A basic homebrewed bartop cab

[JMCD]

Just a few pics of a build I did as a gift for someone a few years back, this was a really fun project and I'd love to do a full size cabinet with a mini pc one day.

The build consisted of:

Stereo amp and speakers

Raspberry pi 3, running retropie, with roms on an old portable hard drive

USB hub

Marquee backlit with white LED strip

19" 4:3 panel harvested from an old monitor.

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Joysticks, illuminated buttons, and USB controller interface from Amazon

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Front USB sockets for additional controllers/keyboard/thumbdrive etc.

For the cabinet I used plans purchased from Ebay and then cut/routed the panels from MDF.
(If I did this again I'd purchase the panels premade, the cost of tooling up, with the plans and materials on top worked out just as expensive)

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Primed and sprayed matt black (using rattle cans)

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Vinyls purchased from Ebay (I know the subject matter isn't strictly arcade but the recipient was a huge Mario galaxy fan)

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Red T profile from ebay, let into routed rebates.

As I said this build was the most fun I'd had in a long time and I was reluctant hand it over at the end

Thanks for the interest

 

[Customledmods]

Great work man! It’s been a few years where I tell myself I neeed to build one but somehow I always put it to the side.

As a kid my friends and I would go to our local vhs rental store where they had so many arcade cabinets, we would be there all day just playing marvel vs capcom, Pac-Man and pinball.

 

[JMCD]

Great work man! It’s been a few years where I tell myself I neeed to build one but somehow I always put it to the side.

As a kid my friends and I would go to our local vhs rental store where they had so many arcade cabinets, we would be there all day just playing marvel vs capcom, Pac-Man and pinball.

Thank you, it really was a blast to build and test (ok by test I mean I played it over and over before passing it on to it's keeper haha)

I can highly recommend building one, you definitely should go for it, don't delay

They sound like very fond memories I can wholeheartedly get where you are coming from!! To re live and reminisce is a nice feeling.

 

[Customledmods]

I will put it on my list of stuff that I need to get done , for sure it is just being a kid with no worries and no mortgage haha.

 

[loopj]

Dude this is stunning!

 

[JMCD]

I will put it on my list of stuff that I need to get done , for sure it is just being a kid with no worries and no mortgage haha.

Nice! I look forward to seeing it someday!

Haha, absolutely! A time of long days and nights with no responsibilities, never appreciating really how good we had it!

 

[JMCD]

Dude this is stunning!

Thank you. I miss it dearly, and will make another one day, for myself haha

 

[WolfSquatch]

This looks awesome! I've always wanted to build a cabinet, really don't have the woodworking tools but I can change that after seeing this

 

[JMCD]

This looks awesome! I've always wanted to build a cabinet, really don't have the woodworking tools but I can change that after seeing this

Thank you.

Honestly, if you don't already have the tools I'm pretty sure you can buy the profiled panels cheaper than tooling up for it, I learned that the hard way lol. But go for it, you won't regret it.

 

[Stitches]

Man that's beautiful. Excellent work!

 

[JMCD]

Man that's beautiful. Excellent work!

Thank you!