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My First (mini) cab - Help and advice

  • 20-03-2015 12:30pm
    #1
    fcalcada
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5 ✭


    Hello fellow "Arcadians".

    My name is Fernando, I am a recent arrival here in Ireland and I came across your forum and decided to join in.

    I am currently in the study/planning stages of my first arcade cab build, and I am in need of some advice.

    This project will be:
    - Single player, mini bartop arcade cab
    - using a Raspberry Pi

    I have scoured many a internet page looking for information on arcade parts, cabinet construction, software, etc etc.

    I have two preferred cab designs, sourced from the Koenigs(dot)dk and RetroBuiltGames(dot)com pages

    My "ideal" construction material would be acrylic, since it is cleaner to work with and as such more "wife friendly".

    As the nanocade from Koenigs is a Mini/ITx project I would have to change the specs a bit so that a Raspberry PI 2, LCD + driver board + speakers & Amp would fit inside.

    This will be done once I manage to find time and some degree of understanding of how to work on Sketchup.

    So my first question to you all is:
    Since I already have the plans for the nanocade, I wanted to know from if there is a place, in or around Dublin where I can go, with these plans and have the acrylic laser cut to y specs.

    Thanks in advance for your help and advice.


Comments

  • #2
    Damien King
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 195 ✭✭Damien King


    fcalcada wrote: »
    Hello fellow "Arcadians".

    My name is Fernando, I am a recent arrival here in Ireland and I came across your forum and decided to join in.

    I am currently in the study/planning stages of my first arcade cab build, and I am in need of some advice.

    This project will be:
    - Single player, mini bartop arcade cab
    - using a Raspberry Pi

    I have scoured many a internet page looking for information on arcade parts, cabinet construction, software, etc etc.

    I have two preferred cab designs, sourced from the Koenigs(dot)dk and RetroBuiltGames(dot)com pages

    My "ideal" construction material would be acrylic, since it is cleaner to work with and as such more "wife friendly".

    As the nanocade from Koenigs is a Mini/ITx project I would have to change the specs a bit so that a Raspberry PI 2, LCD + driver board + speakers & Amp would fit inside.

    This will be done once I manage to find time and some degree of understanding of how to work on Sketchup.

    So my first question to you all is:
    Since I already have the plans for the nanocade, I wanted to know from if there is a place, in or around Dublin where I can go, with these plans and have the acrylic laser cut to y specs.

    Thanks in advance for your help and advice.

    Hi, welcome to the forum.

    I'm based in the west so couldnt really comment on laser cutting in dublin.

    I actually Build Machines/flatback kits and supply components and recently supplied a USB Button/Joystick encoder to a guy who is building A Pi2 based project. Theres a few more on here doing stuff with Pi's so I'll leave it to these guys to offer up advice. I mainly do PC or jamma multiboard based stuff so I'm not as clued in on the PI.

    Making it wife freindly can also present a challenge, but you might want to re consider using acrylic as it is quite brittle and scratch or even shatter easily when you are working with it. There will also be mess when working with it. It could also get crazy expensive to use the required thickness. You also need to think about how to join it all together. When using ply/Mdf etc you can cut rebates into the side panels for any cross pieces to go into and this will really improve the structural rigidity of the cabinet. I can do a fullsize cabinet simply held together with glue and there is no twising or flexing whatsoever.

    if it absolutely has to be a plastic based material then I would recommend polycarbonate. I use it for monitor/control panel overlays, marquees and even as a clear art protector on a fullsize cabinet I'm building for a clients gamesroom at the moment. It is far more resistant to scratches that acrylic. Its harder to get it in a colour though.

    If it has to be wife freindly and blend in with the furniture You can do some pretty amazing stuff using regular board material and doing a vinyl wrap over it. you can have pretty much anything: from a solid colour to carbon fibre, stainless steel, leather the list is endless, or even pink velvet (now THAT might be wife friendly) The advantage of this is that you will have strength in the construction and you can still use T molding to give it a nice arcade look.

    I'd be very interested to see how much it would work out to get the panels lazer/cnc cut in a material of suitable thickness, I'd say you could get something done in a wood based sheet material with rebates, vinyl wrapped and T molded for a similar price. I'd certainly try and beat it.

    Feel free to PM me if you want, we can chat

    Damien


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