Don't you just love 8-bit art?

Okay, so if you own a 3d printer, you're probably thinking:

How can I make something useful?

I'm guessing there are a lot of things that can be done, provided you have the imagination.

If you're like me, and lack that quality, head on over to Thingiverse.com

Check out Thingiverse for the stl files.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1174471

We often set up a second or third small tree in order to display our more quirky or eclectic ornaments.  Otherwise I would'nt have gotten away with this one.  =)

You could print this out with yellow filament or just do as I did, and paint it using whatever you have on hand.  I used the basic acrylic craft paint you can find almost anywhere.

If you're feeling like a small electronics project, there is also a fancy version thanks to the folks at Adafruit:  it's called Starduino:
https://learn.adafruit.com/starduino-neopixel-8-bit-mario-star-tree-topper

Getting it all back together

As I was saying, I wanted the monitor back in the cabinet.  So today I started reassembling.

These cabinets have bolts that mount through the side of the cabinet, so I polished those up by clamping them in a cordless drill and holding them up to some fine sandpaper.  I then cut the openings in the newly applied side art and bolted everything up.

The lower marquee bracket and lower bezel bracket were both starting to rust away in spots.  I sanded those down and hit them with some Rustoleum high fill primer and then lightly sanded them down till they looked and felt smooth.  I guess I may have done this twice, and sanded the primer down each time.  Then I hit them with a few light coats of satin black.

I picked up a small led under counter light fixture from the hardware store and mounted that in place of the old florescent light fixture.  It was the perfect size and will run cooler and trouble free for as long as I'll care.

The bezel was pretty dirty and had some major stuck on gunk at the bottom where the lower bracket was attached.  This I cleaned up with some simple green.  I then hit the whole bezel front and back with a dual action car buffer and some Mcquires ultimate polish.  It seemed to clean it up quite nicely.

When I started this project over a year ago, I must have ordered most of the parts I thought I would need.  So in a box I found the new instruction card and new bolts for the control panel.  Which was really thoughtful of me, thanks john2015.

I also found the flat white t-molding in the bottom of the cab, guess I ordered that too.  So I put that on, knowing it would look like I had done a lot of work when really it's a super easy step.

I then mounted the main board inside the cabinet and hooked up the harness.  I had to add a new power cord and this I did by extracting the pins from the old two prong plug and re-crimping some new pins on the end of the new power cord.  I then crimped a ring terminal on the ground wire and got everything into place.

I crossed my fingers and turned the game on.  I could hear the same old Nintendo "boink" sound.  Then I walked around the front to see if the game was up, and sadly it wasn't to be.  I checked a few voltages, and they were down to around 4.8v.

This got me looking at the power supply.  I wish I had taken some pictures of it, but it was just a fidgety thing, lots of screws and tiny bolts holding it together.  When I did get it apart it was a mess of twisted grimy smokey smelling wires.  I replaced all the old capacitors with ones that I happened to have on hand.  Some I didn't have but I guess I can always get back in there and finish some day.

Anyway, long story short, I fired it back up, and the voltages were now just above 5.1v, so I was happy with that.  The bad news is the game was still not working, it appears to be stuck in some kind of constant watchdog reset.  Okay, maybe it doesn't work, but it's starting to look nice, right?

The PCBs are going to get shipped out to Mike's Arcade for repairs.

Side Art for DK

It's about time I get back to work on this Donkey Kong project.

If you've been reading along, you know that I recapped the monitor.  Well since then it's been sitting around the garage, and doing it's best to be a burden.  If I can get the artwork installed, then I can return the monitor to the cabinet, and that will be one less thing I have to move around.

So, I ordered the DK sideart from arcadeshop, and it arrived yesterday.  Rather than wait around for neatly rolled and somewhat expensive giant stickers to get stepped on, I decided I'd try to get them affixed to the cabinet as soon as possible.

After googling I found the consensus was that it should be 4 and 3/8 inches from the top and exactly 2 1/2 inches from the back.  There were lots of other suggestions on how to apply the artwork.  Such as using painters tape to align the piece and special rollers and such.  Well I didn't have anything but scotch tape, and my laminate roller seemed a bit awkward so I just used a squeegee thing that I had from another project.  I think perhaps the most important item to have on hand is some upbeat 80's music, I used New Clear Days, by The Vapors, vinyl is best if you can find it.

I taped it in place about midway down and peeled the backing off ( of the side art, not the old record album).  I then folded the sticky portion down and using a pair of scissors, removed the backing and carefully affixed the top of the artwork, using a squeegee and some car detailing spray as a lubricant on the top surface.  Working this carefully up from the middle, I had little to no bubbles trapped between the art and the cabinet.

The next step was to remove the remaining tape, carefully, since I had to use scotch tape.  Then I flipped the whole piece upwards and carefully peeled a portion of the backing off and downward.

Placing the backing in this way helps to hold the artwork away from the cabinet so that you can then carefully squeegee the material to the surface a quarter of an inch at a time.  Once again, I had very few bubbles.  I think it turned out well.  The second side was even easier.