this is Mike from we build stuff this video is outlining a build log for a bar top arcade system using the Raspberry Pi I've used the Raspberry Pi 2 & 3 this video will be concentrating mostly on the cabinet build and the wiring for the Raspberry Pi I will be creating a separate video of installing and configuring the recall box operating system later in the future there's also notes and instructions on the screen during the video as well so you can go back to rewatch if needed so I start off with a piece of 4 by 8 MDF and half an inch is good enough for my build some people will use 3/4 inch for the larger cabinets our cabinet size online half inches plenty I was very fortunate to have a great panel cutting table saw for doing this it made the job a lot easier here's who's been uh I don't know these side panels so I try to save as much material as possible reusing stuff is just a personal philosophy here you see me doing a template I downloaded this template off instructables.com I'll put a link in the description I've modified it a little bit to work for me but also I'll put out some information about mine so I nail both pieces together I just find that so much easier way to cut them out so that they are the exact same hold it together with finishing nails and then we cut it out on the bandsaw so easiest way to do curves start with your relief cuts on the bit on the bandsaw this we don't have to worry about pieces binding or your blade getting jammed or stuck halfway through you might notice I look like I'm working really fast everything's in fast motion otherwise this would probably be a three hour long video all these small blocks I had some scrap pine from old two-by-fours kicking around so I rip those up into three-quarter inch by three quarter inch dimensions and I just set the lengths based on where they would fit within the panel I use a brad nailer usually one inch to one and 1/8 is long enough if you use two longer Brad nails the pocket the other side then you got a final lock you'll see that where I made a mistake later I should have used the the router prior to putting the blocks on but I guess I just wasn't thinking that day when I've done this clip smooth it over one of my later builds I'll probably use a plastic tea molding we'll make it look way nicer here's me setting up the main control panel we're gonna have six buttons for each player plus three that are going to be in the front that'll add four start select and a hotkey I like to drill pilot holes before I drove my larger holes use a one and one eighth inch Forstner bit a lot of holes so just keep watching so one of the most important parts of this project start by installing everything when it's square otherwise it's going to wobble in I take a lot of time setting it up before I put on my bottom piece and my top piece the main box cabin everything else I can add on little changes to later proper wood glue Brad nails from every direction that I can possibly nail them in strength they work out pretty good so bright yet to have any of these fall apart one quick safety tip never put your hand on the other side of where the brad nailer or any kind of nail gun is going so you don't pop through and end up in your finger now I put these angle cuts on here things fits nicer if you download my plans you'll see why the angles are needed much cleaner looking bill I'm drilling holes I'm going to be using bolts to hold everything together I use these tea nuts that are going to be embedded into pine the tea nuts are a number-10 national course they will match up with my one inch long number ten national coarse bolts I like to use the flat head allows that to sit flush on the control panel oh man I look so fast i countersink the top of the control panel so that the Machine bolts basically so they sit flush they're not gonna be bumping my hands during extended times of gameplay it just looks a little bit nicer so I'm just doing a quick test fit make sure everything fits and I see if I have to do any trimming I think everything worked out pretty well for this one good fit all there should be gluing those two pieces together so they can come off together as one big unit next up I didn't picture it all here is building the surround for what's going to be holding my screen in place I cut out the four pieces and then I used a dado blade to basically router out those spots the data was just much quicker and enabled me to build that in about 10 minutes you'll see in a later video where I build one that is not glued on at all that enables me to take it on and off if I want to do a monitor swab or something that's completely different sizes or do some other custom work later good idea to wipe up any glue that seeps out ahead of time otherwise it's a real pain to try to chip or sand off especially with MDF that stuff will just fall apart on you and prepare to use wood so I get it all this nice and clean as I can to allow paint to stick to it better when I paint with the cap individually so ignore all the giant drips I do clean those off I can't ever if I film that or not but you'll see the opening will show all in the screen whereas the 3/4 inch dado that goes around each side will hide the rest of the monitor so you won't actually be able to tell it's a computer monitor while it's in there I use some extra strong wood so I used to oak nice hardwood behind it just to make sure there's no flex or any issues that will help support the monitor it also helped me attach my brackets to it later which you'll see me build in a moment my fingers make sure I'm not putting it behind the nailer or the brad nailer never hurts to have a lot of nails holding everything together there's lots of different ways to see this I've seen a lot of different people in YouTube making videos doing these I made this method up myself it worked out very well all right so here you see me making the brackets these will be holding the monitor in place very quick and simple again just built on the scraps that I had sitting around I believe these ones are pine these are essentially going to be clamps that are going to clamp the monitor right to that surround piece that I go sand them out even though you're not going to see them I like to make everything look nice and rounded go some holes counter second because I'll be using flathead bolts again not that it really matters you can use any kind of bolts or screws as long as they hold this together you'll see that really short I'm just doing a quick test fit before actually put the monitor in make sure that everything fits in place you'll see a close-up later boy it looks like so I got my holes pre-drilled but monitor on put the brackets in place so rather than using a visa mounts this just collapse them in its gonna save me a lot of space in there and I don't have to spend any other money for a custom clamp I seen people put a 2x4 behind it with four big bolts to attach to that works as well I just find this as nice and lightweight gives me a lot of space inside the Capitol so here's my other design this one is able to be taken on and off completely the matter of just undoing four bolts and it'll come off cabin one two three four again very similar bracket system that holds everything in place scrap wood kicking around it's perfect very cool all right for the backside I start with one giant piece it's just easier to cut it out the original rather than ripping it three times afterwards the very back piece I end up using our CNC router carving a big mushroom in the back you'll see me painting that later very top piece I make a little handle so it's really easy to carry the cabinet when it's done what it's all finished I'd say it's probably 40 to 50 pounds I've never actually officially weighed anything but this makes it much easier smooth it out since I'll be using my hands to be carrying this the jagged edges cut me open it fits beautifully this back piece of the CNC cutouts you can get these hinges I get them at Home Depot about 5 bucks come in all sorts of colors I didn't actually end up using that power cable but you'll see later this is installing a lock system so it's really easy to open up the back and close it when it's done I needed to make a slightly bigger hole for the nut that goes on the back so I just drilled halfway through the material and it fits perfect get those kids for about $9 at Home Depot very easy just don't lose your keys attaching the bottom because that's going to be taking the brunt of the weight when you're opening back perfect fit here's a little trick if you're doing some carbon and you want to get two different colors paint it and then just paint over everything else I just use acrylic paint I got at the dollar store for this I probably would have used different paints if I was to do this again because it's kind of dulled a little bit it's not as glossy as out of light so for the control panel I start by measure note joystick plate that way I know where the holes are going to go I make sure everything's straight you don't want your joystick being installed crooked these holes again are big enough for a number 10 bolt to go through so I like to do test fit make sure everything works excellent good fit I still need to countersink those so that those flat head bolts don't put your hands next I'm using putty filling up every little basic scratch or hole in the cabinet that way everything seamless it'll be hidden by paint after the wires for this one I was using a Raspberry Pi 2 there's 40 headers that come off me very pipe the gpio and i'll put a link in the description for where you actually install those from my operating system i'm going to be using recall box there's a website where you can download an image it's extremely easy to use other people have used versions of retropie emulation station and it had to do a lot of programming this one's very simple and I can get it up and running in 30 minutes for all my wires I use quick connects to easily attach the micro switches I try to color code things when I can to make it easier so they come very on it on and off very easily these ones are kind of ugly you can get proper DuPont connectors to make those look nicer but I want to see proof so total of I actually haven't counted how many buttons there are or how many wires there are but I try to keep them nicely managed these ones will all be connected to the positive of each micro switch and later you're going to see me using a daisy chain a big long white cable that's going to connect every single one together and it'll be attached to the negative header on the Raspberry Pi then quit button test make sure everything fits nicely before I install micro switches these nuts I just hand tighten on I use a little wrench and by proper wrenches for doing it install all my micro switches make sure the wherever quick connects are are easy to get on I want to make sure there's easy access to the wires because eventually it's gonna be so many wires in here it gets really really messy for catching my joysticks I use a washer lock washer and a nut get those on there I end up using a wrench to actually tighten the balls on their takeoff so that they don't fall off then I've used things do covers everything's nice and tight I've mixed all wires so I've labeled each of my wires so that I know exactly where they're going makes it way quicker sometimes it's easier to take your micro switch off and connect it and reinstall it depends on their I had to bend a couple of those little tabs out to make it fit but nothing's falling off yet you can even solder things on if you have nice thing about quick connects if something breaks pull it off put on a new one you can see my daisy chains white cable so lots and lots of wires you can tape everything down or use zap straps and make it look nicer inside but it's going to be hidden so here's the quick test I'd already programmed it at this point just threw in my micro SD card here's a quick section I'm putting a reset button on my pie so I just have to solder on to small headers to the pie I always hate soldering on the PI's just in case something goes wrong because you know they're expensive relatively speaking to do in a school so two wires add to another micro switch this button will act as a reset button that I will install on the exterior of the cabinet so hole drilled same size that's all my micro switch carefully install my panel so that the wires don't get crunched in there and I'll do a quick test it works after making a reset button on one of them I had to go and add it to all my other machines because I didn't have them so I used acrylic that I had sitting around in the shop for covering my monitor makes it with the colors way more vibrant as well as protecting the screen Plexiglas get the pre-cut at Circus stores I just did myself with a table saw a lot of chips into where you gotta be really careful if it doesn't crack four speakers I just pulled apart some old Logitech speakers crap the drivers from those wired them up hit the wires down inside the cabinet connected to a small amp I got on eBay so here's the power got monitor raspberry-pi power and power for the audio amp and that is right over here so this is just a 12 volt audio amp I got an eBay couple bucks it's not the greatest but it works and just drill a little hole for the volume potentiometer I mount my pie in there instead of letting it sit loose with some small white L brackets there was again cheap on eBay I use a Wi-Fi adapter to burn all my file transfer the Raspberry Pi 3 does not need a Wi-Fi adapter because it has it built in this enables me not to have to open up the cabinet take out the SD card load games onto it that way I can do it all wirelessly once it has been program correctly the only time I open it up now is if I'm gonna hook up a keyboard so three cables that's all you need to plug into here audio an hdmi to DVI cable because my monitor uses a DVI input and then my power make sure you get the right power adapter otherwise it if you under power your pi it's gonna just bad things happen you could corrupt your SD card or it could just turn off randomly for the heat I never have that happen so I have a massive mess of wires in here but miraculously I do know where everything is here's a look from inside the black arcade that I painted just different speakers I used a different app that cost me about thirty dollars seems a lot of a form of ten and here's my yellow arcade this one has LED buttons so that means there's even more wires that's a Raspberry Pi three held up my fingers so even more wires that go on the inside of this one each button requires two extra wires for positive and negative of the led there's my reset button and the audio amp again I found these audio amps the problem with them is the wires can fall out very easily they're not clamped in they're not great here's a quick visual of the C&C cutout that we did I'll just show a little clip of that after we use the vinyl cutter to make labels for them may not be the prettiest some people like to use big graphics and stuff I don't because I didn't have any money for that I used little fan grilles that I got at an electronics store to cover the speakers so people wouldn't start with pencils so congratulations you made it through my entire video hole twenty minutes long here just a couple clips of people playing them I've rented them out to parties have a lot of fun with friends any of my own children loved playing with these they are pretty easy to use quick look there's our vinyl cutter that we use there's my C&C that we used to do the side panel this took up probably about one hour to do each side if you enjoyed the video please leave a like and subscribe more content it has created I plan on making a follow-up video concentrating on the programming I set up everything using the reco box operating system and getting all buttons working download all the plans and the links below leave a comments share the video if you enjoyed it don't forget to measure twice cut once you