RetroCade - My iPhone Cab

[vcoleiro1]

Just finished building my RetroCade iPhone cab which I built using 6mm mdf, micro buttons , joystick from Digikey with solid aluminium ball top, moulded coin door and side art and a hacked wiimote for wireless bluetooth connection of the controls to an ipod/iphone/android phone running mame4all.

Heres a demo of it in action - :



Heres some of the build photos including the moulds I made for the coin door and side art.

CPO:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60707580@N04/6316786218/#sizes/m/in/photostream/

Moulds:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60707580@N04/6316277347/#sizes/m/in/photostream/

Cab & Hacked Wiimote:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60707580@N04/6316790200/#sizes/m/in/photostream/

[wp34]

Very nice.  The coin door is a neat touch.   

[GingerTroll]

Build your own miniature iCADE controls  .  I appreciate your continued work on the mini arcade scale.  I cannot have full size machines, but I can learn from your work and create my own small world of favorites.  What are you putting into the coin door molds?

[vcoleiro1]

Build your own miniature iCADE controls  .  I appreciate your continued work on the mini arcade scale.  I cannot have full size machines, but I can learn from your work and create my own small world of favorites.  What are you putting into the coin door molds?

I used a product called Easycast which is a polyurethane resin.  The moulding process works well, but the moulding material and the resin are expensive. You also need to ensure when you pour the resin into the mould that no air bubbles are in it, otherwise you end up with little bubble sized holes in the cast.  The bubbles can be reduced by pouring the resin into the mould from a height so that a very thin stream is poured which removes the bubbles or by using a vacuum chamber.

Polyurethane resin is not the most forgiving material to paint, I have yet to find the best type of paint to use on it - anyone got any suggestions?

[drventure]

Polyurethane resin is not the most forgiving material to paint, I have yet to find the best type of paint to use on it - anyone got any suggestions?

Have you tried a good primer on it first? Usually, hard to paint surfaces work much better if primed first. But, primer might have a hard time sticking as well. I just know I've used primer first on tricky surfaces and had pretty good results.

[vcoleiro1]

Yeahhh, iMame is in the app store as others have noted.  I hope it stays there

[Well Fed Games]

Love this idea. There are going to be a lot of used early smartphones and wiimotes found for cheap secondhand in the coming years, this is a great way to use them!

[gbeef]

Thats pretty sweet do you have a link on where to build one?

[vcoleiro1]

I have added 3 of the build photos in my intial post, I have some more photos of the build which I might put up also.

[wizkid32]

Very nice!  I especially like the coin door!   

[Havok]

Cute, shame it costs more than a full size cab to build though...

[vcoleiro1]

Cute, shame it costs more than a full size cab to build though...

I think the materials in total cost under $100  excluding the ipod/smart phone. 

[Havok]

excluding the ipod/smart phone. 

But it doesn't work too well without one. I was thinking of the total out of pocket cost. I didn't mean to knock it though, just a friendly jest.

[wizkid32]

How does it cost more?   

  ~$100 Materials
+~$200 Ipod
=~$300 Total cost

~300 vs. $500 (barest minimum, easily exceeded)

Am I missing something?

[Havok]

Am I missing something?

Yes, you are. Here's a cost breakdown of my very first Mame cab:

Cab - free, off Craigslist
Computer\Monitor - free off Craigslist
Blood, sweat, tears - also free, courtesy of me
Keywiz\Joysticks\Buttons - $75
Misc scrap wood, screws, etc - ~$25

$100 total.

[wizkid32]

Am I missing something?

Yes, you are. Here's a cost breakdown of my very first Mame cab:

Cab - free, off Craigslist
Computer\Monitor - free off Craigslist
Blood, sweat, tears - also free, courtesy of me
Keywiz\Joysticks\Buttons - $75
Misc scrap wood, screws, etc - ~$25

$100 total.

How on earth did you manage to keep your costs so low??!!

I had a strict budget of $100.  Needless to say, I have already gone over that.  Twice.  With more surely still to come.

[Havok]

I had a strict budget of $100.  Needless to say, I have already gone over that.  Twice.  With more surely still to come.

It is easy. Especially if you go nuts with controls, nice monitor, pc, etc. My current Mame setup (7 years after my first build) has five hot swappable control panels (including the infamous Ram Controls Star Wars Yoke #1) with AtomicFE configured with menus for each installed panel, a nice large LCD screen, Core2 Duo pc, a bunch of lit stuff and it pains me to say I have over 2K into it. But, it's the bomb and anyone who ever comes over is impressed - even the kids who are all about their Xboxes and Playstations.

However, you can build a nice cab for cheap, and still have it be quite playable.

[wizkid32]

Well, my project has suffered from being expanded quite a bit from my original plans.  I recently decided to use swappable panels, mainly so I can have a 2-player racing wheel setup.   

[vcoleiro1]

In the end it comes down to how good your are bargain hunting and scavaging.  I managed to pickup a Ipod touch for $50 from the local classifieds web site which was pretty good. 

As for creating bartops etc, LCD monitors are pretty easy for me to get for free as they are usually thrown out at the Salvo's I volunteer at. Same with power adaptors , old PC's & TV's.   Also, the old tube Tv's are being thrown out on a massive scale in Melbourne in everyones hard rubbish.

[wizkid32]

Wow again.  Many of the CRT TVs and monitors at the local thrift shop are still marked at over $50.  I ended up just buying an LED monitor from Fry's for $100.  Thankfully, I already had a computer system, but I have already spent waaaaaay too much money on software!

[Donkey_Kong]

I know this is old thread, but could that wii mote hack be used for a real joystick and buttons?

[vcoleiro1]

I know this is old thread, but could that wii mote hack be used for a real joystick and buttons?

You can wire in a full size Joystick and buttons in the same way I have wired in the mini joystick and buttons

[Donkey_Kong]

cool, thanks. Nice micro cab collection you have on flickr!

[Darren01274]

Wow that is cool, what is the easiest way of wiring the controls?