DIY Arcade Machine Design for Internal Components
Planning the Internal Design of the Arcade System
Ok guys. Today we are going to be doing some more studying and planning for the design of our Arcade Machine. In the last post we checked out the way vintage arcade systems were designed to get a feel for the look of our arcade cabinet. Today we will be studying the insides of manufactured arcade machines, and build it yourself arcade systems that people have designed to get a better idea of the internal layout.
The first thing we need is a good resource for the internal layout of some vintage manufactured arcade systems.
I found a great article on About.com entitled “A Look Inside a Classic Arcade Cabinet”.
It has some good shots of the inside of a vintage arcade cabinet, along with basic explanations of each picture and the components.
There is also a lot of great reading material in the Wikipedia article on Arcade Cabinets. I recommend browsing through it for some interesting information on how classic arcade machines were designed.
I also found a nice compilation of sites from DIY Arcade builders that have shared their designs with others to give people a good idea of where to start. They can be located here at Arcade Controls.com - Arcade Cabinet Plans.
These are mainly to give readers a good idea of how to get started with their plans. I have found that one solution is never ideal for everyone, so chances are you are going to be doing your own plans from scratch.
I wanted to cover some of the internal design considerations I will be making as I come up with my designs.
- Considerations for how to mount an LCD monitor in a home made Arcade Cabinet.
- How to design a backlit area for a marquee on the top of the system.
- Create an area for the wiring below the controls to keep this separate from the rest of the internal components.
- Come up with a way to mount a trackball mouse into the controls for “roller ball” controls used in games like Centipede.
- Design an easy to wire, highly effective controller for the system that does not have problems like blocking or ghosting associated with keyboard controls.
- Mount internal components and hardware based on standard computer case layouts in the bottom of the system.
- Have USB ports accessible for connecting controllers to the system for use as a console.
- Build accessible video out options for when the cabinet is being used as a console.
- Proper venting to exhaust warm air and keep the temperature inside the system at appropriate levels.
- Power solution for computer and monitor to power both devices while only needing to plug into one outlet.
These are some of the considerations I have in mind for my designs. Hopefully this will help you come up with considerations you will need to make when you are working on your own design.
In my next post I will be sharing some of the designs I have been working on as well and sample plans you can download for the construction of the cabinet. Thanks for checking out DIY ROM Arcade!
