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Officially PiP : 08 April : Logo designs

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markc74:
Hey everyone. So here’s something I never thought I’d ever do - build an arcade using a Pi AND an LCD. For shame.

The idea started when I purchased a Pi with no real goal other than seeing what it could do and it was cheap. Installed a Retropie image and played around with it for a while but then realised what a lot of people do after a while in that whilst it's quite cute - it doesn’t really have the power to run a full size cab. Back in a cupboard it went.

A short while ago I saw some vids on youtube of micro arcade builds and thought they looked like a fun thing to build - and as a big fan of tabletop games (Tron and Frogger rock) I dusted it off and started looking to see what was out there.

Came across a site that had already throught this through and had a “picade hat” (https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/picade-x-hat) for sale which could manage the controls, off button and the amp in one tidy PCB. At this point, the lights clicked on and I realised that this wouldn’t actually involve any hacking and could be done pretty simply.

Fired up my 3D modeller of choice (AC3D) and started playing around. Ended up with this:



For some stupid reason I'm making the screen rotatable using a lazy susan because vert games look small enough on an 8" screen, never mind in horizontal orientation.

Anyway, got some wood cut...




Glued



And a first pass at filling the gaps.



A little bit heavy handed with the filler but should all sand up ok.

It's really dinky so getting it all together is a bit of a pain but I like that it's simple and want to keep the button count down to games I'll actually play on it. I'm tempted to chuck some Megadrive/SNES games on there as I don't put them on my fullsize cabs but I'll play around a bit more with Retropie and see what works. What I'm hoping for is an emulator that lets you play the old tabletop games but I haven't looked into that too much yet.

leapinlew:
Nice!

There are definitely emulators that play the old tabletop games. I should have never played them. They didn’t age well.

Ond:
Excellent.  I really like how the screen rotation is worked into the design with a matching design/art aesthetic for the CP.  Bravo!   :applaud:

Jimbo:
Nice one Mark :)  Looks good.  Only thing I'd say is if you haven't already done so, check it's going to be stable enough on the desk/table.  I'd be worried it'll be very easy to fall backwards with a slight knock or no pressure on the CP, as it looks a bit top heavy to me.  Have you tried a cardboard mockup or tested the centre of gravity? :D

Great design. I'm sure it'll end up just as good as your other masterpieces.  :cheers:

jdbailey1206:
Just brainstorming here but I feel like Pip would be an excellent name for it.  Referring to the fact that a blip on a radar can also be called a pip.  And a pip refers to a speck(a very small amount).

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