My PiCade Project

[mike5im5]

Hi All,

My first post on this forum (please move if it's in the wrong place). I upgraded my pi to a pi2 a few weeks back and had a spare original pi kicking around. I decided to make use of it as an arcade emulator. When searching for decent controls on Amazon I stumbled across the iCade at what seemed like a really decent price so decided to use that as the base of my project. Anyways, I'm sure many people have built the same project before me but I thought I'd share some WIP pics never the less. Comments welcome!

Parts:

old raspberry pi, case & sd card - Spares
iCade from Amazon - £29.95
usb arcade control board from ebay - £7
ipad 1 lcd screen from ebay - £29.99
ipad lcd control board from ebat - £26.99
dual 12v/5v psu board from Amazon - £11.50
mini usb speakers - Spares
perspex sheet from homebase - ~£8

I decided to go with the ipad lcd + control board as all the small lcd monitors I could find were 16:9 and the old retro games would have been squeezed into very small screen space. I was very happy with the results and the resolution was great for even command line text when configuring the pi. The only drawback is the control board needed a 12v supply. Not being too savvy with electrics I bought a PSU that had both 12v and 5v (for the pi) outputs.

LCD control board made the ipad replacement screen into a monitor with vga, hdmi and video out:


I cut and then bent some perspex as a bevel for the screen and painted the back with some black bbq paint that I had laying around.


Once I'd scrapped the iCade bluetooth module, rewired the controls to usb and plugged everything together. I tested the setup with tape holding everything in place.



I destroyed the casing of the usb speakers and took out the cones and mounted them to the perspex (with some holes drilled for the sound).



Fully assembled:



From the back (More painted perspex with a window to see the pi  )



Build time is about 3 evenings so far... much more time wasted thinking about the project and components though!

Still to be done:

-Custom Marquee with back light
-External USB slot for extra controllers
-Mount the usb speaker volume controls so they can be operated externally.

[pbj]

What software are you using on the Pi?  I've yet to encounter something I like much.

[mike5im5]

I didn't want to spend to long configuring it so just downloaded the retropie iso image. Saved a lot of time as everything was more or less setup ready to go (just needed to load ROMS and configure controls).

[uhoh]

Looks great for such a quick build!
Do you have a link for the ipad 1 controller board you are using?
I can find lcd controllers for later model ipads but boards for ipad 1's are eluding me.