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If you put your arm out the window of an airplane at 100 knots (120 mph, 180 km/h) some interesting things happen to you.

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No matter how well you plan something, it will never go quite as planned, or after its done you’ll find a better or easier way of doing it. In my case, there are a number of ‘time wasters’ and things I’ld change. In the order of importance to me (either lots of time wasted, money I could have saved, or something I could have done for a better result).

1. Don’t bother with Windows or DOS. I liked glaunch as a front end but had numerous problems with sound card compatibility due to the allegro library it uses. I ended up using AdvanceCD on a hard drive – it works a treat!

2. Move the damn hand holds on the back panel down about 5 inches. I was rushing when I cut the vents and hence they allow light into the screen area. The idea of them was so they could be used as grips for moving it and as vents to let hot air out – they look good, but just should have been a little lower.

3. Don’t try to put glass around the joysticks/buttons. Each of the buttons clamps the glass and the joysticks put numerous stresses on it, not to mention already being weakened from all the holes. In the end, I believe the black perspex looked better than the glass.

4. Dented chrome is hard to panelbeat. I brought my cabinet with a bad dent in a piece of chromed steel. It needs replacing, but I’m having trouble finding a replacement. I gave it a bit of a panelbeat and it went from looking about 2/10 to 7.5/10.

5. Take your time

I was determined to complete the cabinet today as this evening we were having people over for bithday celebrations. I made a mounting bracket out of plate steel for the hard drive. I mounted the power supply the easiest way i knew how (Opened it up, removed pcb, screwed bottom half of case to cabinet then replaced pcb and top of case).

I made some vent holes in the back panel I made for the cabinet and at the bottom left corner I fitted a cooling fan to suck air from outside and blow it directly over the motherboard. I masked off the area around the screen and painted it all black. Once dry I masked off the front of the screen and painted the sides of the glass tube and metal mounts black. After fitting the screen into the cabinet, it looked awesome.

To make transport easier (and safer from breakages), I can remove the back panel and take out the monitor and hard drive within a minute.

Rear view

(Almost) Finished cabinet.

The machine went well with lots of people commenting on it. I only need to design and fit a surround for around the screen. This isn’t overly urgent as with the tinted glass and lots of black paint, very little can be seen.

I picked up the locks from a locksmith. I decided not to spend the money on the radial locks with the round keys as the price was fairly high. I ended up paying $20 each for the locks from Armstrong Locksmiths. I definitely do not recommend this company as they are almost double the 2nd highest price I was quoted. I only used them as they were on the way to work.

I repainted the coinbox door and the coin mechanism door and fitted the new locks. They look a million bucks!

I got the perspex on Friday – They managed to get me black perspex so it doesn’t even need painting. I fitted the perspex and it looks awesome – so shiny! I finished taking the computer apart and mounted the everything but the power supply and hard drive.

PC partly installed

Shiny black perspex

Its all starting to come together now. I really only need to finish mounting the pc, cut some vent holes in my back panel and paint around the monitor.

I will get out to a lock smiths during the week and pick up some locks for the coin doors.

I finally got around to mounting the Subwoofer/Amp and taking a photo of the cracked glass. My perspex should be ready on friday which will rock.

The cracked glass

Subwoofer in place

The subwoofer vent will be vented out through the back panel I have made. The left hand speaker is causing issues with the monitor – strange as the right hand speaker is actually closer and not causing problems