Project: CoffeeCade...

[MD Draco]

Okay, yeah, it's been a while forum folk... Last project I "completed" was 2013... Someone once said "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it". In the time of my absence from the forum, I've had one daughter, with number two due to arrive... 4 days ago!

Number 1 daughter asked me a few months ago: "Daddy, can we build an arcade?" To this, I looked at my wife, and burst out laughing. I had not prompted her to do this at all, but I'd been thinking about it for a while, as my last one had to be sold when my office became the nursery!

This time, I wanted to do things differently with my daughter, so I got some ground rules from my wife "As long as it's small enough to fit in the TV cabinet, you can build what you like" ... Okay, tough brief! No full scale this time around. Monitor? Has to go, not enough room under the TV. Measured the width, and checked... I can build a standard width panel and it just fits (maybe when we get a bigger house, it can be transplanted into an upright!). height might be an issue, but with some clever measuring / use of space, and swapping out from a PC to a Pi, I've managed to make it happen, after four months of waiting for parts / prepping / building, this is what my daughter and I have built...

[javeryh]

Looks nice.  Very clean wiring on the inside.  I hope your daughter gets a lot of enjoyment out of it!

[nipsmg]

I get (ir?)rationally jealous when I see people who get their wiring so neat. 
Excellent job, very clean looking.

[MD Draco]

Thanks guys, space was always going to be tight on this one, so I had no choice but to make a custom wiring loom for it. After the mess that was my last one, even after I cable tidied it, that was one of my musts anyway, makes it so much easier to see what's going on inside!!

If I were to add LED's, I think I'd probably add that under the lid too. Not that there's room in this beastie! Every mm is accounted for! I measured everything out before I started, so there's about a 5mm gap from switches to the bottom of the case when it's closed, the pi and the iPac sit opposite each other, after routing a 7mm hole, it gives them about 2mm internal gap after the pegs. Wasn't sure about cooling, but I've been checking it and there seems to be enough air inside to keep the temperature down, but worst case, I'll come in from the back and add a small fan. The Pi has enough power to run that just off the main board so shouldn't be an issue.

One day the back might be able to come off entirely if it can go into an upright though ... That's always the dream, but space constraints being what they are, not always practical.

[leapinlew]

Did you laminate the inside? That's dedication.

[MD Draco]

Inside isn't laminated at all, I sprayed the control panel before vinyl, as I've been told it helps the vinyl stick better to do this, (also has the added benefit of looking damn cool with the tidy cabling) and the sides are actually off cuts from someones kitchen cabinets that were being built. One of my friends had them left over, and they just happened to be close enough to size that cutting them down made perfect sense for this ... They're not quite the standard depth, but they worked out really well for this project

[meduza]

looks really good!