Hey everyone-
I was all fired up to play some Faceball: Remastered today since it was delivered this morning! First, I decided to take a break from soldering glitchy VB display cables and also buying extra display cables on eBay to replace melted/destroyed ones (in no particular order) to work on another project…the custom Virtual Boy stand!
I’m a drummer, and one night at band practice I had a revelation while the guitar players were busy arguing over a riff…could one of my boom-arm, tripod cymbal stands be modded somehow to hold a VB head unit? These stands have an almost infinite range of adjustment, and if they can hold a 22″ diameter heavy duty ride cymbal, the rather light VB should be no problem.
Long story short, it works great. I’ll feel stupid if someone else already made this kind of thing ages ago, but it’s “new to me” 🙂
It’s pretty easy once the overall design is figured out. You will need:
—1x boom-arm tripod cymbal stand, cheap ones work fine. (http://www.musiciansfriend.com/drums-percussion/sound-percussion-sp880bs-double-braced-boom-stand)
—1x two-inch metal corner brace (try home depot, door/hinge section). Really, any L-shaped piece of solid metal that’s around 2″ long on each side works.
—2x 1.5″ diameter washers, with a hole wide enough to fit over the threading on the stand where the cymbal would go (my stand needed 5/16″)
—2x #4 machine screws, 1/2″ long should be fine.
—2x #4 hex nuts, 4x #4 washers.
—1x Virtual Boy with stand (remove the medallion and legs from the clamp mechanism).
—Power drill with 7/64 and 5/16 bits.
Basically, all you have to do is drill a hole near the center of one side of the metal corner brace. This hole should be wide enough to fit on the stand where you would put a cymbal. Then, drill two holes on the other side of the metal corner brace, but a little above center nearer the top edge (these are the holes where you will mount the actual Virtual Boy clamp/holder). This part was a little tricky, as you have to hold the VB clamp up to the brace and mark where the holes should be located, and then drill accurately.
Once you do that, it’s just a matter of assembling- put one of the 1.5″ washers on the cymbal holder (most stands come with a plastic or metal “spacer” that keeps the cymbal resting near the very end of the arm). Then place the corner brace above that, then the other large washer. Screw the wingnut that comes with the stand back on as if you were securing a cymbal; make sure the washer/corner brace setup sits on the arm where there is still threading, because you need to tighten the stand’s wingnut all the way down and then some. The pressure the wingnut exerts on the washer/brace thing will keep it from rotating or drifting down (stupid gravity). The last step is to just put the #4 screws through the two holes on the bottom of the VB clamp, and then through the two holes you drilled on the corner brace. Secure with a washer and hex nut on each of those screws, tighten all the way, and enjoy!
This is kind of a rushed (yet long-winded) description, I have to head into work soon…but see the pics to get an idea of how mine looks. Let me know what you think, and any questions/clarifications to address, more pics needed, etc. If there is any such interest, I would consider making some more for you all to use. My next step is to make a hook mechanism that is attached to the corner brace where you can hang the controller between gaming sessions. Similarly, I may rig up an attached cupholder where you can deposit the AC adapter when not in use. Lastly, I think there is a way to build the corner brace setup so that thing itself screws onto the cymbal stand, which would prevent unwanted rotating of the head unit.
If you’re like me and have a few stands with broken medallions, you can fix one of those with the heavy-duty replacements available on this forum, and use another one for this project :).
