Almost there. I figured I’d rig the thing up just to get a better look at it.
I still have to create a base to house the electronics inside the control panel and route out the plexi overlay for that. I’ll make a rounded top as well and put in some support boards to hold the sides together. I’m thinking I’ll bolt the side panels to the base so as not to strip the MDF too badly if I ever need to disassemble and move this thing.
Then just sanding, paint, and hardware install…
Here’s a close-up of the chamfered side panel. Turned out great.
Here’s the cabinet base. I’ve left the back open for easy access to the cabinet internals - I’m building an AMD Phenom II X6 Black Edition 3.2GHz-based PC for this project, integrating a mid-level GeForce GTX 460 GPU. Should be able to run just about everything without any problems.
A bottle of glue and a few clamps is all it took to fuse two of the side pieces together. Later on I’ll use a chamfer bit along the front edges of the side panels to give it that Vewlix cabinet look.
Since I’m not working in my own garage, and it’s full of other people’s things, I had to create a Dexter-esque kill room to contain all of the MDF dust.
Next up was building the sides for the cabinet. I traced one side piece on a piece of MDF and then used a circular saw to cut it out (using a jigsaw for that inner section).
I’ll need four of these total, fusing two-each together to make a 1.5” side panel. The hole in the center is to slide in a 32” LCD TV or monitor in the future. For now, I’m going to install a 27” LED ASUS monitor that’s great for gaming.
After the mishap with my “plexi-template” I went ahead and just used a jigsaw to cut the rounded corners. I should have had more confidence in my jigsaw skills to begin with. After a little bit of sanding, it turned out perfectly.
I got lucky in being able to save this piece.
So, to get the “perfect rounded edges” on my control panel, I thought it’d be a great idea to take some excess plexi-glass and rig it up as a template for routing out the corners with my tracer bit…
And… that was a terrible idea. The plexi flexed pretty badly and I almost ruined the control panel top.
Welp, I’m on my way with the control panel. I spent part of the weekend routing out the control panel to fit all of my arcade components. I made a few mistakes, but nothing serious (all the mistakes will be covered up in the end anyway). I still have to round off the edges of the panel, but it’s otherwise done.
Next up is routing out the plexiglass to put over the panel.
You can view the current photoset on my flickr page here.
Prototype arcade stick to test the fit and feel for the real thing. Picked up the MDF an Plexi-glass today for my 4-player arcade machine control panel. I’ll post the designs later this week.
