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2020

  • in Arcade
  • 2 min read

Practice Cuts

A few days ago I asked Kelly for help in drawing the arcade on the plywood. I had tried to draw the lines for the top of the cabinet, but I just couldn’t visualize it. (It’s both an ongoing joke and the truth that her spacial relationships are a hundred times better than mine. You don’t want to see me try to even pack a suitcase, I’m terrible). I also needed help with how to draw the curves along the sides. Luckily, she made some time Saturday morning and by afternoon I had the saws out.

Practice Cuts

We have two old pieces of plywood that we’ve used for desks at LAN / gaming parties over the last twenty years, with the last time a few years ago here at the new house. This is what I used for my first practice round with the saws.

The cuts with the circular saw went pretty well. They were fairly straight. It was the jigsaw that was harder than expected. I underestimated the strength needed to move the jigsaw. I made three mistakes: one of the big curves isn’t as smooth as it should be, though it could be sanded down; the marquee cut didn’t follow the line correctly, though you can’t really tell; and I over cut a point where the jigsaw and circular saw cuts meet.

Overall, it was good for a first time. I’m going to make one more practice run and then on to the real thing. It’s going to snow the next few days, but this weekend looks nice...

Right Side Panel

Left Side Panel

  • in Arcade
  • 1 min read

Video Prep

I've spent this week watching some videos and preparing for today when I'm going to make a practice cut for the first time using the circular saw and jigsaw. The hardest part is figuring out the curve of the cut for the side panel. The Geek Pub FAQ says this is explained in the video for the mini bartop. I just watched that video - and it's not explained at all! Even worse, the 10 seconds where it is explained is not applicable to the full size cabinet at all, in my opinion. I showed Kelly and she said she'll help me, but I'll have to wait until her midterms are over this week. That's fair and I'll keep watching videos to learn some best practices. (Seriously, what did we ever do before YouTube?!)

  • in Arcade
  • 1 min read

Future Arcade Planning

Kelly and I talked about the arcade today. She told me something I had already thought to myself - that this probably won’t be the last arcade I build. I'm going to make mistakes and want to do it again. This came up in the context of doing the router work for the t-molding. She recommended I don’t do the t-molding on the first build as I’m going to make mistakes and will probably want to do it again.

She’s right. I’ve seen similar comments from people who have built their own arcade cabinets on Reddit. I have zero - ZERO - woodworking skills, so it will probably be an ugly mess to start. But I'm torn. I know that I can't let perfect be the enemy of good and if it is for practice, I should practice everything, including using a router. So I don't know.

I’m going to practice with some cuts this weekend and hopefully cut the sides next week when the weather gets warmer.

  • in Arcade
  • 2 min read

Pixelcade

I sold a bunch of my old Sonos equipment and decided to splurge on the arcade. I had been looking at GameOnGrafix for artwork for the side panels and the marquee for the arcade cabinet. I was undecided what I wanted to do as Kelly has a vinyl cutter, so it might be possible to make my own side panel art, but I was going to need a marquee.

And then I found the Pixelcade, which is an LED marquee. Available in five different sizes, I went with the P4, a 20" x 5" marquee made of 2 LED panels. It should work out of the box with LEDBlinky (on Windows) and RetroPie on the Raspberry Pi. (I'm still undecided what OS I'm going to run if I don't use the Raspberry Pi 3 B+.)

Depending on the game you're playing, the marquee will display the game art / title for that game. From their website, here's a cabinet when playing Pac-Man:

Pac-Man

Here's just a small sample of the game art Pixelcade supports from their homepage:

Pixelcade Art

Check out their homepage for videos of it in action and more artwork.

It's going to add some complexity to mount this in the cabinet as I have zero woodworking skills, but they have some nice mounting guides that should hopefully get me started.

The Pixelcade consists of the two LED panels, a power supply, and a logic board with a micro-SD card. It looks like there is really good documentation for installation of the hardware and software, including videos. And if I get really ambitious, there's even a REST API for more customization.

I still have a ton of work before I even get to the point of installing this, but if and when this cabinet is done, the Pixelcade is going to be a killer feature.

  • in Arcade
  • 1 min read

More Control Panel Prototype Failures

Kelly needed to replace the blade in the saw and she cut me a new piece of wood to use as a prototype for the control panel. (At some point, I'm going to need to learn to use the saws!) After carefully paying attention to using the right size drill bit, my board looks like this:

Prototype 4

Kelly then took a turn at doing it herself, and hers ended up the same way, so I don't feel too bad. It's the quality of the wood, it's just too cheap. The worst part is that the very first prototype that I built upside down was oak. I couldn't ask for better wood and I screwed that up.

I'm going to move on from a prototype and start focusing on building the cabinet out after a little more research and watching some more YouTube videos. (And hopefully it gets warmer soon so I can work outside!)

  • in Arcade
  • 2 min read

Control Panel Prototypes

If I don't improve my attention to detail, I'm going to waste a lot of time and money. Case in point: just trying to build a prototype for the control panel so I can figure out how to use the Ipac controller and arcade buttons.

The first prototype I built 18 months ago I built upside down. I tried to fix it, but it was just uncomfortable to use.

Prototype 1

The second control panel I drilled the holes the wrong size. I thought the normal size for an arcade button was a 1" hole - it is not, it is a 1 1/8" hole. So that board got tossed. Thankfully this is all old wood we had lying around that's fair game for stuff like this.

The third time was not the charm. Even though I took the arcade buttons with me to the garage where I was drillign the holes, after I cut the first couple and inserted the buttons to double check - and I got it right up until that point - I then went on to drill a number of holes too small again. I need to slow down and pay attention.

And for the record, I need 1" holes for the 1P / 2P smaller buttons and 1 1/8" holes for the normal arcade buttons.

Prototypes

  • in Arcade
  • 2 min read

Starting the Arcade Cabinet Again

After a year and a half break from working on the arcade cabinet, it's time to start again. I've started keeping a journal of my progress and I figured I might as well blog about it as well. I'll use this to keep track of my progress, what I've learned, and post some photos, too.

I've never done any woodworking - or really used power tools before - so I have a lot to learn.

Some random things I've done today:

  • Circular saw - added videos to a new "Woodworking" Youtube playlist I created

  • Subscribed to The Geek Pub - for $15 / year, I get access to all the plans they sell commercially as well as some additional videos. Plans also include the SketchUp files, an online CAD-like program.

    • 4 different arcade plans for sale (or included in their subscription)
    • I liked the 2 player standup - it seems easier that Koenigs in trying to change the size

  • Reviewed plans again from Koenigs

    • Metric only - conversion to Imperial doesn’t seem exact enough
    • Going to be difficult to build in Imperial
    • These were the plans I wanted to use for the longest time, but going to go with The Geek Pub

  • Watched 2 circular saw videos

  • The end of January may not be the best time for woodworking in the garage in Minnesota...

  • Watched Mavericks Arcade videos on Youtube - LEDBlinky (which is Windows only) has been updated. LEDBlinky looks really cool to control the LED lights in the buttons

  • Finally swapped the control panel prototypes

    • I drilled the holes in the new panel one size too small
    • Not sure if I have right 1 1/4” drill bit?
    • Kelly cut a new piece of wood for me
    • Will the third time be the charm in making the control panel prototype?