My latest project

viewsonix

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Been working on this a little at a time, here are some shots along the way....
Starting at the beginning!
 

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Haha, I like the comments, I'll keep posting a bit at a time, see if you can get warmer....
 

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Paul, is this anything?



images


I think it could be something!



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It could be, but at this stage it's nothing.


images


Well, on further review, I concur. It's nothing.



/I'll check back in a week.
 
Lovin' the comments, this is better than posting it all at once!


Found a source for cheap plexi, since Home Depot was pricey.
 

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The Plan

It was going to be a Star Wars Chair, then I realized that I could just buy that on ebay so I didnt have to make one. :p

Now we get down to details!

I decided I wanted to make something for my son's 5 year old birthday. I wanted him to have something that he can play on so that he doesn't feel left out when I'm playing one of my arcade machines.

Since I don't have a PacMan or something more suitable for him yet, and he loves Buzz Lightyear, I decided it would have to be scratch built just for him.

I saw in target that they had those Jakks 5 in 1 Pixar/Disney games that plug into the TV. 2 of the games are from Toy Story. I checked out the games and they were completely nonviolent so we could go with that. (I originally wanted to do the Jakks PacMan box, but some of the games on it might not fly past the PC school he goes to). With the Jakks selected, I would only need the wood, TV, and artwork. I found a $10 Sony Trinitron tv from a yard sale, so that took care of the TV.

I knew most of the work would be in making a cabinet, but that wasn't the concern for me as much as the artwork. I wanted something that would look alot like something that would be in an arcade, kind of like the way Atari did it, with large artwork on the sides and front. I knew that I would have to make some of the artwork from scratch, which would be tough with my bad graphic artist skills.

From my kid's height, I knew that a cab 48 inches tall would be a good height, so that meant I could use precut sheets of MDF from Home Depot that were 24x48. Some trimming and the sides would be done.

So I started looking all over the net for pictures/posters/jpegs of Buzz.
What I found right off was a great 24x36 poster of him standing up all by himself. I cut that down to just Buzz with no background.

Before I started cutting the MDF, I cut a big piece of cardboard to the same size, and then started positioning the Buzz cut out on to it, so I could see how it would 'fit' best on the side.
 

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It was going to be a Star Wars Chair, then I realized that I could just buy that on ebay so I didnt have to make one. :p

Now we get down to details!

I decided I wanted to make something for my son's 5 year old birthday. I wanted him to have something that he can play on so that he doesn't feel left out when I'm playing one of my arcade machines.

Since I don't have a PacMan or something more suitable for him yet, and he loves Buzz Lightyear, I decided it would have to be scratch built just for him.

I saw in target that they had those Jakks 5 in 1 Pixar/Disney games that plug into the TV. 2 of the games are from Toy Story. I checked out the games and they were completely nonviolent so we could go with that. (I originally wanted to do the Jakks PacMan box, but some of the games on it might not fly past the PC school he goes to). With the Jakks selected, I would only need the wood, TV, and artwork. I found a $10 Sony Trinitron tv from a yard sale, so that took care of the TV.

I knew most of the work would be in making a cabinet, but that wasn't the concern for me as much as the artwork. I wanted something that would look alot like something that would be in an arcade, kind of like the way Atari did it, with large artwork on the sides and front. I knew that I would have to make some of the artwork from scratch, which would be tough with my bad graphic artist skills.

From my kid's height, I knew that a cab 48 inches tall would be a good height, so that meant I could use precut sheets of MDF from Home Depot that were 24x48. Some trimming and the sides would be done.

So I started looking all over the net for pictures/posters/jpegs of Buzz.
What I found right off was a great 24x36 poster of him standing up all by himself. I cut that down to just Buzz with no background.

Before I started cutting the MDF, I cut a big piece of cardboard to the same size, and then started positioning the Buzz cut out on to it, so I could see how it would 'fit' best on the side.

Wow, way cool! Best dad EVER!

Keep us updated with lots of pics :)

Chris
 
Jakks

When I started the project I figured that if I could successfully take apart the Jakks and rewire it to use arcade controls I would be ok. What I didn't know was that I had probably picked the worst Jakks game to do.

The PacMan Jakks uses a separate board for the joystick and for the buttons, that interfaces with the main board by some short wires. This type of set up is easy to swap out, just hook up arcade controls instead of the Jakks controls.

The problem was that the Pixar Jakks doesn't use this type of design. The joystick board/connections are surfaced mounted on the main Jakks game board. This means I have 2 options, 1) somehow solder some wires onto the surface mount connections to hook up an arcade joystick, or 2) recreate the framework inside the new control panel to house the main pcb and the original joystick.

With my poor soldering skills, I tried option 2 first. I was able to rebuild the housing under the new control panel, but the problem was the joystick isn't very strong. My kid likes to work the controls pretty hard and there's no way that jakks joystick would be able to handle the stress.

I'm going to have to do the first option and solder the wires to the surface mount connections. Those connections will be very delicate though so I will have to work out a box or some sort of bracing mechanism that won't let them get moved once this is installed.
 

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framework done

Meanwhile I continued on the cabinet, and installed the sides and the upper marquee light.

I had to hunt around till I finally found a small 12 inch fluorescent fixture from Walmart that was AC powered. Most of these little lights are battery powered, and that won't work for what I need. Everything in the cab will plug into a powerstrip in the bottom of the cabinet for power, I'm not going to be opening this up every other week to swap batteries out.

I had to order an AC adapter for the Jakks box, I couldn't find a 6volt adapter anywhere and time was growing short.
 

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then what???

Sorry I left this thread to die for 5 months(!!!) so let's finish it up for the one or two who might vaguely remember it....

The side art was taken care of by ordering the 2 posters, but I still needed art for the front kick plate and for the marquee. My original plan was much more ambitious, in that I was going to print out a bezel for the plexi as well. That got canceled due to time constraints, but I could go back if I liked later.

I got lucky on the kick art, after searching through 'Buzz Lightyear' pictures for like hours on the net, I stumbled onto a pic of Buzz that must have been from some promotional art.

Plus, it was in high res so I could enlarge it no problem! EXCELLENT!
I printed it out at a photo lab in a small poster size, then cut it to fit the front kick panel. I used some 3M spray adhesive to fix it to the board....
 

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