Archive for the ‘Current Project’ Category

Case Commissions on the rise

Posted: 03/19/2013 in Current Project, General News
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Word seems to have gotten out about the work I’ve been doing for other modders and in the last week alone I’ve taken on over 5 new case jobs for 3 different modders doing console commissions for other people as well. Now this doesn’t sound like a lot but compared to previous numbers of 1 or 2 jobs a month, 5 in a week is quite the increase.

The job above is a simple case cut from a Poly Case SL-68 for MBB forum member [Gman] who runs a small operation known a [Gman Modz]. He’s been doing some pretty impressive work as of late and I’m glad to be helping him out with some of his projects. This one was a run of 3 cases, all cut the same and are for Portable Nintendo 64’s. Given the size of these cases, it will be quite impressive to see these completed.

That said, I am also in the process of doing a full vacuumed-formed custom Portable Game Cube casing which will have a surprising similarity to another console on the market today. Stay tuned for that one!

Vacuum Former Update

Posted: 03/10/2013 in Current Project, General News
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Been quite awhile since I posted a new video and though it’s nothing special, it’s still an update in video form.

For those who don’t know, for the past year now I’ve been working on a new vacuum forming machine with friend and owner of Complex Mold & Machine, Jon Seik. He’s got a very well set-up shop and his experiences in machine and mold design have been ever so helpful in this process. I’m not sure how much longer this is going to take to complete, but it’s a fun time every time we get to work on it.

Anyway, here’s the video and as always if you have any questions or just feel like making some noise, feel free to leave comment below!

 

 

CNC Control Box done and working

Posted: 03/01/2013 in Current Project
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So after suffering from some of the biggest headaches I’ve had to deal with in a long time, the control box for my router is completed. I wanna thank my friend [Dave Russo] for coming over and not only help solve the issue with CNC (which of course was only a single wire connected incorrectly) but also for helping me fix my main PC and upgrading to a Solid State Drive. Much thanks my friend.

So back to the CNC, the general premise of the project was to make up some space that my old PC tower and the CNC control box itself was taking up. Granted now a lot more space on top is taken up, everything is now in one location and even has a nifty little PSOne screen acting as a second monitor for the PC!

Though this isn’t perfect, it does the job. I will be trying to mod the PS1 screen so it outputs RGB as right now the resolution isn’t very clear going through a VGA to composite coverter and it’s quite wavy to boot, so something will need to be done, but for now I’ve got it working and have been able to do the jobs for [ShockSlayer and Bud] that I had put on hold because of the snags. I’ll have an upcoming post about those in the future as well.

But for now, sorry for the lack of posting and activity but there have been lots and lots of things going on that haven taken up my posting time! I did shoot a video of this but my camera was being stupid and wouldn’t compensate for the lighting so you might as well have been looking at a white screen. May still post it, but we’ll see. More to come soon!

CNC Control Box Update

Posted: 02/15/2013 in Current Project
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Made quite a bit of progress over the past few days. Though I ran into a nasty snag yesterday trying to get the PC to even turn on. Turned out the On/Off header that the power button connected to was color coded incorrectly. So instead of hooking up the switch, I was plugging in the LED instead which just shorted out the power supply!

So after 2.5hrs of screwing around with that, I was able to start making some real progress. With that said, the list of accomplishments go as follows:

  • PS1 screen mounted, wired and tested. Composite for now.
  • All buttons, LEDs and Spindle control installed.
  • Face plate rough mounted.
  • All wires extended and plugged in.
  • ATI X1300 128MB graphics card installed.

A full update and pics can be seen on MBB as always.

Progress still needing to be made:

  • Finish wiring up the CNC Controller to the face plate
  • Cut plastic panels and mount back hardware (i.e. spindle and stepper motor jacks)
  • Prime and paint the main box
  • Label buttons and add decals

I’m hoping by the end of Saturday I’ll have much more complete, at least to the point I can get my router running again as I have a few jobs that I need to get started on, including another case for a ShockSlayer commission. If you didn’t see his previous video of the last case I sent him, have a look. Quite comical in its approach and not the format I was expecting, but fun to watch regardless!

 

 

CNC Control Box: Small side project to distract me from my snow shovel

Posted: 02/09/2013 in Current Project, General News
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I know for the past few months I’ve been pretty quiet all around with posting anywhere on the net. But as most of you know, I’ve been working on a fairly massive project for the past 6 or 7 months. Because of this though, I needed a bit of a break from it and decided to do an old fashioned “off the cuff” hack that will help spruce up my CNC set-up a bit.

What you’re looking at is a CNC Control Box that houses not only the CNC controller but also the PC that runs the software for it. The idea here was to save a bit of space in my shop and make a more centralized control center all around. The siding, base and top are made out of MDF which is something I’ve never used until recently. It’s got its pros and cons but I love it’s milling properties and how flat/sturdy it is. I don’t like how well it holds screws though and it splits quite easily if not pre-drilled. Anyway though, we’ll see how well it holds up. I mounted all the components to the MDF using Pine spacers, super glue and screws. Everything holds in quite nicely.

As always, there are more progress pics and more details over on MBB, but once complete this will also include a 5″ PS1 screen, a numeric key pad and keyboard mount. Now I’m just waiting on a few parts to come in.

Continuing on this this morning was the plan, and then of course I wake up to this.

Snowedin

25 to 30″ of snow all piled up in a drive way with no where to put it! My dog Dakota was standing in a low spot that we had cleared away last night and it was still up to her shoulders! So that took us a good 2 hours worth of shoveling to get the cars out so the snow blower could get in and clear the driveway for us. Fortunately everything is cleared now and I can get back to work. I don’t really care much for winter anymore, but it comes with the territory I guess. Anyway, I’ll have more updates in the next day or so and we’ll see how this turns out.

SNES-001 Advance II Completed!

Posted: 12/28/2012 in Current Project, General News
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It only took about 4 months or so, but the project is finally finished! The evolved version of the the original SNES-001 Advance is now functional and working nicely! Though the other posts on this suggest that this may have been a mod that I had an idea what I was doing, this for several reasons was a completely new project all together.

The fact that these controllers can be used by any SNES system whatsoever is a huge jump from the original. This “Breakout Box” (as you’ll read about in the forums), though simple, is something I’ve based a much larger project off of and have continued to perfect its design. This could easily have been accomplished by wires and connections in that respect, but the CNC machine that has been so relevant to my current progress continues to be tested in a variety of different methods.

So, with that said, the completion of the project is just a mere shadow of what’s on the the way and will surely be looked back on as the foundation stone to which I built my best projects off of.

Anyway, enough with all that. Have a loot at the video below to see exactly what I’ve been talking about!

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