Maybe this is the incentive I need to plan a real workable system. Sort by. It has a rubber floor, but riund otherwise unlined. But since reading about yours I keep re-thinking my design. I've seen a lot of people online printing their marquee graphics at home on normal printer paper and it seems round over router bit screwfix mac look okay done that way.

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Get the Label Outlet Groupon. Oak Furniture Superstore Office Shoes. Once one edge of each was squared on the mitre saw, we simply worked through the panels base, rear, monitor face, control panel, little strip on the front, and marquee , setting the fence and blade angle on the table saw for each cut.

For the screen cut out, we carefully measured the screen and cut a hole in the panel using the jigsaw. The screen was then laid in place and chunky bits of wood were glued and screwed up against the edges to provide a tight fit. That's the prep work done - more detail on the monitor mounting later. For the sides we taped a printed template onto a bit of 9mm MDF and cut through it with a stanley knife to mark the shape.

This was cut out using a jigsaw, and given a little love with some sandpaper to round off the edges and suchlike. Its important none of the corners are too sharp to ensure the T-molding will fit properly later. The other side was cut from this using a template bit in the router so we knew they would be identical.

The side panels are thicker than the rest of the cabinet at 15mm, with a 3mm channel running along the edges the whole way around the perimeter. The channel needs to be completely central and will house the plastic trim T-molding later on. The side panels are a bit chunkier than the rest of the cabinet because they also act as legs and will be supporting the weight of the whole machine.

Also T-molding just so happens to come in 15mm but not 12mm. There are a couple of ways to achieve this but with the tools at our disposal we found the simplest way was to form the 15mm panels using two pieces of thinner wood 9mm and 6mm sandwiched together. The 9mm piece was cut and sanded exactly to size as explained above.

The 6mm piece was cut out very roughly with a few cm of bleed all the way around and then cut accurately using the router's template bit again to ensure it would fit its other half exactly. We then set the router to a depth of 3mm and cut a rebate all the way around the edge of the 9mm panel, making sure to cut into the inside edge rather than the face edge.

Once happy with that we got some heavy duty wood glue on the go and sandwiched the 9mm and 6mm pieces together, ensuring the rebate was in the middle to form the 3mm channel.

The two sides were held together overnight with as many clamps as we could lay our hands on. Time to put all these panels together into something vaguely resembling an arcade machine! This stage uses a lot of wood glue, clamps and caution. The first step is to knock up some little batons to act as internal bracing for the rest of the panels. These won't be seen in the final piece so can be made of any scrap wood.

My batons were cut from lengths of 20x20mm wood that was lying around. Drill a few countersunk holes in all of the batons to make it easier to screw them into the cabinet panels from the inside - it can get pretty fiddly otherwise, and possibly split the wood.

These will be screwed and glued to the panels along each edge that was joining the side panels. We printed out a full scale sectional diagram of the cabinet and used it to trace all the important points on the side panel in pencil. Then by laying the panel flat on the floor the other pieces can be placed on top of the drawing. Once we were sure everything fitted together and the angles were right, each piece was glued carefully in place, getting a clamp on there wherever possible.

This was then turned over and placed on top of the other side, lined up with marks from the same template, and glued and screwed in place. It takes a pretty small screwdriver to get to some of the screws around the control panel and it gets a bit fiddly, but it leaves the outside with no visible screws so I think it's worth the effort.

Before applying any paint I used white surface filler to fill in the 'seams' between panels. I rubbed the filler in with a finger along any edges that had a slight gap - corners too. This needs to dry and can then be sanded smooth with grit sandpaper. I also applied a thin layer of filler all around the inside edge of the screen cutaway to give it a smoother and nicer finish, again carefully sanded down before the next step. I spread out an old blanket to protect the rest of the shed and went at it with some white primer.

I used a little roller for the most part and a small brush to make sure all the corners and edges got enough coverage. I did my best to avoid brush marks though as I was aiming for a smooth finish. A little sanding between coats can sort out most of the marks though. Two coats should do the trick.

Next up was the black finish which was achieved with a few coats of spray paint. It's worth having a read to learn how to apply spray paint properly. In a nutshell, hold the can about 20cm away, keep the can moving, and try to do a lot of thin coats rather than generous coats.

It's also important to wear a good quality mask, and work somewhere well ventilated. T-molding is the plastic trim which really gives a cabinet that genuine arcade look.

Installing the T-molding is fairly straightforward but it does take a bit of time. Start from the bottom to make sure any seams remain hidden. Slot the plastic into the groove a little section at a time, with a tiny drizzle of glue to hold it in place. Use masking tape to hold the T-molding fully in place while each section dries, although be careful to use tape that won't wreck your nicely painted finish. In theory the channel should be tight enough for the T-molding to pop into and then hold firm by itself, but the way we made the side panels necessitated some use of glue just to be sure.

Plenty of people are selling old monitors on the cheap on ebay though. It doesn't matter if the casing is a bit battered as it will be hidden within the cabinet.

The front of the cabinet was cut at an earlier stage to precisely fit the dimensions of the screen itself. The wooden surround for the monitor - that is, four supports, one for each side - are fixed permanently in place. The monitor is then slotted firmly in place and more supports are added at the back to hold the weight and keep the monitor in check.

These support panels are easily accessed and unscrewed for removal of the monitor in case it needs any maintenance. This will vary from screen to screen, but for this project the monitor had to be mounted upside-down to fit properly in the right position.

If you have to do this its very easy to set the Raspberry Pi to output everything rotated degrees so its still visible as normal. This can be achieved by typing. On reboot everything should be upside-down that is, the right way up!

For big beefy sound you would want separate speakers - and maybe a little subwoofer - to be mounted inside the cabinet somewhere. Websites like Arcade World UK sell special arcade speakers with little audio grilles which can go wherever you like. I got very lazy for this stage however, and settled for using the speakers built into the monitor. This is not ideal but saves a lot of work.

It can go plenty loud enough for my needs and the old school sounds that come from these old games sounds just fine through cheap monitor speakers. I used a standard 3. This setting is easy to change, just type. This step can be pretty fiddly. The buttons will just slot nicely into the pre-drilled button holes and should be held in place by tightening the plastic washers on the inside of the cabinet.

That's the easy part. The tops of the joysticks are unscrewed and temporarily removed, allowing the stick part to be slotted through from inside the machine. It can then be painstakingly screwed into place from the inside using a tiny screwdriver and plenty of willpower. Its important to make sure the stick is aligned properly so that it can move properly in all directions.

You can test this by holding it in place from underneath and twiddling it. You will hear and feel the microswitches click as you move in each direction. The all-in-one arcade controls set comes with a USB interface and pre-crimped wires which just slot onto the interface at one end and the buttons on the other. The picture makes it look really confusing but as long as you keep track of your progress its simple business.

The set comes with instructions and the distributors made this how-to video to explain the wiring in more detail. In essence, each button and direction on the joysticks will have two connectors which should be wired up to the USB interface. One into a general input and the other daisy-chained to the ground connector. Be careful not to bend the metal connectors or use too much force when attaching the wires - I snapped a microswitch clean off one of the joysticks and had to order a replacement part.

It doesn't matter too much at this stage which input each button is connected to - once its all set up and plugged into the Pi we can use a system tool to figure out which button is on which port and map them accordingly. At this stage its a good idea to install a universal and easily accessible switch to allow everything to be turned on and off at once.

The switch I bought takes a standard kettle lead and is just slotted into a pre-drilled hole and screwed in place.

This is where having a wire crimping set really comes in handy. If you don't have one its time to get the soldering iron out. There are plenty of guides online if you're not a pro at rewiring. The extension needs enough sockets to power the monitor, the Pi, the lighting and the speakers optional. Next thing is to get all the kit plugged in and organised with plastic twist ties to stop everything getting too chaotic.

Gotta make sure all those wires are tidy! I got the marquee graphic printed professionally onto reverse print backlit film paper, which is usually used with lightboxes.

It has a plastic film on the back which diffuses the light as it passes through. I've seen a lot of people online printing their marquee graphics at home on normal printer paper and it seems to look okay done that way. Definitely an option if you want to avoid a trip to the local print shop.

These perspex sheets are cut to size and fixed inside the marquee box. The thickness of the perspex is not too important, so long as its not bendy. The sheet I used was about 3mm thick which was more than enough. The cabinet is designed so that the marquee box and graphic are removable, to make it easy to swap out graphics or replace the lighting if necessary in future.

Before putting the marquee box in place and screwing it down, I stuck down two strips of LEDs with hot glue and popped the wires through a predrilled hole on the surface. They can then be connected up to the power source we wired in the previous step. It is common to use a small strip light for the marquee, which is fine, but we happened to have some LEDs lying around the house so we just used them. We figured they would be easier to install and give a more spread out light that wasn't so focussed in the middle.

For this step I cut a brass hinge down to size and screwed it straight into the back of the cabinet. I attached the hinge to the door half first and the cabinet half second. Its useful to stick some folded paper under the door to hold it at the right height while screwing the hinge in place, and to use a gimlet or nail to pre-mark the spots where the screws will go. I also screwed a small piece of scrap wood on the inside of the frame to stop the door from angling into the cabinet itself.

A small magnet hot glued onto this wood, and the appropriate spot on the inside of the door, gives it a nice snap-shut sort of feeling and stops the door from swinging open when the cabinet is carried around.

Lastly you can affix a small handle or drill a finger hole to allow the door to be easily opened. Not much more to it than that! I won't go over the setup in too much detail as there are a lot of tutorials online for setting up emulation on the Raspberry Pi.

As a complete newbie to the Pi and Linux in general, I found a few things a little confusing so I will outline the basics as best I can for anybody wanting to follow along:. Big shout out to the tutorials found on Lifehacker and SuperNintendoPi - these go into more detail on the Pi setup and were instrumental in helping me figure out what I was doing!

The RetroPie forums are also very useful if you get stuck - chances are somebody else will have struggled through the same problem at some point! Its done! Sit back and admire the finished project and treat yourself to a few rounds of Street Fighter or Micro Machines to celebrate. There's a few things I would do differently but overall I'm very happy with how this turned out. It proves that a little thing like the Raspberry Pi can happily power a near full-size arcade machine.

Please post your own DIY arcade projects in the comments, I would love to see them! Reply 3 years ago. Did you have issues with his measurements? Even the template prints don't equate to the measurements he states in the tutorial That one has the correct measurements in millimeters. Reply 4 years ago. Hope you are still here. Planning to build one for my kids during winter vacations, would love to know more about the side buttons configurations. Reply 5 years ago on Introduction.

Hello Chillimonster, I was wondering how I can do the side panels artwork like urs. I followed the template provided here to do my bartop but now I want to create some side artwork like u did to urs. Is there an adobe photoshop template for this bartop so I can just paste my artwork to it? Well, you certainly went and raised the Bar. Topping my build Congratulations good sir. Good luck on the contests and I voted for ya. And yes all puns intended.

Reply 6 years ago on Introduction. Thanks MoTinkerGNome! I don't think your build is taking a backseat by any means, console yourself with the fact that I voted for you too! Puns equally intended. And even if we don't win the contests.

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