GRcade

More pics, please?

God I love this thread, glad to hear it works Ad!

Good stuff, well done I put together a bartop a few years ago, which we upgraded to a stand-up unit a couple of years later. It's nothing special - just MDF, a monitor, some perspex and a cheap mini PC running Hyperspin, but it's great for drunken nights in.

Moved house recently so I'm in the process of switching over the edging and buttons to match the new room, but I'm contemplating building a single player, small one for the kitchen so I've been watching this thread with interest.

I would really love to do this, but have never done soldering or anything electronics related - what are my chances?

Soldering isn't that hard to do with a little practice, especially if you're only soldering wires onto premade circuits.

mic wrote:I would really love to do this, but have never done soldering or anything electronics related - what are my chances?

There are kits that don't require any soldering at all.

Picade for example...

https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/picade-and-arcade

https://www.pi-supply.com/product/picade/

mic wrote:I would really love to do this, but have never done soldering or anything electronics related - what are my chances?

I haven't had to solder a thing yet, everything has been clip in place so far. Most I've had to do is drill some wood.

Some updates:
Planning the layout for the back panel. Very tight wiring so it has to be perfect.


Finding the ideal spot to route the monitor cable.



Spot on Fun fact, I dropped the monitor after this shot and bent one of the 4 mounting holes. Luckily it bent back in to shape


Cardboard prototype for the screen holder. Will be two pieces, this one with the bezel cut out and the screen on the back instead of the front (I've done it like this to work out the correct hole placement) then a matching one that goes in the front made of clear acrylic, all attaching to the cabinet side edges. The state of everything in this shot.

Looks like you fit the card the wrong way around mate.

You need my vinyl sides and some rad coloured rings for the buttons and some other stuff for the sides maybe.

State of that table top


Real talk, though: this is one of my favourite threads atm. Keep the updates and pics coming please, Ad.

Ad7 wrote:New hdmi board on the way.

Rex, how is your project going?

Took delivery of the USB controller board just before I went on holiday so only just getting around to setting it up.

First step was making a quick board for housing the controls temporarily.



No idea why I decided I needed to paint it



State of that wiring.



Took an img from here https://github.com/retropie/retropie-se ... stallation which gave me Retropie and EmulationStation. So that is where I am now, need to copy across a couple of mame roms which will supposedly make MAME available (all the emulators are supposedly already installed and adding a rom makes them active).

Yes that is how it works. Just add roms and they show up.

It can also connect to the Internet to scrape artwork and rom info.

Looks cool Rex, what's that funny gate on the stick about?

Dunno, came attached to the stick that I bought in a package with buttons.

You're supposed to spend months researching these things, pay over the odds for specific things and then never use them like I do.

Update time

New bits:


Drilling and attaching the standoffs:


Everything attached (the Pi hooks on and off easily rather than being attached permanently):


Cardboard screen holder taped on for now, all assembled. Let's switch this mother on for the first time...hold on to your butts.


AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW YEEEAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH






Oh and I mounted the IR receiver in the fake coin slot, so it glows red when in standby and lights up green when I turn it all on by remote control

Looking good.

Ad7 wrote:Update time...

Ad, that setup looks so dang cool. Brilliant work, man. Now that it's working, are you going to jazz up the cabinet with artwork and stuff?

Ad7 wrote:...Oh and I mounted the IR receiver in the fake coin slot, so it glows red when in standby and lights up green when I turn it all on by remote control

. Incredible .

Yes he is.

jawafour wrote:

Ad7 wrote:Now that it's working, are you going to jazz up the cabinet with artwork and stuff?

Yes. This is just to see if it all works. Next up is:

Design the screen holder bits in CAD and get them laser cut somewhere. Also have a Speaker and marquee bit made.
Design some artwork for the sides and the marquee area at the top, then get gecko to make them.
Paint the sides black before applying the graphics.
Get some speakers and mount them to a piece up under the marquee area.

Then it is done.

Ad7 wrote:Then it is done.

Lovely stuff mate. Looks very good.

Not to add to you list, but would it be theoretically quite easy to add a wireless USB dongle for a second controller, in case you ever wanted to play 2p games?