Measure twice, Cut once...!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, my fantastic measurements ensured that as soon as I cut out a cardboard template of the sides of my box just to check the button clearance, it soon became apparent that the fucking thing was completely wrong!!

It was not only too small height wise, but the angle was bringing the middle down so far that the buttons would protrude out of the bottom and through the base..

I guess it wouldn't have been too uncomfortable with the prongs of the micro switches jambed into my leg flesh.. gulp!!

So out comes sketchup again and some proper measurements and angles are calculated... And this is what we get.

A plan showing the side of the box, with correct heights, free space below button plunger and base of box... Yipee...

.

I still like this Sketchup thingy as an alternative to a cad program, i'm going to highly recommend it to all, budding designers should really give it a go, I can see where google are aiming it, its great for turning doodles into 3d objects and seems to include the experts by then exporting them to 3d rendering or cad programs too, probably not as powerful for modeling but makes sense to a non cg pro.. I havent even checked out the Pro version, this is just the free one!

Ok, plan With X ray into Removed Lid and Button top, plus perspex.. Perfect..



Also found my jigsaw is shit for cutting MDF... Arghhhhhhh, now i really want the exaktsaw, after watching it eat floorboards, it would have precision cut my stuff like butter.. Bollocks..

Decided on the final layout for the panel, and have measured it all up properly, going for the JAP style curved button Sega arcade layout, as its better on the fingers and am going to do all 8 buttons rather than the 6 button layout to incorporate the rear shoulders as well, you never know which future fighting games are going to need them and i don't want to start having to drill extra buttons into it later..





Anyhoo that's it for today, was too dark to do any proper cutting so we're off again tomorrow...

Byeee...