Multi-Cade Powered by Raspberry Pi
Intro: Multi-Cade Powered by Raspberry Pi
Relive days of your youth, or experience new ones with this fun to make arcade cabinet powered by the raspberry pi. This guide will show you some of the basics to arcade creation and go into detail about the process I took to build mine.
STEP 1: Gather/Order Materials
- 1x Raspberry Pi
MATERIALS:
In this guide I used the new 2 B+ model due to its improved speed. You also need the following:
+Power Supply
+Video cable
+SD/Micro SD card
- 1x Arcade cabinet
This is often the hardest step. You have 2 options, find and dismantle a preexisting cabinet, or build your own from scratch. This guide will show you how to re-purpose an older arcade unit (Lethal Enforcers) into the multi-arcade. If you don't have an arcade cabinet lying around here are a few things you will need to start your own:
+A easily paint able wood, as in not plywood unless you expect to lay paint on thick
+Paint, for example usually multi-arcades are solid black, but white ones can be signed by friends and family for a bit more personality.
+T-molding, usually a color to make the edges of a cabinet pop/blend in, just look on eBay.
- 1x TV/Monitor
This can be any TV, monitor, or the screen from a previous arcade game, as long as it has composite or HDMI video, otherwise you will need a converter. Depending on your display you also need:
+Materials to mount TV in cabinet
- 1x Power Strip
You can have this as your power source or get a PC power supply, it is still nice to have something to plug the Pi and TV directly into.
- 1-8x 8 Way Joysticks
The number of joysticks=number of players, although not all systems support 8 player controls. A good brand is HAPP (http://na.suzohapp.com/), but any 8 way joystick should work fine.
- 1-100x Push buttons
This is entirely dependent on what games you need/want to play, generally a SNES button (8 buttons per player) layout will play most home and arcade games.
- 1x Arcade to USB converter (optional)
This part is optional because you can wire through the GPIO pins on the pi, BUT it simplifies the process and usually comes with cables too. The one I got is for 2 player Street Fighter style/SNES you can get them here:
http://www.jammaboards.com/store/pc-mame-ps3-to-ar...
For $20, or do what I did and order imitation HAPP buttons, joystick, and the converter above from an eBay for $60:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Player-USB-Mame-Arcade-K...
- Speakers/sound system (Recommended)
If your TV/monitor doesn't have speakers or isn't the quality you expected, you can install speakers or a sound system. Keep in mind if the speakers don't receive external power you will need an AMP.
- USB WIFI dongle (Recommended)
This greatly simplifies things like installing custom code, installing new games, file transfer, and fine tuning settings because you can connect to your Pi via a PC.
- Lights, LED's, neon, EL wire, etc. (optional)
If you are using a preexisting arcade cabinet it may have lights already installed. Arcade cabinets were designed to catch the eye of customers and your shouldn't be different.
- Case/Heat sinks for Raspberry pi (optional)
If you plan on overclocking your pi or leaving it on for prolonged periods of time get heat sinks/fans. If you want to protect your Pi from dust and other foreign material, get a case. The new Raspberry pis have 4 mounting holes so a case is no longer necessary for mounting.
- High Gloss Paper/sticker sheets (optional)
If your making your own decals, you may need one or both of these.
STEP 2: Gather/Order Tools
You also need a few basic tools
TOOLS:
- Printer
- Computer
- Drill
- Drill Bit (paddle bits work good)/Hole Saw that matches diameter of buttons (around 1 1/8" or 3 cm)
STEP 3: Prep Cabinet
Before you can start making the arcade cabinet of your dreams you have to do one of 2 things first:
1. Design and build your very own piece of arcade tech. Here a few guides from instructables, after your cabinet is standing you can move on or paint your cabinet:
2. Purchase a preexisting arcade cabinet, you don't need it to be functional, we only want the cabinet. I used an old Lethal Enforcers arcade machine like the one pictured above.
- Remove all unwanted components from the inside (WARNING: tubes on arcade monitors are known to hold charge for years after being unplugged, use caution when handling), If anything works that we don't need (i.e. the monitor or PCB) you can sell them to help afford more parts, or repair another arcade machine.
- (If repainting) Use painters tape to keep any graphic, T-molding, etc. clean
- (if repainting) prime and paint cabinet and coin door
- Replace/repair any T-molding
- Mount Display in cabinet.
STEP 4: Prep Control Board
It is time to create your control panel. remove your panel from your cabinet if possible and get a layout of where you want your buttons. Make sure to leave enough room in between buttons that you feel comfortable drilling. I merged together a classic Street Fighter layout with that of the SNES, comfortable for most games. Mark on the board where you need to drill holes or do like me and create a graphic on the computer you then print it out. This can also be used to make a control decal easily. Just open your decal in your graphic software and go to town! Be sure to remember that unless you get it professionally printed by a company like GameOnGrafix, its quality may dwindle. My graphic was printed on 3 sheets of brochure paper and looks fine.
Below are the PDF printable for my graphic, scaled to a Lethal Enforcers Control panel (68.5 X 26.5 cm).
STEP 5: Finish Control Board
After drilling your holes and prepping your graphic or lack there of, it is time for the assembly. Start by mounting anything you may need to to the underside, i.e. your arcade to USB adapter. Next, position your graphic fallowed by some plastic/acrylic (if you want a legit arcade feeling). Then start adding buttons and joysticks, do not tighten the buttons completely in case rotation is needed during wiring.
Next is the wiring, most JAMMA harnesses and control boards come with 2 cables per button, this is all you need for the pi too. Start by hooking all the grounds together, the pin is usually labeled as comm. Fallowed by the pin closest to ground (I believe this says to the pi the button is closed upon press, open otherwise). Keep in mind GPIO connecting will require external software like digitallumberjack (https://github.com/digitalLumberjack/mk_arcade_joystick_rpi) to understand the inputs.
STEP 6: Setup Raspberry Pi SD Card
To get your raspberry pi ready, start by going to:
http://blog.petrockblock.com/retropie/retropie-dow...
Download the most up to date version of the Raspberry pi image (v3.0 as of posting this) and flash it to your SD card by fallowing one of these 4 guides:
Windows:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installa...
MAC:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installa...
Linux:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installa...
NOOBS:
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Co...
Once that is finished remove your SD/micro SD from your computer and insert it into the Raspberry Pi.
STEP 7: Prepping the Pi for Games
- Now with the control board and SD in the Pi, plug the pi into your arcades monitor followed by a keyboard and your USB cable to power your pi on.
- After the RetroPie splashcreen disappears you should see the EmulationStation (ES) load screen.
- Upon ES loading you will be asked to configure inputs for your primary player.
- Hold A on player one and follow the onscreen prompts to configure the rest of p1's controls. You can hold any button to skip buttons you don't have such as the Analogue sticks.
- Now at the ES homescreen/carousel, navigate to the RetroPie tab and enter it.
- Maneuver to the Raspi-config option
- Here you need to go to advance settings, memory split, and enter 128 (pre-pi 2), or 256 (pi 2)
- Overclock options can also be accessed from here, that is up to you, I didn't do it.
- Finally choose the EXPAND ROOT FILESYSTEM from the main menu so you can add roms
- finish and say yes to the reboot.
From here you have 2 main options to add games to the pi:
from another PC you can SCP transfer (requires internet), or choose the much faster, USB. I will show the USB method.
- create a folder on your USB called retropie
- plug drive into pi
- wait until any status lights stop blinking, or around 3 minutes
- unplug from pi
- plug into PC, and suddenly the retropie folder has a copy of the pi's directory
- Drag roms into corresponding USB folders
- Plug back into pi and enjoy!
STEP 8: Final Assembly
Now is the time to assemble all the individual parts. Make it as self sustaining as possible so you don't have to pull it out to perform maintenance (i.e. run a USB cable from the pi to coin door for keyboard access). Most modern TV's and monitors have all the ins and outs needed to hookup the arcade with relative ease. After finished take it for a few test runs before sealing it up. Add the marquee and side art last so there is a lower chance of damage to the picture.
STEP 9: ENJOY
Enjoy your new Raspberry pi Multi-cade! Invite a few friends over, pull up a stool and play for a few hours, keep it on as a conversation piece. How you make and use your arcade is entirely up to you. The current version of Retro-pie supports an easy 15+ systems, over 15000 games! So there is surely to be no shortage of fun.
This guide will receive updates if I make changes to my multi-cade (i.e. the addition of el wire), until then HAPPY GAMING.
9 Comments
JustinB323 5 years ago
Darthorso 8 years ago
Wow THAT is an amazing cabinet.
I've recently finished my very first arcade project, this simple wooden bartop with some custom graphics ;) I want to do something similar to your Multi-Cade, now that I've grown some experience in RetroPie emulation.
n2o1gaming 8 years ago
Nice, love the use of SNES controllers (favorite system) and the fallout side art :). I'm working on cramming an A+ into a GameBoy Color now.
Side note: the usb controller i purchased stopped working within a few months, IDK why, but using a $5 ribbon cable and Adafruits retrogame, it works better than ever. I recommend this setup to any custom controls. Good luck.
Darthorso 8 years ago
Thank you! :D Yes SNES controllers are just perfect for any 2D game of any system, arcade included. And it's waaaaaaaaaaaaay more cheap than a full arcade joystick+buttons XD Wow cramming everything into a GBC is not an easy job man, wish you best of luck.
For my wooden cabinet I've used a Pi2 Model B, I have to say that every game works like a charm, without a sight of overclocking in my config file. Even some heavy Neo-Geo titles from 1999/2000 are smooth and nice.
mike_therealest 8 years ago
How do you power the whole thing. With the power strip inside?
n2o1gaming 8 years ago
The pi is powered via the tv's USB service port, the amp and TV are hooked up to the power strip. The power strip is mounted mid cabinet and is hooked up to the original lethal enforcers power supply, which is pretty much a basic PC power supply. Just a power strip should work fine however.
jedimaster1974 8 years ago
I made a mini one of these, now thanks to your instruictions I have a good guide to building a full size. Thanks very much for this, has given me some good ideas....
Arduino4Me 8 years ago
How can I add games to the RetroPie?
n2o1gaming 8 years ago
First you need a games ROM, due to legal issues nothing more can be said there. Copying to the Pi can be done in a variety of ways, the fastest way I found was via USB:
Plug your USB into a PC and make a folder called "retropie" plug the usb into the Pi afterwards. After the pi boots/reboots there will be sub-folders in your retropie folder for every system your pi currently supports. After copying ROMs to their respective system folders, plug the USB back into the Pi and a script will copy them to the pi.
For more info you can look at the official RetroPie wiki here:
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Ho...