I’ve been playing around with Mame on a RaspberryPi for a while, and while it’s working fine using an Xbox game controller, something was missing to give it the real arcade look and feel.
So I decided to embark on a small project to build my own arcade controller. Initially I played with the thought of building a full-size arcade cabinet, but that would probably have raised some eyebrows with the rest of the household :-). So my first design was a so called bartop arcade.
The design for this, I made using Autodesk Fusion 360. In the past I have been using SketchUp for home modelling projects, but Fusion 360 is way more powerful, as it uses so called parametric modelling. For home-use there is a free version available.
As can be seen in the screenshots, I was able to draw a quite detailed model of the bartop arcade. Models for the components I was planning to use, could be found on the internet. This allowed me to play around with placement, to make sure everything would fit.
It also made me see, the thing would still become quite bulky, and I would have to fit it with a huge display. So I decided to tune it a step back and to only make the control surface itself (for now…).
This had the additional advantage of me being able to do all the woodworking, without having to outsource the (CNC)cutting, so saving some costs. I made some inquiries though and one party in The Netherlands who can do this, is CNC Den Haag.
The whole thing was made using 18mm MDF, holes drilled using regular speed drills. Rounded corners just by jigsaw and some sanding.
To finish the thing with a nice retro touch, I added T-Moulding around the edges. To attach T-Moulding, you need a router (“Frees in Dutch”) to make groove exactly in the middle along the side of the edges. You can then gently hammer the T-moulding in place.
While all buttons could be fitted in place without additional provisions, the joysticks and trackball required screws to fit them. To do this without being visible from the top-side, I used “Inslagmoeren” (sorry Dutch).
In the next article, I will go into more details on the components I used.
