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DIY Arcade Machine Construction Images – Part 2

How to Build a MAME Arcade Machine at Home

Hey guys! I have been really busy this week but I have finally got around to posting the next series of pictures from the Arcade Machine construction.

We did more work on the Arcade System last Friday including creating internal mounts for all of our PC hardware, and dry fitting the parts in the system to make sure everything would fit properly.

We used an old PC case that we cut apart with an angle grinder so we could utilize the mounts on the metal plates. One thing to be aware of when constructing your own Arcade Machine is that MDF does not hold well for screwing PC hardware directly into it. Keeping this in mind we used the inside of the computer case to avoid any issues.

Below are the pictures of the next phase of the construction with a brief description of what is going on in each. If you would like to see all the pictures check my set on Flickr here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/diyromarcade/sets/72157614491536643/

Here is a picture of the computer case we are using to mount the PC hardware into the Arcade Machine. It is from a Foxconn 626 PC case, a relatively basic and inexpensive case. I found a few out by a dumpster and kept them for this project. If you do need to buy a case you can get a cheap one in the range of 20-30$ usually.

We cut the case apart with an angle grinder so we could use the piece from the case for securing the PC hardware into the Arcade System. Here we are cutting out the top piece and top rear piece so we can use the mounts for the power supply in our Arcade Cabinet.

Here we are dry fitting the power supply mount into the Arcade System. You can see the power supply has been mounted into the section we cut out of the PC case. You can also see a picture of the motherboard mounting plate we will be using in the system. Once the side and the back of the case had been cut it was very easy to slide this motherboard try out of the enclosure.

In the next picture we have cut out a rear fan grate from the case to use as an exhaust cover for our power supply. Because the Arcade Machine we are building is smaller than normal I have designed spots for rear exhaust to blow heat out of the system. This piece will eventually be painted black when we paint the system. The system is currently covered in a black primer for when we do get to the painting stage.

Here we are creating a mount for the LCD monitor in the Arcade System. I am using an ACER LCD monitor for the project. One nice thing about Acer monitors is they all have 4 screws hole in the back for mounting the LCD. Because the standard placement and easy access to these screw holes you are able to mount the LCD to almost anything without the need for a mounting kit. Here we are mounting the LCD to a pre-cut panel we made that will be mounted in the system to some cleats we will install for the display.

Now we are installing the cleats that the monitor mount panel will rest on in the system. Once the panel has been dry fitted into place and we know everything fits we will secure it into place with screws so it does not fall out of the system. We pre-measured the placement of these cleats during a dry fit of the LCD earlier.

The LCD Monitor has now been mounted into the system and fits perfectly. After doing this dry-fit we will screw the mounting panel into the cleats to hold the monitor in place inside our Arcade Cabinet.

Here you can see the inside of the system with the cleats we have installed for the LCD monitor and the motherboard mounting place. You can also see a cross section we installed where the controller will be in the system. The Arcade Controls will slightly overlap this piece and rest on top of it. It is there to provide more stability and strength for the controller and also to stagger the controller away from the display slightly so I will still have access to the buttons on the LCD monitor.

We have now mounted the motherboard mounting place and power supply mounting plate into the system. I realized as we were doing this that the motherboard plate was oriented in the wrong direction and would case the I/O ports to be pushed up against the wall. We will need to cut this piece down and rotate it in the system so the motherboard is facing the correct way for easy access to the cables.

In this picture we have cut down the motherboard mounting plate and aligned it so it is facing the correct way. You can see now that the I/O ports are accessible from the left side of the panel. We have also cut out the PCI slot mounts from the PC case. This way when we install the video card into the system this will keep the card from falling out of place.

We cut out the 3.5" metal mounting bays from the PC case and will be installing it into the front of the system. There is room on each side of the mounting cage for the speakers in the system. Having the hard drive mounting cage in the system will allow me to easily change or add a hard drive down the road if I run out of room in the system. I am currently using a 500gb SATA hard drive for storage.

Finally we have all the hardware and mounts dry fit into our Arcade Machine. In this picture you can see the power supply on the bottom which has been mounted into the top section from the PC case. In front of that is the hard drive mounting enclosure we installed into the front of the Arcade Cabinet. The gap to the right of the power supply, is where we will be installing the power strip which will power and protect all the hardware we are installing into the system. Above the power supply you can see the motherboard mounting plate along with the video card mounting piece (PCI plate) that we installed. The I/O ports will be accessible from the right in this picture. Above that the LCD has been mounted into place and fits perfectly. 

We did this to check where all the connections, cables, edges, and tabs will line up. Dry fitting your parts is very important because it is easy to overlook something as simple as a cable being blocked, or screw getting in the way of something. Things never look quite like they do on paper in real life so we felt this was a very important step.

A final picture of the system with all the PC hardware installed (Dry fit into the system). The next time we work on the Arcade Machine we will be securing all the loose parts into place since we now know they fit into the system without issues. In the next phase of the build we will:

1. Permanently install all the hardware into the Arcade System.
2. Install the speakers and surge protector in the Arcade Machine.
3. Finish up the mount area around the LCD monitor.
4. Install the Cold Cathode light kit where the marquee will go.
5. Create a plexi glass cover the LCD monitor.
6. And start working on the Arcade Controls.

I hope you enjoyed the latest article. If you have any questions or feedback please feel free to comment below. Thanks for all the suggestions and thanks for checking out my site!