Dry Fit Of the Cabinet Assembly

This is a test fit of some of the the cabinet parts.  It is a dry fit snugly held together with clamps.  In front of the cabinet, on the table top, is a test of what will be the marquee board.  It is laser etched with a nature scene and has speaker holes on either side (for the Bluetooth receiver).

Play Field Construction Begins

With the side panels successfully cut out, I decided the next logical item to work on would be the play field.

I debated with myself how I wanted to cut these items - table saw or X-Carve - and decided on the X-Carve.  That was mostly because I felt the two side pieces with the angles could be done quicker than on the table saw (plus my table saw has a bunch of stuff on it I really did not feel like moving :) ).

I will break my play field up in three distinct components:

• Platform - the large flat board
• Corner Pieces - the 2 angled pieces on either side of the platform
• Front Skirt - the two long pieces that hang off the front of the platform

Platform

The platform was a quick to design and cut on the X-Carve.

Corner Pieces

The corner pieces, as I refer to them, sit on the play field and on either side of the push platform.  They open the play area wider at the front and also house the lose chutes (the holes for the coins that go to the house winnings).  The construction of these corner pieces are comprised of 3 items - 3/4" plywood, 1/4" plywood, and walnut trim.  The height of the corner piece is 1" (1/4' piece stacked on top of the 3/4" piece).  This is to set it higher than the push platform and it is much easier to cut the lose chute.

First the 3/4" board is cut allowing for the lose chute.  (Note that these are carve upside down so that any splintering happens on the non-showing side of the wood.)

Then the 1/4" board is cut.  It has the same shape minus the lose chute.

Please ignore the odd cut at the bottom of that board.  That happened in my first attempt to cut out those items and is a result of not clamping the board well enough.  It started moving during the carve so I had to abort, re-position, add more clamps, and start the carve again.

After some sanding and cutting of the walnut trim, I decided grab the side boards and do a quick mock-up and see how things were looking.

The following pictures show how they work together.

After verifying a good alignment, they were glued together and held with some clamps.

...lots of clamps.  Here they are after the glue dried and the clamps were removed.

More to come...

The Sound System

It seems that with almost every project I take on I cannot just do a simple project - I tend to go a little over the top.  This is mostly because I like the additional challenges especially if it is something new to me.  Plus I want to make that project that much better/neater/cooler/etc.

Early on I knew I did not want arcade sounds as part of my coin pusher.  I also did not want silence and I quickly jumped on the idea of a Bluetooth receiver/speaker system.  This way it could be a source of entertainment music while playing the game.  I did a lot of research and, taking into account the size/space limitations of my cabinet, decided upon a package sold by Parts Express.  (A link to the item is listed in the Bill Of Materials page.)

The package arrived several weeks ago.  I quickly unpackaged and assembled it as I needed to make sure it would meet my needs.  I hooked everything up and, after a few frustrating minutes trying to get my phone to connect, I was able to play music.  Although the kit was very easy to assemble, I was less than impressed of the actual audio quality.  It sounded too, well, twingy.  The speakers were just sitting on the bench.  Hoping it would help I quickly threw together a makeshift speaker box and installed the speakers in it.  That made a huge difference and I decided I would use this system as my audio component in the coin pusher.

The pictures below show the system. Unfortunately my phone is not able to stream audio to receiver AND record video so I do not have video of it working.

First Cut - Side Panels With The X-Carve

In my Test Carve Of Side Panel On CNC entry I mentioned using Visio as an in-between for SketchUp and VCarve Pro (VCP).  My reasoning was it being easier to lay out the cuts accurate enough for my desires.  At first I felt the results were acceptable but as I dug deeper into the VCP imported file and the actual measurements, I started to change my mind.  Some of the lines were not straight enough nor the right size.  Having said that, I do tend to micro-design and, in actuality, the differences could have been negligible.  But I decided to try direct design in VCP and the process was not as difficult as I had initially assumed.

Using the VCP's guidelines, and the ability to zoom in a great amount, I was able to create the vectors and align them to my liking.  Once the right side was done I copied and mirrored to make the left side.

From there I generated the carve files, clamped the boards so they would not move, and began carving.

So far, so good.   Each panel is about 18" deep and 29" tall. I was quite nervous fearing a mistake on a $30 board but everything came out all right.  Next step is to cut out some of the interior pieces - framing structure and the large play field.  Also I will be adding the walnut edging to the side board.

Facebook Group For Coin Pusher Builds

Before starting my build I spent time researching the internet looking for similar information in the form of web sites, videos, blogs, and/or forums.  Surprisingly, I found very little in a single collective community centered around coin pusher builds. 

In an attempt to create a collective community, I decided to create a Facebook group.  Currently named DIY Coin Pusher Builds it can be found here and is open to new members who share this interest.

Test Carve Of Side Panel On CNC

I have done my design in SketchUp and am ready to start cutting wood.  For the side panels I want to use my X-Carve CNC.  To do this I need to create the G-code - the commands that tell the CNC what to do - which I use VCarve Pro (VCP).  The problem is getting the design from SketchUp to VCP.  I believe the paid version of SketchUp provides an export option that would work but I am using the free version and do not want to pay the fees just for that option. 

I have used Visio many times in the past for similar drawings and found that it can export a dwg file which I can import into VCP.  So I fired up Visio and created a drawing of the side panel along with the measurements noted in SketchUp.

The material is 2' x 4' and the panel is roughly 18" x 30".  From there I exported and then imported into VCP.

(I could have skipped the Visio step and drew it directly in VCP but, I've found, creating precise and accurate line drawings in VCP is lacking and I actually saved myself time by taking the Vision route.) At this point I confirmed that my dimensions were correct.  Since this is just a test of process, I shrunk it by 50%.  This way I could test, using a smaller piece of wood, saving time and material.

After defining my tool paths I did a test render in VCP and it showed 'good so far'.

A quick hustle to the shop and I started carving.

I then did some quick measurement checks and everything came out correct.  YAY!  I need to do some more detailed checks to make sure I did not miss anything and, after that, I will be cutting some side panels.