Updates!

So I hardcore fell behind both on progress and updating the blog. I did manage to get a few things done, and round up even more projects to take on, here's a quick overview...

As far as the bike goes, I got mirrors! It's finally street legal!

Of course though that doesn't mean everything is 100% on it. I've been fouling plugs like crazy, and sought out the expertise of Rob at Cycle Recycle downtown. He recommended pulling the jets out of the bike and checking to see if the genius who owned this bike before me stepped the sizing up. The jets are what set the max amount of gas that enters the engine. If these are too big, too much gas gets in, which runs the engine rich, which fouls plugs. So I head home, pop the float caps off, and remove the jets...The carbs with the float caps and jets removed...The jet...
A look inside...
As you can see, I had 120s in there, and when I told Rob that, he pretty much laughed at me. So I picked a new set of 115s and popped 'em in. The bike started up like a dream. Rode it to work that following day (and froze my ass off in the morning), and on the way back it felt like it was starting to lose a little power. I let the engine cool and popped the plugs out, only to find that once again, they were fouled. Ugh. So, back to Rob this past weekend and now I've got a slew of things to check. Thinking about retiring it for the season and beginning the impossible process (for me at least) of taking it apart and doing body work. We'll see how the next few weeks go weather wise...

On the new project front, I found this giant red menace at Goodwill for a whopping $20...

I've already got a PC with a fresh Windows XP install and loaded up with ROMs, MAME, and a front end.

From here I still need to get a TV tuner for the computer, an actual TV to fit inside the cabinet, and I'll have to rig up controls somehow. I had originally thought to build a keyboard emulator, with the hopes that I could get back into microcontrollers, but that seems like it might be a whole project in itself. I'll probably just solder straight to a keyboard logic board like I did on the Donkey Kong machine, as it was both cheap and fairly easy.

On the topic of microcontrollers, I did order a PICKit to program PIC micros, so hopefully I can start back into that. I saw a project where a guy used a micro to send commands into an NES sound chip and use it as a synthesizer, so perhaps you'll see some updates regarding that. Anyway, that's where I stand right now, expect to see some updates on the arcade machine in the next week!