hardnrg Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 Cheers. Even though it's not going to be seen, I think the closer it is to the design (i.e. minimal clearance of components) the more rigid the control panel will be. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hardnrg Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 Plywood sub-panel I wasn't sure if I even had time to do this tonight, as I work out of town on a Wednesday and get back home later. Ended up finishing about 10:30pm! Boohoo lol. Well anyway, I set to getting on with the plywood sub-panel layer and cut out some A4 size rectangles using a circular saw, using the saw's sliding fence guide or a clamped on piece of MDF sheet as a fence. The 2 plywood pieces were too thick to be clamped to the scrap ply because I only have 2" G-clamps... well, I don't think I have any type of large clamp actually. So, I clamped the 2 plywood pieces onto one of the scrap MDF sheets (the same one I've been using as a guide for the LED holder holes) and started cutting 8mm holes and various holesaw holes in the same way as the previous layer. The discs from each layer are a fair bit bigger: After the laborious task of cutting through two layers of plywood with 3 different size holesaws, jigsawing out the shaped holes, and smoothing out the cuts with a sanding drum rotary tool, I ended up with this: Here's the Sanwa JLF (Stonerboy, now you can see the 5-pin header), ok so on the bottom, on either side in the 2nd photo you can see two plastic sections that jut out. I must have measured these wrong because the square hole area in the plywood was just a touch too small (my digital caliper battery is nearly dead, so the readings go a bit haywire). Not to worry, all I needed to do was chisel out a little section at the top and bottom to clear these plastic bits: So, all four sub-panels of the control panel are complete! I guess that's the first stage really; the next being constructing the frame/box for the control panel to sit in, and then the wiring/electronics, and the last bit will be the aesthetics of printed artwork and whatever wood finish I decide on... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stonerboy779 Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 Plywood sub-panel I wasn't sure if I even had time to do this tonight, as I work out of town on a Wednesday and get back home later. Ended up finishing about 10:30pm! Boohoo lol. Well anyway, I set to getting on with the plywood sub-panel layer and cut out some A4 size rectangles using a circular saw, using the saw's sliding fence guide or a clamped on piece of MDF sheet as a fence. The 2 plywood pieces were too thick to be clamped to the scrap ply because I only have 2" G-clamps... well, I don't think I have any type of large clamp actually. So, I clamped the 2 plywood pieces onto one of the scrap MDF sheets (the same one I've been using as a guide for the LED holder holes) and started cutting 8mm holes and various holesaw holes in the same way as the previous layer. The discs from each layer are a fair bit bigger: After the laborious task of cutting through two layers of plywood with 3 different size holesaws, jigsawing out the shaped holes, and smoothing out the cuts with a sanding drum rotary tool, I ended up with this: Here's the Sanwa JLF (Stonerboy, now you can see the 5-pin header), ok so on the bottom, on either side in the 2nd photo you can see two plastic sections that jut out. I must have measured these wrong because the square hole area in the plywood was just a touch too small (my digital caliper battery is nearly dead, so the readings go a bit haywire). Not to worry, all I needed to do was chisel out a little section at the top and bottom to clear these plastic bits: So, all four sub-panels of the control panel are complete! I guess that's the first stage really; the next being constructing the frame/box for the control panel to sit in, and then the wiring/electronics, and the last bit will be the aesthetics of printed artwork and whatever wood finish I decide on... Looking good there. Love a bit of swana product let us know how that particular stick performs when all is done, never used the ones with a pcb. With the way this is going I reckon we will see completion maybe over the coming weekend, your powering out all those layers nicely. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hardnrg Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 Heh, I think it'd be optimistic to think I'll finish this weekend... I might possibly have time to buy the hardwood tomorrow and do the bevel rip cuts and mitres... but I don't really think I'll have the time or energy to assemble it to a frame/box... Friday is beer + games night, which normally ends up carrying on until the early hours of Saturday... wake up Saturday noon/afternoon feeling tired and weary lol... so I might do some more building on Saturday... probably more likely Sunday... the wiring will take a while since I have to tack 20 wires onto each PCB, and also mod them with fixed value resistors to replace the analog stick pots... then a whole load of soldering for all the buttons and USB wiring... maybe next weekend I'll be done... or... maybe next Friday? I dunno, I don't want to rush the wood finish if it's a case of waiting a day for something to cure/dry and then sanding, cure/dry a day, sand, etc... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stonerboy779 Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 Heh, I think it'd be optimistic to think I'll finish this weekend... I might possibly have time to buy the hardwood tomorrow and do the bevel rip cuts and mitres... but I don't really think I'll have the time or energy to assemble it to a frame/box... Friday is beer + games night, which normally ends up carrying on until the early hours of Saturday... wake up Saturday noon/afternoon feeling tired and weary lol... so I might do some more building on Saturday... probably more likely Sunday... the wiring will take a while since I have to tack 20 wires onto each PCB, and also mod them with fixed value resistors to replace the analog stick pots... then a whole load of soldering for all the buttons and USB wiring... maybe next weekend I'll be done... or... maybe next Friday? I dunno, I don't want to rush the wood finish if it's a case of waiting a day for something to cure/dry and then sanding, cure/dry a day, sand, etc... Fair enough don't want to melt a pcb rushing soldering either.... Molten board never goes down well. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bishop245 Posted September 1, 2011 Posted September 1, 2011 looking good hardnrg and lord its amazin what some of us will do just to play games lol Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluePanda Posted September 1, 2011 Posted September 1, 2011 I'm so excited for this. I don't know why -- looking forward to more pictures!!!!!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hardnrg Posted September 1, 2011 Posted September 1, 2011 Hardwood* sides - bevelled rip cut * (hmm, it turns out that the "Redwood" I bought is actually a softwood... bah... well... it's harder then pine and didn't break the bank... I'll probably just look into some wood hardening methods) As expected, taking a trip to B&Q to get some wood, dowelling, and a square & combination square (it's also a mitre, scribe distancer, level, etc. )... all that took a while, and traffic was pretty bad, so I didn't have much time this evening... but, I was determined to do the bevel cuts along the length of the redwood I bought, so I studied the drawings and investigated the circular saw @ 45 degrees to see where the blade position ended up, and tried to figure out how to set up the timber to do a fenced rip-cut. When we dismantled the built-in wardrobes in our main bedroom, we kept a couple of the panels as a make-shift wallpaper pasting table. These are really long, about 2.4m / 8ft, so using one as a platform seemed like a good idea. I put a couple of the scrap plywood pieces on my "workmate" to widen the surface, and then laid the wardrobe panel on top. At first, I looked at bevelling the outside edge of the timber, but because the saw's fence/guide goes down further than the timber is thick, it ended up touching the wardrobe panel before the saw plate could lay flat on the timber... I've only recently got this circular saw, and haven't really used them before, and I remembered reading that you are supposed to set the cutting depth only slightly deeper than the material, so I realised it would be possible to bevel the inside edge, cutting in the other direction, and the saw's ripping guide could hang over the outside edge. I couldn't do the rip in one go and had to stop the saw, move the next clamp out of the way (behind the saw, at the start of the timber), and then continue, then move a clamp, etc. This pretty much worked, but there are some gouges at the stop/start positions. When I did the second piece, I only did two stop/starts, one as soon as there was space behind the saw to clamp down, and then another stop/start right near the end, just before the end clamp. So I only used two clamps the second time. I'm pretty happy with the result! The cross section is pretty true to the design, and fairly consistent along the length, so the bevelled lengths should make nice sides for the box, with a bit of touch up sanding. I really wish my finding skills were stronger this evening... I closed the garage door to reduce the noise, and was using one of those crappy disposable face masks that doesn't even fit your face and just sort of covers your nose area, and the air still gets in at the sides. I can still feel the sawdust in my throat and I'm sure I have a bag of sawdust in my lungs lol. For the second timber, I spotted my decent filter mask, which was in plain view, right next to where I was working lol. Totally essential, eye, ear and lung protection! I picked up the dowelling because I want to make a strong mitre joint, and found an excellent photoset of someone making a dowelled mitre joint: http://www.woodrat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2242 So, this is what I'm planning on doing next, mitre cutting the bevelled lengths to produce all the sides, cutting the recessed hole for the USB socket in one of them, and then cutting holes for some dowel pieces. I'll probably dry test-fit them together, and mark out where the internal supports need to be... anyway, probably won't be doing any more work on this til Sunday now... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stonerboy779 Posted September 1, 2011 Posted September 1, 2011 looking good in the safety gear The cuts are also looking good very straight. Hopefully they all line up now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hardnrg Posted September 3, 2011 Posted September 3, 2011 Redwood sides - mitre cuts Well, I was a little tired today after a very late night of playing Prototype on PS3 with some wine, pizza and half a litre of vodka over the course of the night, but I was determined to carry on with the redwood sides, and got on with tackling the mitre cuts for the redwood sides. Initially, I thought my mitre-saw would be a good idea for the 45 degree mitres, since... well, it's in the name, it's a saw for mitre cuts, and it can lock at exactly 45 degrees. The saw was a bit rusty since I haven't used it in ages, so the brown stuff you can see on the wood is oil+rust. Ignore that really, and just look at the cut, it's very rough, textured and grainy. The end of the cut had a fair bit of splintering, too much to be acceptable. But, this is the worst part that meant the mitre saw was useless for cutting the redwood sides: the direction of the cut is nowhere near square, so there is absolutely no chance of the corners meeting flush and forming a decent, square, right angle. I took another scrap piece of plywood and sacrificed one of the lengths of redwood, cutting a few sections and laying them together, drilling through and screwing the outer two into place. I used a set square as a cutting fence, set the circular saw at 45 degrees and cut off the end of the cutting rig. I then attached a section of redwood across the two others, as a permanent cutting fence for the circular saw. Cool, so I made a decent cutting guide/jig/rig for cutting the mitres with the circular saw. The cross piece acts as a fence for the circular saw. It was an extremely tight fit, and I ended up having to cut out the central section of this cross piece so that the work piece could be placed into, and removed from, the guide without the need for a hammer! Excellent result! The cutting rig allowed me to move the saw very precisely through the work piece and gave a nice clean cut. After a little while, I managed to cut a long and short side to exactly the length I wanted. The mitre cuts are not 100% perfect, but I think with a tiny bit of sanding, they'll produce some really nice corners. I realised the other day that I have to buy a 16mm wood drill bit, in order to drill the through-hole part of the USB recessed hole. I'm going to do this before doing the dowel holes and putting the sides together to form a box. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stonerboy779 Posted September 3, 2011 Posted September 3, 2011 I reckon you need to invest in a drop saw if you can find a really decent one around $400 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hardnrg Posted September 4, 2011 Posted September 4, 2011 Heh... while I'd like one, I'd not really need it most of the time, and there are too many things that I need/want more for that kinda money... I think I can get by with the circular saw for a while... I'm sure I'll have a real pillar drill, lathe, bandsaw, drop saw, milling machine, router, etc. later in my life... I'd need to fix up the garage a bit first though lol... I think I'd like a tool chest first, I've got way too many toolboxes and numerous tools without cases! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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