My take on a light weight VigoLix cabinet

[bitwise97]

I've been wanting to build an arcade cabinet for years but have little to no wood working experience.  When I came across the Vigolix design by Vigo the Carpathian, I knew this was the right project for me.  http://www.instructables.com/id/A-Super-Easy-Arcade-Machine-from-1-Sheet-of-Plywoo/

The finished product:

[bitwise97]

Here's the original model:

[jmike]

Love the color, angles and artwork!
How well do those wheels handle the weight?
Might look even better with a marquee.
Nicely done.

 

[bitwise97]

Thanks JMike!  The wheels are supporting it just fine.  I pushed it from the garage all the way to its final destination on them.

I wanted to add a marquee but chickened out.  I may consider adding one down the road.

[BorgDog]

Looks really nice.  I love the cardboard model.  What specs does it have?  screen size etc.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Nice!

I love that you made the Sides and CP one piece!     As far as the marquee goes:  I say do it!  You can cut a simple piece of MDF, paint it so that the art can be mounted to it and then mount the piece of MDF it from the inside.  I used the same stuff that's used for CP overlays and it looks great without being backlit or anything.

Again, nice build!

DeLuSioNaL29

[bitwise97]

Looks really nice.  I love the cardboard model.  What specs does it have?  screen size etc.

Thanks BorgDog!  I went with a Raspberry Pi model B for the guts.  It's running the RetroPie image http://blog.petrockblock.com/retropie/.

The monitor is an ASUS 24" LED (model VE 247).

The joystick and top 3 buttons are from Adafruit http://www.adafruit.com/product/480.  In hindsight, not the best joystick or buttons, but they do the job.

The trackball and 4 black buttons are an X-Arcade unit purchased through eBay similar to this one: http://www.xgaming.com/store/arcade-parts-and-accessories/product/x-arcade-trackball-assembly/

I decided to use the audio out port on the Pi and pump the signal through an audio amplifier (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0049P6OTI/ref=pe_385040_121528360_TE_dp_1)

Let me know if I left anything out!

[bitwise97]

Nice!

I love that you made the Sides and CP one piece!     As far as the marquee goes:  I say do it!  You can cut a simple piece of MDF, paint it so that the art can be mounted to it and then mount the piece of MDF it from the inside.  I used the same stuff that's used for CP overlays and it looks great without being backlit or anything.

Again, nice build!

DeLuSioNaL29

Thanks DeLuSioNaL29!  I may do something like that.

[bitwise97]

Here's a pic showing the parts I purchased to start the project.  It shows the following:

1.  6' x 4' x 1/2" sheet of plywood.  (I learned after the fact I should have gone with 3/4" MDF).
2.  Circular saw (I never worked with wood before)
3.  Coin acceptor
4.  Some push buttons and joystick
4.  USB cable and power brick (for the Raspberry Pi)
5.  Couple of speakers and an audio amp circuit (didn't end up using these since they were not powerful enough)
6.  Raspberry Pi model B with some heat sinks and an HDMI cable
7.  Wheels for the base of the cabinet
8.  The monitor (already removed from its plastic enclosure)

[bitwise97]

I had a spare LED bulb laying around so decided to stick it into the mechanical coin return button.

This was a fun little project-inside-a-project. 

[bitwise97]

As mentioned previously, the 3 red buttons at the top are from Adafruit.  I initially bought a bunch of them: some white, some yellow, some red.

This was before I bought the trackball.  It came with its own 4 buttons and the whole thing connected to the Raspberry Pi via USB.   So, I really only needed 3 in the end, and I went with the red ones.

These have a removable top which allowed me to insert my own custom images into the button.

Here's a pic showing my test of the '1 Player' button.  The final version was printed on high quality photo paper.

[Louis Tully]

.

[bitwise97]

That's good work, man. I dig it. Your paint looks perfect.

Nice!

I love that you made the Sides and CP one piece!     As far as the marquee goes:  I say do it!  You can cut a simple piece of MDF, paint it so that the art can be mounted to it and then mount the piece of MDF it from the inside.  I used the same stuff that's used for CP overlays and it looks great without being backlit or anything.

Again, nice build!

DeLuSioNaL29

To go along with what DeLuSioNal said, a couple pieces of U-channel attached to the top and you can slide an art panel right in there. Easy to change out too.

Thank you!   I'm not familiar with U-channel, can you provide a link to an example or describe it?

[PL1]

Here, here and here are links to U-channel. (2 clear, 1 aluminum)

3 pieces (L/R/bottom) fixed to the cab and 1 piece on top stiffening and/or holding the marquee layers together should frame it nicely.   


Scott

[bitwise97]

Here, here and here are links to U-channel. (2 clear, 1 aluminum)

3 pieces (L/R/bottom) fixed to the cab and 1 piece on top stiffening and/or holding the marquee layers together should frame it nicely.   


Scott

Thank you Scott!  I thank that would be a perfect solution.   The gears are turning .... 

[DeLuSioNal29]

Pop into my thread and see how I mounted mine.  I got creative and used the "T-beam bracket"  you see in drop ceiling tiles.  But I had wanted it to hold both the plexi and marquee in place in one shot.  Yours may vary.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,141778.0.html

D

[Louis Tully]

.

[leapinlew]

I like it.

I think the biggest negative is the widescreen horizontal monitor, but other than that it's well executed.

[Vigo]

Wow! I love it. The control panel arm being flush to the sides adds a lot to the look. Very Catchy! Great work! 

[bitwise97]

Pop into my thread and see how I mounted mine.  I got creative and used the "T-beam bracket"  you see in drop ceiling tiles.  But I had wanted it to hold both the plexi and marquee in place in one shot.  Yours may vary.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,141778.0.html

D

Very nice!  Love the green/black.  Thanks for the tip.

[bitwise97]

Wow! I love it. The control panel arm being flush to the sides adds a lot to the look. Very Catchy! Great work! 

Thank you Mr. Vigo the Carpathian!   

I don't think I would have had the courage to build a cab without your design, so thank you very much for that! 

[bitwise97]

Here's another pic from my build process.

At this point I have all the pieces cut and tried a hasty assembly to see how all the parts will look when they're fit together.  This held together with clamps, small screens and some wire.  Very risky but I was excited to see how it would all look.

[bitwise97]

Should have probably cut out the holes for the controls first, then pained, but here I am marking the CP and preparing to cut.

[bitwise97]

Holes for 7 buttons, trackpad, and joystick are cut.  This was when I found another use for the router I had just bought for the t-molding.  I decided to cut out a space for the joystick, this is the initial cut around the edges.

[yotsuya]

I've been wanting to build an arcade cabinet for years but have little to no wood working experience.  When I came across the Vigolix design by Vigo the Carpathian, I knew this was the right project for me.  http://www.instructables.com/id/A-Super-Easy-Arcade-Machine-from-1-Sheet-of-Plywoo/

The finished product:

Without a marquee, the shape reminds me of a Jackal:

[bitwise97]

... and here's the finished cut.  I love the smell of fresh cut wood. 

[bitwise97]

I've been wanting to build an arcade cabinet for years but have little to no wood working experience.  When I came across the Vigolix design by Vigo the Carpathian, I knew this was the right project for me.  http://www.instructables.com/id/A-Super-Easy-Arcade-Machine-from-1-Sheet-of-Plywoo/

The finished product:

Without a marquee, the shape reminds me of a Jackal:

heh heh heh ... good point.  Actually my mother-in-law said it reminded her of batman, which I thought was odd but I accepted as a compliment. 

I was afraid I could screw the whole thing up by attempting to add a marquee so I didn't do it.  I've since been given some great tips by others on this forum so I will go back and add one.

[horizon]

Your pictures on imgr are the inspiration for my buddy building his own machine.  Literally found this out an hour ago.  Nicely done man.

[bitwise97]

So I am a terrible artist and cannot use Photoshop to save my life.  However I wanted something to decorate the cab, so I thought of applying some decals.

I collected vector art of characters from all my favorite games then uploaded them to Kinkos for printing.  Even though I specified on their website the dimensions that I wanted the things printed in, they came in all sorts of shapes and sizes.  I didn't have a clear vision for what I wanted to do with the artwork anyway so I let it slide and figured I'd find a nice place for all the pieces. 

The pic below shows one of my tests of where I might apply the decals.  Everything's held on with a little piece of tape.  I snapped some pics and studied them over and over again.  Something just didn't sit well with me.  As you have seen, I ultimately decided to scale back a lot on the artwork since it looked too cluttered.

[bitwise97]

At this point the t-molding has been applied, the controls and monitor are mounted and wired up.  I tried to do a little cleanup of the wires as you can see from this shot of the back of the cabinet.

[bitwise97]

Finally, here's a video of the boot up process.

[johnrt]

I don't know about you guys, but I find the raspberry pi too slow for running... well... anything. I prefer a powerful PC with loads of RAM and a fast SSD. I'm not patient enough to wait that long for things to load. 

But your cab looks really great! 

[wp34]

Those sides being one piece really set it off.  I like it a lot.   

Without the marquee I thought of Pikachu.  Just my opinion but the cabinet looks great without one.

[yotsuya]

I agree with you on the Pikachu, but disagree about it looking great without a marquee. It'd be really easy to put something in there.

[bitwise97]

I don't know about you guys, but I find the raspberry pi too slow for running... well... anything. I prefer a powerful PC with loads of RAM and a fast SSD. I'm not patient enough to wait that long for things to load. 

But your cab looks really great! 

Thanks!

Regarding the Pi, I do find it slow for traditional computing including web browsing.  However it works great for emulating the 80's classic arcade games - they don't need a lot of horsepower. 

[bitwise97]

Those sides being one piece really set it off.  I like it a lot.   

Without the marquee I thought of Pikachu.  Just my opinion but the cabinet looks great without one.

I appreciate the feedback! 

The sides are actually made of 2 pieces.  I mounted the arms flush to the edge of the side panels and used wood filler and sandpaper to make it appear as one unit.

[nitrogen_widget]

How does it feel playing centipede like that?
Or any trackball game the pi can handle?
When I make mine I plan to put the buttons in the middle and the track ball to the right.
As much as I'd like it in the center I don't think it will work for the vertical classics I plan to play.

[bitwise97]

How does it feel playing centipede like that?
Or any trackball game the pi can handle?
When I make mine I plan to put the buttons in the middle and the track ball to the right.
As much as I'd like it in the center I don't think it will work for the vertical classics I plan to play.

I think it works fine.  It doesn't feel unnatural at all.

[yamatetsu]

Nice build !

If you call the cab finished, please consider posting it in the "I completed my project! I posted a pic and a link to my project thread" sticky, so that someone who is looking for your thread can find it easily.

Sticky : http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,142020.0.html

[Locke141]

Nice work,

+1 on adding a marquee.

I'm loving all these Vigolix clone. I did one last summer but with all these supper nice builds I'm thinking hard about giving it a second go.