February 5, 2007 - "Change of plans"

Well, the inevitable has happened. I'm not going to finish the jukebox. It has sat in my storage unit for almost a year unfinished. When I started this project I started it mainly to test my hand at making an arcade cabinet, and hone some skills, get some lessons learned, etc. It served its purpose. The bug has bit me again, so I am going to disassemble the jukebox and build an arcade cabinet. My new project is the Crown Royal Arcade Machine.

January 28, 2006 - "Delayed"

Been busy with work and personal life, haven't had much time to finish the project. I guess I fell into the same trap alot of us do, once it is working it is hard to finish. I hope to get restarted sometime mid Feb when I return from work. I need to do some re-wiring and replace a hard drive before continuing with the rest of the cosmetics.

August 24, 2005 - "Unfinished Business"

I'm leaving for 2 weeks (work), so the finish will have to wait. I have hooked the jukebox to my home stereo, it sounds great. I still need to install the marquee, control panel overlay, the bezel, and Lexan cover.

August 23, 2005 - "The Rest Of The Harware"

Moved indoors to the A/C. Installed the motherboard, hardrive, and everything else to make it work. Programmed the I-PAC, and tested the functionality. Put a cold cathode light to backlight the marquee when I finally get around to ordering the marquee.

Operational

Light Installed

August 22, 2005 - "Wired"

Spent yesterday with family, so didn't work on the project. I soldered the wires to the micro-switches and then wired the buttons to the I-PAC and installed the monitor. The temperature was over 100 degrees today, but I wanted to complete all the wiring today, so I took a few breaks but completed the wiring well into the night.

Wiring in progress
(Paint was never intended to be on the inside surface, but a few drips happened)

Monitor Installed

August 20, 2005 - "Primer And Paint"

Primered and painted the cabinet today. It was so hot the paint was drying very quickly. It took used 1 coat of primer and 2 coats of black paint.

Primered

August 19, 2005 - "Control Panel"

Used the template I created in photoshop and cut the holes for the control panel buttons. I used a 1-1/8" Spade bit to drill the holes out. Perfect fit. Placed my order for the control panel overlay today. Attached the control panel to the jukebox cabinet and called it a day. It was hot and I had a poker game to go to.

Control Panel As Drilled

Buttons In Place

Attached To Jukebox

August 18, 2005 - "Coming Together"

Cut the opening in the side for the CD drive and USB hub. Going to use the USB hub to plug keyboard and mouse into when needed. I already had it and not in use, so I figured it would suit my purpose here. Drilled pilot holes and used a drill bit stop to countersink the wood screws. Joined the side pieces with the middle pieces. Notice the dust all over the floor. Again, the heat got the better part of me.

Side View With Cutout

Frontal View

August 17, 2005 - "TheFirst Cuts"

Made it back from New Orleans last night. Today I finally got to do some work, not much but a step forward. I measured and cut the 2 side pieces, as well as a few of the other joining pieces. I discovered that MDF makes a whole lot of dust and my garage is a mess. The temperature here in Texas has been scorching, so prolonged periods of garage heat exposure are out of the question.

The Side Pieces

August 14, 2005 - "Travel"

Had to travel to New Orleans today, got a training session for work over the next couple of days.

August 13, 2005 - "Family Day"

Spent the day with family. Went to my parents house and had a cook out and swam. So I didn't accomplish anything on the jukebox today, but did have a good time.

My 7 Month Old Baby Boy Enjoying The Pool

August 12, 2005 - "The Test Center"

Put together all the computer hardware to test and see if it worked. Loaded SKJukebox and tested. It all worked good. I got a ton of MP3's to correctly name and tag. I'm going to move on with construction though and fix that stuff later.

The Hardware

Monitor Showing SKJukebox in Action

August 10, 2005 - "Tagging And Naming Continued"

Its safe to assume that if I keep trying to get all of this music named right and tagged, I will never begin construction. I continued working on the files today.

August 09, 2005 - "The Tagging"

I have already tagged, with ID3 tags, some 14,442 MP3's. I began tagging the remainder of my collection, 26GB more, today. I use a handy little tool called Tag & Rename to accomplish this. This speeds up the process tremendously. I am also working on CAD drawings as I go, and will try to make these available for download in the near future. I decided to hold off on ordering the artwork until I start putting this thing together. I want to make sure the dimensions will be right before wasting some money on something that won't fit properly. I should get some quality time to work on the construction on Friday and Saturday. I will be adding photos as I go.

August 08, 2005 - "The Plan"

I plan on building a jukebox based somewhat on the plans from Mameroom.com. I lack in woodworking skills, so this may be somewhat of a challenge for me to pull off. I have already gathered all the computer hardware, some of it purchased, some it was spare computer parts I had already.

System specs:

• 1.8ghz AMD Duron
• 256M RAM
• 300GB Hard Drive
• Lite-On DVD Drive
• 15" LCD Monitor

I purchased all the pushbuttons, and keyboard interface (I-PAC) from Ultimarc.

I have already designed my marquee and control panel overlay in Photoshop and will be sending them to Mamemarquees to be made up.

I am going to be using SKJukebox for this project, I think it is great!!! Thank you Salmon King.

Control Panel Design

Marquee Design