cords through after all. Oh well, it should still look great once it is all together.

The best part came in the mail yesterday, as I mentioned. Check it out!

It's here! It's awesome! And according to the manufacturer, it's frickin bulletproof!!! I can't wait to test THAT! :p

The only problem I see with it is that the buttons are all black. Hmmmmm... do I want to void the lifetime warranty to crack her open and paint the buttons?

Then again, modders aren't really known for caring too much about their warranties. :p

That's all I got for ya at the moment, I'll have more soon. Things are starting to come along, now that I have the controller, I can start measuring and designing for it.

/excited!

Well, think of it this way: if you do open up the controller (which you will), and you end up f**king it up, you get to test if it's actually bullet proof!

Lol!

Well, I actually did some research, and found that the buttons used are standard buttons. They are replaceable, and relatively cheap, and available off of eBay. In fact, there are a number of colors and styles available, including back-lit buttons. I'm debating on which approach I want to use, as my budget is getting tighter and tighter with the approaching holidays coming and the bills for a recent surgery starting to come in the mail.

I'll keep ya posted.

I can't wait to see those sound-reactive LED things in action.

Its been a little while since my last update, for a couple reasons. I've been quite busy with things, and have been working on what was supposed to be a quick mini-mod (coming soon), and just haven't had a chance to get to the next couple steps this thing needs. THings may continue to be slow, as I've got a ton of things to get done on the house, and I just found out I may be getting laid off from my job in a week or two, so money is going to get REAL tight as the holidays come closer and I look for new work.

I'll keep ya posted.

Rank,
Take your time....Family is always number one, Take care of them, we'll wait. I also wish you the very best of luck with the job search! (I'm sure you'll land on your feetsys!) Getting sacked always sucks, but this close to the holidays is just rude! :mad:


Best wishes,
Crazybillybob