Reddit
Arcade Dev-Kit : LvL-Up !
Posted by Orni
September 4th, 2012 7:25 am
I’ve started turning my arcade dev-kit into an actual arcade cabinet 
it’s still very far from done and ugly as hell but already basically 99% functional.
I’m planning to use PMMA sheets to cover the whole monitor plane and paint it all black from the backside (except for the rectangle of the monitor display) so it’s all shiny and black. the whole cabinet itself is going to be covered with spackling paste and then grinded down to a smooth texture – after which I’m going to spraypaint that whole thing (don’t exactly know which color yet).
I think it’s going to be a quite beautiful thing once it’s done
Tags: arcade
Do you have plans that you’ve used to construct it, or are you winging it? It looks very well done. Can’t wait to see how it progresses.
This looks fantastic.
Oh my sweet jesus. This is a thing I want. I need a new project and I think building my own arcade machine is going to be it. I have a really old Pentium 4 PC laying around that is riddled with viruses from years of use by several people. So tempted to reformat it and rip it to pieces and build an arcade machine out of it.
Would you consider releasing the designs of your cabinet once you finish them? I wouldn’t know where to start building something like that because woodwork was never my strongest skill.
That’s great! My wife and I built ours 5 years ago while she was pregnant
It’s still not really finished, as it has lot of scratches from two movings and still no proper monitor nor panel. Take a look at it!
http://imgur.com/a/LIVHq
Here’s how it fits in my current despacho: http://i.imgur.com/7PRM8l.jpg
Pd. Sorry, I don’t have any plans for it. We made it using our intuition
Oh, can’t edit comments. Here’s the hi-res image http://i.imgur.com/7PRM8.jpg
cool – you have to finish that !
once it’s done it’s way more fun – I’m looking forward to completing mine
well – about the designs … there isn’t much to design, just decide on a cabinet width. I’m using 60cm – since that’s pretty good for 2 players while still not being to wide. take a look at some shematics of arcade cabinets – especially side-view and simply decide on one you like … since all your inner parts are 60cm (or whatever) width and your material has whatever thickness it has, it’s simply a matter of looking at some arcade cabinet blueprints and figuring out how you want yours to look like.
then you go to some place you can buy your material, buy some sheets in the width you want (or ask them if they are kind enough to cut away the rest) and then you have to simply cut out the different lenghts you need for all your middle parts. the side parts aren’t that much more troublesome, just use some simple geometry to transfer the outer line to your sheet of wood – cut it, lay that thing on an other sheet and make a duplicate. the backside is again simply a sheet of 60cm wide wood.
the woodworking part is very easy as you can see – I never made anything like this before … and I hadn’t any problems.
however – if you have some money and/or want a professional cabinet, consider hiring a carpenter or buying a old junkyard cabinet.
for the controls I used a ‘interfasd’ encoder and a bunch of simple microcontroller buttons – which is very easy soldering and connecting work. the frontend is called maximus arcade 2.10 and also quite easy to use
I think once I’m done with everything (which make take 1-2 months since I’m busy with university stuff at the moment) I’m going to write some sort of guide or experience report about it on my blog: orni.tumblr.com
Oh shit.
In a few days you’ll have House Of The Dead with those Inferred Laser Guns and stuff.
It’s every game nerd’s dream… Some day, when I have the room for one, I’ll make time and build one.
Insane!
How do you have your joysticks/buttons connected to the PC? Are you using the a UGCI USB interface?
I’m using an encoder called interfasd which translates my micro controller inputs into keyboard inputs through the PS2 port (without any ghosting or latency)
however – I think you would have a hard time finding an interfasd now. your best bet would be an i-pac, which does effectively the same thing