Day 9 brings in routing the edges for T-Molding, black paint and wiring switches and lights on the speaker panel.
After my first encounter with the router and doing the T-Molding I was really not looking forward to this part. But, once I got the depth set correctly and went after it, it worked like a charm. I do recommend doing this part before assembly of the cabinet, but since I had only done the primer coats it turned out great. I zipped around the edges and had a good clean groove in no time.
I’m not sure what it is about painting that I don’t like, but I really hate painting. Maybe it’s the monotonous motion of rolling or brushing on the paint, I don’t know. So, I started in on the black paint.
I got bored with painting so I turned my attention to wiring the switches and LED lights on the speaker panel.
I wanted to be able to turn the computer on and off without having to open the front door of the cabinet. So, I took an old computer case and removed the green LED, red LED and the connections running from the power switch and reset switch. The I grabbed a long piece of cat5 cable and connected the motherboard connectors to the ends of each pair of the cat5.
I forgot to get a shot of the wires as they connect to the motherboard on the computer I’m using for the arcade, I’ll add that later. I ran the cable up to where the speaker panel is and connected the wires to the corresponding color pairs that I used at the motherboard end. The LEDs are mounted on the speaker panel by just drilling a small hole and pushing the LEDs into the hole. I’ll get a better shot of the front of the speaker panel later so you can see what I’m talking about.
What you see here is the back of the speaker panel.
One thing I found with the speaker grill is that since my speakers aren’t mounted right up against the speaker panel I was able to see through the speaker grill into the upper area of the cabinet. I took care of this by cutting circles out of a black t-shirt that were slightly smaller than the diameter of the speaker grill.  This let’s the sound through and you can’t see anything behind the speaker grill now!
I still have the drawer, front door and a bunch of touch up painting to do yet.
Day 9 hours: 4 1/2
Next :: Goto Mame Arcade Cabinet – Day 10