Worth it. Still a bit off the mark but totally worth the exercise. Rough cut, second roughing, and finish with a 30 deg V (kept breaking the 0.6 bits).
Thanks again for the inspiration @David
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Are you doing an upright arcade cabinet or a cocktail one? A cocktail RetroPi cabinet was my first real CNC project, RetroActive in Edmonton was a great source for buttons and whatnot. Find a better glass cutter than I did.
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I have a feeling I’m going to build two. One - a traditional stand up cabinet and then a second, new age wall hung with a pedestal control unit. We don’t have room for the full stand up so it may live in the shop, the neighbours garage or just outside somewhere. Or sold as a carcass.
I’ve seen that RetroActive guy’s site. Actually the printer I use prints all of his graphics. I’m dying to know how he got around / gets around the copyright issues on his units. Or maybe he just hasn’t been caught. Surely he can’t sell cabinets with the software loaded and running? Some conversations are best just not had.
I built this one for a friend in one of those, “Oh no, don’t buy one, I can make it for you.” moments of idiocy. I think a wall hanging unit is the best way to go, less space taken up and you’re not limited to vertical games. One that mounts to the front of a treadmill would be fantastic.
What is a pedestal control unit?
The emulators that run the games are free from copyright and don’t require breaking any laws. But to run the game, you have to get a copy of the code for the game. They call those "ROM"s. The roms can be made from games you own legally, as a backup (or at least that used to be the case). But what everyone does is just google the game name plus “rom” and download the game and a few viruses from the first hit. IANAL, but I think the websites delivering the rom are technically doing the illegal part.
I want to make a tabletop one, and I would mostly like to share NES games with my kids. I can do that because I have no idea where a cabinet would go, but I have lots of tables!
Putting on a treadmill would make me want to put a chair on a treadmill, or get a wireless controller 
I call this a pedestal setup. Although I’d build something even less intrusive. More modern. I saw a gorgeous one not long ago. I think it was a commercial unit actually.
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Hmmm. That is interesting. So a wall mounted on would be like a control shelf, without the cabinet below? That seems like a good use of space.
Yup. I find it funny that a lot of the wall mounted ones I see are still built / shaped / designed to harken back to the full cabinet design. Some of them look quite literally like the parts that were in the way were just cut off until the unit was close enough to the wall to not be too in the way.
There's an Instructable where the guy built in motion sensors that woke the machine up if you walked too close to it. LED lights would glow and then if it sensed it had drawn you in and you were still there it fires up the console. Super super cool. And then you just walk away and it all quietly goes to sleep. It's like the cabinet is alive. I'd LOVE to go that far and then install the damn thing at the end of my driveway so anyone walking by could stop and play. But then I might need to put a coin op actuator on it ;)Truth be told, my biggest fantasy is to build a functioning Zoltar machine for the end of my driveway. Mark my words - one day it’ll exist!
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My goal last weekend was to create access to the attic space on the south end of the house. I had a pull down ladder setup I found at Vinnie’s for $10 a few months back and no existing access. I also make smoked hot dogs for lunch while three of us worked on the project (90 minutes to make hot dogs, but they sure were good!). It was just past dinner time when we finished and there were more surprises than expected. It turns out that under the sheetrock on the ceiling was ship lap boards, so finding the ‘studs’ by moving a magnet around actually found where the sheetrock was nailed to the ship lap, not where the ship lap was nailed to the joists. Also, someone stored a bunch of stuff up there in the early 30s and it’s been pretty much untouched since. There was most of a library of books, some really interesting (1919 edition of vols 1 & 5 of Automobile Engineering), some less so (Fourth Grade Reader from 1924). We also found a pool table and some boxes that toys came in. Unfortunately not the toys themselves and the pool table was sans balls and sticks.
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My goal last weekend was to create access to the attic space on the south end of the house. I had a pull down ladder setup I found at Vinnie’s for $10 a few months back and no existing access. I also make smoked hot dogs for lunch while three of us worked on the project (90 minutes to make hot dogs, but they sure were good!). It was just past dinner time when we finished and there were more surprises than expected. It turns out that under the sheetrock on the ceiling was ship lap boards, so finding the ‘studs’ by moving a magnet around actually found where the sheetrock was nailed to the ship lap, not where the ship lap was nailed to the joists. Also, someone stored a bunch of stuff up there in the early 30s and it’s been pretty much untouched since. There was most of a library of books, some really interesting (1919 edition of vols 1 & 5 of Automobile Engineering), some less so (Fourth Grade Reader from 1924). We also found a pool table and some boxes that toys came in. Unfortunately not the toys themselves and the pool table was sans balls and sticks.
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A treasure of finds like that would have surely distracted me the rest of the day.
Bill,
Any interest in renting out the Automobile Engineering Books? I could have them back in a week or so. Media mail is cheap. There is a lot of old knowledge in those books. Common sense knowledge, that’s not real common anymore.
Tom
Well, in an unexpected turn of events (boredom last night) I started the MOCO project and with the help of the V1 gang…it’s done! One more off the list.
Bill,
Thanks, there headed to my house. Older is better on books like this.
I might also recommend:
Ingenious Mechanisms for Designers and Inventors, Camshafts, crankshafts, pitman arms, bell cranks
Henley’s Formulas, Processes and Trade Secrets, There are cough medicine formulas in the 1900’s that all start with opium, you don’t feel any better, you just don’t care.
Machinist’s Handbook- I have a 1943 edition, with metal coloring section, and a spring chart that gives what size mandrel and what size piano wire to make what size spring. I made a mandrel for a spring belt. The end of the spring tapers down so it will screw into the other end, making a belt in a fan like this.[attachment file=98923]
Most newer versions are available online now.
I had to come back here to check what I was “supposed to” be trying to accomplish. The carving season is full on again here and it appears many of my weekends are going to the chainsaws rather than the list! Not complaining - just staying accountable here ; )
Here’s last Saturday’s “my arms might fall off” marathon sprint (I only had the one day to pull this off for the guy and his budget). The trio of trees is actually where the kids’ treehouse lives - he just removed it to save it from stray chainsaw chains. I’ll be back there in a few days to get a photo of it with the treehouse all back in place.
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That is really cool!!
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Great, not I need a tree house.