At this rate I will be finishing my arcade sometime in the year 2047 when my reflexes are all but gone and my "good eye" is at about 20/200. Oh well, I'll have a working arcade one of these days...
Anyway, this past weekend I was able to install the trackball plate on my third control panel!!! In order to recreate the authentic arcade experience for games like Golden Tee and Centipede a trackball is a must. It's really the only way you can play these classics. The added benefit is that the trackball can also double as a computer mouse for navigating windows and performing general software maintenance. After all, the guts of the arcade is going to be a computer running Windows XP and if I ever want to add more games or emulators I'm going to need an easy way to do so. There's no way I would ever open everything up just to tweak the computer settings or add new games - it would be too much of a pain. This way, I hope that all maintenance can be performed outside the cabinet.
In order to install a trackball a "trackball plate" is needed (well, it's not required but it makes installation a heck of a lot easier). It's basically a square metal plate that the trackball attaches to from the bottom of the control panel. The 4 corners of the trackball plate have headless screws that allow the plate to be attached from underneath with a smooth top for aesthetic purposes. You can see what it looks like in the pictures below.
This is all well and good for normal people but since I am super anal I knew that after a few weeks the trackball plate will start to bother me. Eventually, I would have regretted not doing something even cleaner than the normal trackball installation. I decided to completely hide the plate altogether so the only thing showing through the control panel would be the trackball. Other people over at BYOAC have done this so this is nothing revolutionary but I think it is pretty cool nonetheless.
In order to accomplish my goal I had to use my router and a dado cutting bit to cut the area on the control panel where the trackball plate rests down by the thickness of the trackball plate itself. This will enable the plate to sit flush with the top of the control panel. After this is done, the entire thing will be covered with a layer of vinyl which will cover any imperfections in the routing job and completely hide the fact that there is a trackball plate under there at all. This is how it was done:
First, in the picture below you can see the unmodified control panel. The trackball plate will cover up the middle leaving a circular cutout for the trackball to stick out of.
STEP 1: Place the trackball plate in position by lining up the the screws on the plate with the holes in each corner of the cutout.STEP 2: Using a razor blade and being as careful as you can, trace the plate to make an outline on the control panel. Try scoring the wood multiple times so you get a cut as deep as the thickness of the plate. If you enlarge the picture you can see that the razor marks are there. This is to ensure that when you are freehanding with the router you will get a clean edge when the rest of the wood is removed.
STEP 3: Place blue (or any color) painter's tape around the edges where you want to cut. This isn't required but if you tried to make the cut with the router without the tape it becomes very difficult to see what is going on. There is a lot of sawdust flying around when cutting and I think the blue tape just makes it easier to make the cut as square as possible. As you can see here, the area being cut away is framed by the blue tape.
This next picture shows how the trackball plate would look on the control panel if I didn't go through the effort of hiding it. It sits above the panel by about 1/16" and just doesn't look that great (try picturing it without the blue tape). Now you should be getting a better idea of what we are trying to accomplish. By trimming the control panel down by 1/16" the plate can sit flush to the control panel top. Then a vinyl covering can be applied to the entire surface which will hide any imperfections in my less-than-stellar craftsmanship.STEP 4: Set the depth of the dado cutting bit in the router to the thickness of the trackball plate. It is roughly 1/16" but I was able to get an exact thickness just using the plate itself next to the router bit with the router upside down. Make sure to do this with the router completely unplugged - you don't want to get hurt. I also recommend finding some scrap wood and routing out a square that the plate can rest in to make sure the depth is properly set. You don't want to ruin your control panel! I had to try two different settings before I got it perfect.
STEP 5: While wearing safety glasses, very carefully (and I mean very carefully), place the router in the center of the cutout and turn the router on. Using nothing but your awesome woodworking skills (and the router of course) cut away the wood inside of the square framed by the blue tape. Try getting as close to the tape as possible without actually cutting into it. When you get close to the line the wood should break off pretty evenly because of the scoring done earlier.
The pictures below show what the end result should look like. Notice I wasn't perfect with my lines but I don't have to be - it's all getting covered eventually. Close is good enough here. The trackball plate now sits completely flush with the top of the control panel in the area I just routed out. Pretty sweet, eh?
The next step will be installing the vinyl covering that will make everything look pretty, installing the buttons, joysticks and trackball to the control panel and attaching it to the actual arcade cabinet!! It's starting to come together!
