Bitácora de Alex: Raspberry Pi - Two Player Arcade Control (MAME)

It's been a while since I've started with this project and also since I wrote my last post. Having (almost) finished with the Arcade Control (a.k.a. "fichín" here in Argentina), I decided it's time to finally show the progress of my work.

First of all, I have to mention that I had to reduce overclocking setting of my Raspberry pi from 930MHz to 800MHz in order to avoid random freezes. With this speed setting, it never froze again and it still has a decent fluidness.

As I already mentioned in this post 9 months ago, the main idea was to build something close to this 3D render:

First I started collecting all the different parts needed to build the Arcade Control. The wood (MDF), joysticks and buttons, network cables (to connect everything), microswitch connectors, usb cables, an optical mouse, a pool eight ball, an acrylic board, the printed vinyl, etc, etc.

The building of the base box.

The drilling of the board.

Painting of the base box and wood board with, the only paint that I had at hand, paint for plastics.

The drilling of the rear connection panel.

Printed vinyl between the wood an acrylic boards. Still with the protection foil.

The arrangement of the controls (joysticks and buttons) on the board.

The connection of all the controls to a keyboard interface, and then to the Raspberry Pi.

First assembly.

And a short video showing a brief smoke test to see if all worked correctly.

Then I cut and painted the aluminium real panel and fixed the Digital Audio & Video (HDMI), Power (MicroUSB) and Network (RJ45), Analog Audio (jack) & Video (RCA), and a standard USB connector.