In the previous posts, I showed how I approached the outside and the components on the inside of the Arcade control surface. But having a plain MDF box is a bit boring, so I decided to design some nice artwork for the outside.
I used Affinity Designer to do the graphical design. To have the design exactly match the cabinet, I used an export from my 3D model (made in Fusion 360) as a base. The base of the design is a metal-plate texture, with some tire-tracks superimposed on it. Around the borders, lots of different arcade classics logo’s are placed.
Similar style is used for the sides, again metal-plate with tire-tracks and logo’s scattered around.
To sample the look of the artwork in real-size, I printed it using my color laserprinter. Since this is an A4 printer, I had to print overlapping, and tape it together. This is also the way I made the overlay which I used to drill all the holes in the MDF board (in part-1).
After some dry runs, I was happy with the design and ordered it printed as Vinyl sticker. There are multiple options for this on-line. I used StickerKoning. They produced a fine result, and are also keen on details during the process. My design had black circles so I could see where to cut out the holes for the buttons. After I uploaded the design to their website, the called me to ask if the circles were intentionally.
To make the cabinet more durable, I decided to have a plexiglass plate on the top. I had this laser-cut based on my 3D model from a company called Dokter Plexiglas. They produced a fine 3mm plate exactly according to specification. Luckily when putting everything together the plate fitted nicely with my manually drilled holes in the MDF plate.
The end result looks super-nice (be it a wee bit over-the-top :-))
In the final post on this topic, I will go into how to drive the RGB leds and servo-controller from the RaspberryPi.
