Whats up fellas (and hopefully a lady or two?). So I've taken on some new projects for a friend of mine. And what he wanted to do was buy up a bunch of I-Cades he found.. and convert them to dedicated machines. Somewhat of a comfortable financial fellow, he eventually wants like a wall of these things. If you dont know, the I-cade was a little "arcade cabinet" sold in toy stores and such. It was just a cabinet, with a bluetooth control panel, and room for you to put an ipad in, and play games with the button. For time purposes, and uniformity as well, the icade was a good idea, as its a perfect size, and for between 20-40 dollars each, were both content with that decision. Yes i could probably make 10 out of one 30 dollar piece of wood.. but then edge/t molding/ finishing, assembling, priming for art, plus the other tons of stupid little mishaps, im just happy with him dropping off a pre-made box for me to transform. Im working on a few, but this is the first fully finished one. I will try to do a detailed write up of my project. I learned alot of small lessons that will help me make these a lot faster. I would like to thank another buddy of mine who schooled me on electric work and made the product very clean.. also lucian, He did a bang up job, as per usual, on the art, and even went the length to fix some mistakes that I had made and was really cool about it. So here we go..
The machines internal power was done very nicely with help,and features a single power port that gets plugged into and powers the whole machine. It plugs in, turns on and boots directly to Robotron!
SPECS/PARTS
Icade cabinet
Raspberry pi 2b running mame4all
RPi gpio board
10" lcd screen
1.5' hdmi cable
"boomboxx" bootleg portable speakers (from five below.. cost 3 bucks each and they sound GREAT.. even too loud when turned up.
2 zippyy joysticks
led light strip for marquee lighting
lexan for the marquee and bezel pieces
12v-5v voltage regulator, for splitting out various voltages to different things
various nuts, screws, terminals, plugs, inserts, and fun stuff..
And heres the build process. Again, there were some learning processes, ESPECIALLY the software. Ive never touched linux or anything like a PI. But as long as you have a goal and learn towards it, you get there. I started with the icade itself. My first problem off the bat was, the icade has a plastic control panel, with a joy, and 8 buttons. That had to go, so i removed the top part of the control panel with the buttons and guts. That left me with the bottom half of the panel, which has the half rounded lip. This would pose a problem with adding my own control panel, as far as wrapping the art around, and it looking seamless. So i basically hacked the hell out of the icade plastic, and just left a flush frame running clean with the wood frame. The thing is with these, my relationship with my friend as far as projects go, isnt exactly cash for labor.. i hook him up, and hes always done things for me when i need help. So if i was either getting paid handsomely, OR building to perfection, id gut all the plastic and build a curved cp that curves down into the front bottom face. So anyways, what you see, is my final idea for the direction of the cp.
post image onlineNext was figuring out how and where to fit all the internal parts. And after alot of trying to stuff it under the control panel.. i realized i can fit most of it right on the back piece of the cabinet, behind the monitor!
upload jpgFor the control panel, i used 1/4" fiberboard type material. Very smooth and clean, easy to work with. I basically just traced and cut the shape of the frame i left after butchering the plastic panel out. I also routed a slot out at the top for the bottom of the bezel to sit into. I then began measuring for placement and art and such
adult image hostThe marquee was basically straightforward..The icade comes with a top part of the marquee that opened and closed to slide the ipad in. I just needed the bottom piece of the marquee, so i simply measure side to side.. give it about 3"depth just enough to cover what would be in front of the bezel. I routed small slots across the marquee pieces to fit the actual marquee and hold it in. I also cut two holes in for speakers, to keep it authentic. Now here i ran into a problem.. How to install the speakers. I made the initial mistake of cutting first, thinking after and cut the two holes.. so i was left to figure out a way to make a nice speaker grill... So i used my trusty dremel, and cut out the actual round pieces from the speaker i bought. I found these 3 dollar speakers at five below, and they sound AWESOME. I Bought 5 different speakers they had and tested them all. This sounded the best. So i went back and bought a bunch. They come with aux cord, and run off 2 aaa batteries, so i knew i could easily internally power them. On the next one i build im going to drill a pattern through the bottom marquee piece instead of a grill on the outside. But i think this came out ok. I cut out the round frames and grills, and spray painted them black.
uploading imagesfree image uploadNext was the power situation to tie it all together. I wanted a very nice set up.. no power cords hanging out, no power strips.. luckily i had a good friend who just completely schooled me completely. My problem was this, all of the internal components ran on different voltages..
Monitor-12v
pi-5 v
led strip-12v
speakers-3v
I wanted to have one single female port on the back, that you would plug power into, super clean and proper. I installed everything inside, and then wired it up as following. I used a 4 terminal power strip. In coming into it was the female port that would be in the back. That would bring 12v into the machine. I ran a ground and hot line to each side
pic hostI went to a electronics mecca place that i didnt know existed which had EVERYTHING in the universe you could need.. They hooked me up with several power plug pigtails, voltage regulators, and proper 12v 2.0A transformers. I soldered a plug on the end of the transformer from the wall plug, that would plug into the back of the cabinet in the little port that runs into the inside
photos uploadback on the inside, that 4 terminal strip, still have the 12v and ground hooked up. I connect a 12v to 5 volt regulator right onto the strip.. 12v goes to the same 12v incoming.. and the 5v goes on one side of the empty terminal, now making the other side of that same terminal 5 volt powered. I run power from that 5v terminal and a ground to the pi, and boom! I have 5v running to the pi from a 12v line. I also just jumped a line from the 12v terminal to the led power strip as well. The speakers ran off of 3 volts, so i just hooked them up to the Raspberry pi 3v pins, and they work beautifully.
hosting imageThe joysticks and buttons were all wired as normal, and run into a gpio board, which essentially is the same idea as an ipac or any encoder. Ill save the technical crap and leave it at that. BUT i do need to shout out RETROGAME by adafruit.. its a fully set up to boot and program the gpio board.. basically the "winipac" software of the pi. Helped me out alot. I also found some nice simply wire harness that worked great for the setup! Perfect length. I just clip one end off, and then i have a 14 pin connector with open ends to solder/crimp onto controls
image uploadI dont have specific pictures but throughout the above pictures you can see i also made to little slots on each side of the cabinet inside, to hold the horizontal lcd monitor in.
*** IN SOME PICS, THE SCREEN IS VERTICAL.. THIS IS INITIALLY HOW I PUT IT IN, AND REALIZED I CAN GET A LOT MORE SCREEN IF I JUST ROUTE OUT A LITTLE SLOT TO MAKE THE LCD FIT**
free screen captureThe last bit would be the artwork, and of course, again, thanks to mr bowman for rocking the artwork gig.
screenshot windows 7And more or less, the machine is done! I left the top of the marquee able to swing open, to reach the speaker power incase he wants them all displayed but not have his house sound like a blasting arcade. There are small touches i need to make but thats about it!.. ALSO, i need to add a little marquee edging to that bottom marquee wood.. a L corner or something.. My next two on deck are dig dug and q-bert. Digdug is nearing completion.
*NOTE, THE MARQUEE AND ALL THAT IS CROOKED.. I DIDNT FULLY CLOSE IT YET. There are still a few changes i have to make so its not 100% locked together yet, so anything that looks off, is because they arent fastened
image shareupload picturesfree jpeg imagesTHANK YOU ALL FOR READING!.. And a small sneak peak
free upload image
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Topic: NEW *Finished* Project-Icade Conversion-Robotron (Read 4951 times)
