Stupeficium ! - mini bartop with Raspberry PI [finished]

[jeremypps]

Hi, I just ended building this little bartop with a raspberry inside, as a Xmas gift for my 9 years son.
Considering I’m not much skilled with woodworking and all this stuff I’m satisfied with the result, I’ll just reprint the marquee and build the second joystick.
I bought this 7” lcd screen, originally intended for the ps2 slim, paid 8€ brand new, great deal.
Then I ordered the raspberry, joystick, buttons and t-molding.
I used a micro-atx power source, so I can have 5V (raspberry, fan and marquee leds), 9V (lcd screen, using a small circuit to lower the 12V) and 12V (CP buttons).
Wood is 15mm plywood for base and sides (and a thicker one for the rest), for the control panel I used a piece of laminated parquet.
I also stole the idea for the keychain from somewhere in the forum.
I know it’s not something amazing like the stuff all you guys do but I hope my son will appreciate it.
Thanks for watching, sorry for my poor English and merry Xmas to everybody.

[skjerk]

Very nice! I like it 
How did you interface the joystick and buttons to the Pi?

[jeremypps]

Very nice! I like it 
How did you interface the joystick and buttons to the Pi?

Thanks !
Since I'm not much into linux etc. I didn't want to mess with gpio, so I hacked an usb gamepad.
I used pimame image, usb gamepad doesn't work in the menu but it does in mame4all, so, in the .profile file, I replaced the last line with one that makes mame4all boots directly.
That's fine for now, maybe in the future I'll mess around with other distro like retropie.
Cheers !

[ark_ader]

I think it is a perfect example of not what to build.  Passable for first attempt, but if it was for my kid, I would have made him a small weecade at the very least.  Tiny screen under powered PC and cheap controls.  It definitely needs a magic wand over it.

Sorry, but I have to be honest here.  My weecade kit complete cost £100 including cabinet, PC and hardware.   

[pbj]

  My weecade kit complete cost £100 including cabinet, PC and hardware.   

No pic, no weecade kit

[Well Fed Games]

Cool little cab!  I bet your son will love it, lucky kid! Neat to see the Pi in some finished projects.

[ark_ader]

  My weecade kit complete cost £100 including cabinet, PC and hardware.   

No pic, no weecade kit

Use the search facility on this site lazybones.

The Raspberry Pi would be better suited to teach your son computing as it was intended than running games. 

[jeremypps]

I think it is a perfect example of not what to build.  Passable for first attempt, but if it was for my kid, I would have made him a small weecade at the very least.  Tiny screen under powered PC and cheap controls.  It definitely needs a magic wand over it.

Sorry, but I have to be honest here.  My weecade kit complete cost £100 including cabinet, PC and hardware.   

Great, thanks ! I picked up an hammer and destroyed everything, I was lucky enough to sell the lcd screen and with that money I could buy a (used) copy of "unix for dummies", my 9 years son enjoyed it a lot, it was his favourite Xmas gift !
Happy new year ....

[JDFan]

I think it is a perfect example of not what to build.  Passable for first attempt, but if it was for my kid, I would have made him a small weecade at the very least.  Tiny screen under powered PC and cheap controls.  It definitely needs a magic wand over it.

Sorry, but I have to be honest here.  My weecade kit complete cost £100 including cabinet, PC and hardware.   

Great, thanks ! I picked up an hammer and destroyed everything, I was lucky enough to sell the lcd screen and with that money I could buy a (used) copy of "unix for dummies", my 9 years son enjoyed it a lot, it was his favourite Xmas gift !
Happy new year ....

Glad to hear he liked it ! you have to forgive Ark as many of us here are getting older and the eye sight isn't what it used to be so those little displays remind us of how we used to be able to see them !  Also the kids nowadays are so used to seeing everything on their little smart phones that the display in that thing looks big to them so I'm sure he'll get plenty of use out of it ! 

[Well Fed Games]

I think it is a perfect example of not what to build.  Passable for first attempt, but if it was for my kid, I would have made him a small weecade at the very least.  Tiny screen under powered PC and cheap controls.  It definitely needs a magic wand over it.

Sorry, but I have to be honest here.  My weecade kit complete cost £100 including cabinet, PC and hardware.   

Great, thanks ! I picked up an hammer and destroyed everything, I was lucky enough to sell the lcd screen and with that money I could buy a (used) copy of "unix for dummies", my 9 years son enjoyed it a lot, it was his favourite Xmas gift !
Happy new year ....

 

[sac01]

Nice work, how did you set up the exit button on Mame4all?   I set one up but I cant get it to stop coming up with the "quit are you sure?" screen...which requires another keypress.

[VanillaGorilla]

I dont know, a hammer is really underpowered, and the wrong tool to be using to smash things. If you wanted to teach him about nails, its ok, but you should have used a steamroller and fire. I'll never forget the x-mas I got my first steamroller....

[johnnygal2]

Nice little cab. I hope your son is really enjoying it.

The Pi is a perfect platform where space is a premium. It runs the old style games well. I used one to power a small cocktail style cab for my nephew and he really enjoys playing the old ones like galaga, space invaders, donkey kong, etc.

Cheers.

[jeremypps]

Nice work, how did you set up the exit button on Mame4all?   I set one up but I cant get it to stop coming up with the "quit are you sure?" screen...which requires another keypress.

I'm using only mame4all, so I only need to exit from the game and go back to the game selection screen, esc key (remapped to any joypad key) is ok for this, I don't know if you want to use other emulators, still have to check with another distro, but for now is ok like this, football champ and all other soccer related games are more than enough for the kid

I dont know, a hammer is really underpowered, and the wrong tool to be using to smash things. If you wanted to teach him about nails, its ok, but you should have used a steamroller and fire. I'll never forget the x-mas I got my first steamroller....

luckily he didn't see me while I was using the hammer ... :-)

Nice little cab. I hope your son is really enjoying it.

The Pi is a perfect platform where space is a premium. It runs the old style games well. I used one to power a small cocktail style cab for my nephew and he really enjoys playing the old ones like galaga, space invaders, donkey kong, etc.

Cheers.

many thanks, he does (but gets mad when he doesn't win)

[mvolke1]

I can't believe some peeps... 

Your son got the coolest present a dad could give. Something personal you made for him. I bet he'll have that in his dorm room when he goes away to college and will be the envy of all the kids around him. 

[yotsuya]

I can't believe some peeps... 

Your son got the coolest present a dad could give. Something personal you made for him. I bet he'll have that in his dorm room when he goes away to college and will be the envy of all the kids around him. 

"Peeps"? Don't you mean "ark-ader"?