Speaker grills...

[motorollin]

Ok, I know there are some clever people here who are more practical than I am, so hopefully I can get some good advice.

I've almost finished my MAME/UAE cabinet but I'm held back by the speaker grills. Here's a picture of where the speakers will be:



The holes for the speakers are 64mm (2 1/2 inches) in diameter. I want some kind of grill covering each hole, but I would prefer for it not to be visibly attached. In other words, I don't want to screw it on from underneath. I tried cutting down the speaker grill which came with the speakers then bending the edges up to make it the correct diameter to fit inside the hole, but it was too inflexible and by the time I had finished it was too distorted to fit properly (and looked awful).

I then considered chiselling a square around the holes a couple of mm deep, gluing a square grill in to the chiselled out area, then using filler on the part which overlaps the wood, leaving visible grill only where the hole is. It should all be flush with the wood. The problem is that the cabinet is made of MDF which tends to fray when you cut or chisel it, and I have a feeling the edges of the chiselled area would look untidy.

So, the first person to come up with a viable option gets a pint on me. Hodgkinson I know you like building stuff, so I'm expecting a reply from you ;-)

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moto

[motorollin]

Indeed :-) But you bought more, and lunch... so I still owe you ;-)

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moto

[motorollin]

@Oliver
That's a brilliant solution! You win :-D

:pint:
(An ePint will have to do for now...)

@Speel
I've already got an original XBOX with a mod chip. I have replaced the hard drive with a nice big one, XBOX Media Center, loads of emulators and games... it's great :-) I bought arcade machine controls from Happ Controls and soldered them on to the PCB of an XBOX pad, so I can control the emulator games with the arcade controls. It's great - feels just like the real thing! I'll post loads of pics when it's all done.

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moto

[motorollin]

@Speel
Then build one yourself :-) I had the cabinet made for me since I'm not good at DIY. But everything else I did myself. It's not that difficult, and not particularly expensive. The arcade controls are really cheap, and you only need basic tools to do it. I'll post a full report once it's done ;-)

@Oliver
If I'm ever in Aus I'll buy you a real one ;-) And yes I do love games and I've always wanted an arcade machine!

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moto

[motorollin]

Oliver wrote:
edit-I just remembered I have an arcade style driving game rig sitting in my games room. I was thinking just how extravagent your gaming hobby is. I forgot that I have vetured down that path a little myself.

Heh, the arcade machine isn't that extravagant. The XBOX was a Christmas present years ago, and the cabinet was built for me as a birthday present. These were the most expensive components. The only other things I have bought were the arcade controls, which were only a few pounds each (there are 8 buttons and a joystick, which I think was about £10), the translucent marquee at the top (which IIRC cost me about £50) and the graphics overlay for the control panel, which Adz printed for me for the cost of postage :-D

Oliver wrote:
My driving rig is a PVC frame, with Honda CRX seat, heavy arcade grade steering wheel, sequential shifter, three pedal set, and a bread-board interface waiting to be made into a PCB (I will deisgn a hack to make it work with PS2 GT4).

What games does it work with currently? I'd love to use it with Crazy Taxi - that game is awesome in the arcades :-D

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moto

[motorollin]

My speaker cloth finally arrived today. There's loads of it, and just as well as it took me a few goes to get this right. In the end the material I used for the ring to hold the cloth in place was the thin, flexible plastic which went around my birthday cake! (Washed of course). I spent ages trying to cut pieces of speaker cloth in a perfect circle just larger than the diameter of the ring and then folding the edges up and attaching them... this resulted in me losing my temper. So I ended up cutting a large square of speaker cloth, laying it over the hole in the cabinet, and then just using the plastic ring to extrude the cloth in to the hole. It worked exceptionally well!

View from the top (inside the upper part of the cabinet) showing the plastic ring in place

How it looks from underneath (this will look better once the inside of the hole is painted black)

Thanks again Oli :-D :pint:

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moto