Monitor Reinforcement

This weekend, I spent a few more hours with the cab. I finally pulled out the monitor and reinforced the wooden frame. When I pulled out the monitor, I realized why it was so hard to put in and pull out. It seems that the bottom right corner of my bezel board is a hair too tall. I plan on resolving it by sanding, filing, or planing off some wood. I'm too cheap to buy a $15 wood plane just for this one little problem, so I just may end up using the file from my Leatherman Wave tool. A post on the forum.arcadecontrols.com board said that a good plane is a good investment for a first time woodworker because it is a quick and easy way to correct small errors with your cutting/measurements without having to recut all the time. That sounds smart to me.

I used scrap wood from the bezel board to make the 1.5" pieces to reinforce the monitor frame. I got a lot of use out of the 2' x 2' handypanel I got from Home Depot. For some reason, I thought that I had bought a 2' x 4' one, but come to think of if, I must've got the 2x2 because I don't have another 2x2 laying around, obviously. Also I used some more scrap wood from a disassembled desk to build reinforcement for the back of the monitor. Now I can move it around with confidence without worrying about the bezel board breaking or the monitor falling back into the cabinet. I had a handfull of 1 1/2" drywall screws that I used for all this reinforcement. I was lucky because I used all but one and got all of the support structure that I needed in place. The cabinet wood is tough stuff. I had to predrill everything because I just couldn't drive those damn screws without stripping the heads or bogging my drill down.

Once that was all done, I yanked the monitor out and had a look at the electrical. I was at the point where I needed to plan out what I was going to do in this area and strip it out for cleaning. Before I did anything, I took lots of pictures and drew up a wiring diagram. I wanted to figure out what everything did and why it was there. With the help of the folks at the arcadecontrols forum, I was able to figure out that the main electrical power went through fuses, an EMI noise Filter, and an isolation transformer before it went to the monitor. The black and white wires swap just before going through the fuses which confuses the hell out of me, but I figure that it's just the nature of AC power that this isn't a problem. Everything seemed to work wired this way. I considered leaving everything in place and powering the PC monitor with the same transoformer setup, but screw that. I can simplify everything and get rid of a lot of exposed electrical parts by just using a power strip to power the computer, monitor, and marquee light. I'll just make sure to get a powerstrip with a relay in it and I"ll be good to go. Just have to make sure I get one with an awesome looking plug and paint it black. :D I plan on using a Bits
aSmartStrip power strip to power everything up. Unfortunately, I think it has one of those lame ass flat plugs at one end. I'll probably run it through a heavy duty extension cord painted black or something.