my Official Samtron 6" monitor conversion kit FS thread

[TheShanMan]

Sounds like it's because of the size of the print. It has to be printed on a printer with a large enough bed to print it. I've been pretty clear about that concern here and on the thingiverse page. It's an unfortunate constraint, but the size of the CRT and chassis force the size to be that big, unless it was to be designed very differently - not having a single printed part per side. Since your friend has a larger printer, sounds like he'll be able to print it on that one. LMK how it goes!

 

[joemagiera]

How did your print turn out?

Just got an update from my 3D print buddy. See attached. He had this to say on it so far:

>figured out the issue and the bottom has been printed. top is printing now. issue was the print was too large for my smaller printer even though the guy who designed it made it sound like it would fit. I had to install a few upgrades to my larger printer and this was the perfect time to do it. Printing it in high temp recycled PETG.

 

[TheShanMan]

Glad it's working out now. I said quite the opposite about fitting though so I don't know why he'd say that.

 

[joemagiera]

Since 3D printed frames came up here, I wanted to share the frame I designed and printed. It was kinda tough because the length of the cardboard box is greater than the dimensions of my print bed (ender 3), so I had to shorten it as much as possible, down to 232.9mm. Even then, I wouldn't have been able to print it with stock firmware. I've installed marlin, customized to print to the extreme edges of my bed and this print literally uses the full width to the point were an extra 0.5mm would mean printing off the left and right edges of the bed. The frame barely extends past the pcb and neck board, so I couldn't make it much shorter than it already is. I could've printed upward to give a little more breathing room but decided this was the best way for me to go overall. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

I'm sure creative 3D printed part designers could come up with something better and if someone does, I'd love to see it.

Hey Shan,
My buddy 3D printed your model a while back and I'm finally getting a chance to put it together. It looks good. I have one question. How did you connect the chassis to the base of the frame? Did you screw it in from the top (going down) or bottom (coming up). Either way I can't figure out how to get it to where the screws don't scratch up the surface of what the frame sits on. What did you do?

 

[DuffCon]

@PrairieDillo are there any completed monitors for sale? I'm local so you don't have to ship.

 

[PrairieDillo]

I have not really worked on this much. i have some parts but did not do an inventory yet

 

[TheShanMan]

Hey Shan,
My buddy 3D printed your model a while back and I'm finally getting a chance to put it together. It looks good. I have one question. How did you connect the chassis to the base of the frame? Did you screw it in from the top (going down) or bottom (coming up). Either way I can't figure out how to get it to where the screws don't scratch up the surface of what the frame sits on. What did you do?

@joemagiera From the top. Sounds like your screws are too long. The thingiverse link has info on assembly such as screws to use. That said, if your screws are too long, you could either cut them shorter with a dremel or install rubber feet on the bottom side, which is probably a good thing to do anyway.

 

[joemagiera]

Nice frame design by Shan.
My feedback:
The screw sizes are dead on.
On assembling (I had the help of a buddy):
I'd go with mounting the monitor PCB chassis to the bottom first. I went to two different hardware stores (Ace and True Value) and the recommended screws, 6x32 1/4", both stores: "non-standard size we don't carry it". Shortest I could get was 3/8". Instead of dremmeling them down, we just used a washer to take up the extra space. Self-tapped easily and got a nice tight fit with nothing sticking out the bottom.
Next was mounting the monitor. That got a little tricky. There is no front panel, the bottom, top and sides make up the front. Getting them all together, plus the monitor took some patience. From Shan's pictures, you can see he screwed in from the front. After trying both ways, we decided to screw in from the back. Took some patience and an extra long screw driver, but we got it done. Fit nice and tight. Oh, and I used lock nuts for the monitor mounting.
Finally the back screws, Just took a little getting everything in line properly, but screws self tapped easily for a nice tight fit.
For the back door to fit, you need to have the monitor ears in front of the front end frame assembly.

Nice tight solid fit! Good job Shan!

Plugged it in today and all working fine. Nice lightweight small test bench monitor.

 

[DuffCon]

Love it! Now make me one!

 

[TheShanMan]

@joemagiera I think I used a socket and long socket extension to thread into the nuts on the back side but your way definitely works just as well. I think I got my 6-32 1/4" screws from Home Depot. My Ace didn't have them either, which surprised me because I usually think of Ace as having hardware Home Depot wouldn't bother carrying, not the other way around!

Love seeing yours put together! Thanks for posting!

 

[DuffCon]

I had to order some parts from digikey, so I picked up the parts for this project. I noticed from the Parts list:

A simple sync separator circuit for the Samtron CRT for JAMMA arcade PCBs

A simple circuitboard is available to make these cute monitors work with composite sync for a variety of videogaming uses.

nimbleswitch.com

that the sync separator chip (LM1881) was discontinued so I got one on eBay, but accidentally bought 10!

So to who wants to build this, I'd be happy to share my extra for free, just PM me.

Thanks to @PrairieDillo for hooking me up.

 

[joemagiera]

I had to order some parts from digikey, so I picked up the parts for this project. I noticed from the Parts list:

A simple sync separator circuit for the Samtron CRT for JAMMA arcade PCBs

A simple circuitboard is available to make these cute monitors work with composite sync for a variety of videogaming uses.

nimbleswitch.com

that the sync separator chip (LM1881) was discontinued so I got one on eBay, but accidentally bought 10!

So to who wants to build this, I'd be happy to share my extra for free, just PM me.

Thanks to @PrairieDillo for hooking me up.

I could definitely use a couple, as I have two of those monitors.

[email protected]

 

[joemagiera]

FYI, I actually have 3 of those monitors, but one has been cared for already.