Bartop Arcade Machine

We designed and built a bartop Arcade machine for our second term project. We run everything off of the Raspberry Pi housed in a laser cut plywood casing. The UI panel was cut with MDF for extra precision and everything is tightened together with nuts and bolts. These being screwed into an l shaped reinforcement angle. The rest of the electronics is powered by a plug in switch that can be turned off at any time. The wood was also then spray painted in order to give it a nice finished look.

• Power chassis part -https://www.hackerstore.nl/Artikel/961
• Manhattan Power Connection Cable - https://www.conrad.nl/p/manhattan-stroom-aansluitkabel-1x-randaarde-stekker-1x-apparaatstekker-female-c13-10a-180-m-zwart-1460610?WT.mc_id=gshop&utm_source=google&utm_medium=surfaces&utm_term=1460610&utm_content=free-google-shopping-clicks&utm_campaign=shopping-feed&gclsrc=ds&tid=14578088349_124831942457_pla-304375120201_pla-1460610&WT.srch=1&vat=true&insert_kz=8J
• Red Arcade Kit x2 - https://www.hackerstore.nl/Artikel/1109
• Waveshare WM8960 Audio HAT - https://www.tinytronics.nl/shop/en/audio/amplifiers/waveshare-wm8960-audio-hat-including-speaker-set-for-raspberry-pi
• Micro HDMI to VGA - https://www.conrad.nl/p/digitus-da-70460-hdmi-vga-adapter-1x-hdmi-stekker-d-micro-1x-vga-bus-jackplug-female-35-mm-zwart-1000-cm-1403462
• 6 power strip - https://www.conrad.nl/p/brennenstuhl-1159500015-stekkerdoos-met-schakelaar-6-voudig-zwart-randaarde-stekker-1-stuks-2452215
• led-strip - https://www.conrad.nl/p/renkforce-5mac862w-led-strip-complete-set-met-connector-male-230-v-5-m-rgb-1227385
• plywood sheet x3 of 100x60 cm
• 1 sheet of MDF
• 4gb Raspberry Pi 4
• Monitor
• micro sd card
• usb stick

Design the bartop Arcade Machine in any CAD software of your choosing, we specifically chose to use SolidWorks. After designing the machine export the files as XDFs.

After the files are exported as XDFs put them onto the laser cutting machine placing the maximum allowed size plywood possible. This will allow you to cut as many pieces as possible in one go.

After the parts are cut out of the machine you can begin assembly. We specifically chose the route of nuts and bolts screwed into l shaped reinforcement angles. You can however choose to simply glue or screw everything together.

Download the Raspberry Pi imager on their website https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/. After downloading open it and select the operating system in this case being RetroPie (RPI4). You then select the SD card that you want it to be written onto. Finally press write and wait for it to be written onto the micro SD card. Place the usb stick into the raspberry pi. After written put the micro sd card into the raspberry pi and power it on being sure to have it connected to a monitor. It should start up without issues and there should be files being written onto the usb stick.

After the usb stops being written on open it up and you will find that there are new files on it. All of your downloaded retro games should be placed in their respective folders in the roms folder. If there is a gameboy game then it will go into the gb folder, so on and so forth.

Place the buttons along with the joysticks into the design that you made for the UI panel. Attach all of the necessary cables to the hardware then onto the usb encoder. The encoder should specify where the inputs go to. After connecting all of the inputs through cables connect the usb encoder to the raspberry pi.

The switch connects the opposite contacts with each other. So you want to connect the net current to the 2 points on one side, and the power extender on the other 2 contacts on the other side.

now you can turn on the machine as a whole and cut out the power.

As for the final touches for the machine you can install the led strip that you got. put it to the sides and plug that in.

Nice job! You built the arcade machine and are ready to start playing some games with your friends.