Introduction: Arcade Pi

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I've always dreamed of having an arcade machine... So I started to look around to see the price and the space it would take. And man, it takes a lot of space and it's expensive! I arrived to the conclusion that I had to build one myself. After checking my WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) for this kind of project, I ended up choosing the minimum form factor for this arcade machine. And that's what I built: an arcade stick with a Raspberry Pi inside to emulate the beast. :)

Step 1: Parts List

I used :

  • 1x Raspberry Pi B+ ( but a Pi 2 would be better)
  • 1x 8Go SD card
  • 1x Xin-Mo arcade controller
  • 1x a set of arcade buttons and a stick
  • 1x HDMI extension cable
  • 1x microUSB extension cable
  • 1x piece of wood for the box frame
  • 3x piece of 3mm MDF for the top and bottom
  • 1x piece of 3mm acrylic for the top
  • some screws and glue

Step 2: The Box

For the Box, I copied the arcade stick from a fellow maker MaKoTo. Depending on the type and the number of buttons you choose, the box measurements will change. Basically, it's a wooden frame with some blocks in the corner to screw the top and bottom.

You can see on the picture that I made a lot of mistakes but some wood filler and some sanding resolve many problems ;).

The top is made of 2 layers of MDF and one layer of acrylic cut with a laser cutter following the template here.

The most important is maybe the paper layer I put before the acrylic for the decoration. It gives a unique look ;). I combined some Metal Slug images I found.

Attachments

Step 3: The Connections

The connections required a lot of patience and calm for the arcade buttons. I followed the instruction provided with the Xin-Mo and triple checked because all the provided cables are black and it actually makes it more difficult....

For the rest, I connected the HDMI extension cable and the microUSB cable on the Raspberry Pi, the Xin-Mo on the Raspberry Pi and that's all.

Step 4: The Software

This part was the easiest. I just chose the RaspiCade distribution which implement the full support for the Xin-Mo controller. I followed their tutorial that consists in burning the SD, starting, configuring with the auto-configure help and it's working.

Because my Xin-Mo controller has 2 player connections, I prepared a hole which will be connected respecting the NeoGeo controller standard.

I love it when a plan comes together ! ;) I hope you enjoyed this instructable.

You can find more details and other hacks on this french blog.