DIY – Goings on

Since about 1997 when I first found Mame I’ve wanted a decent arcade gaming platform to play games like Street Fighter, Asteroids, Outrun, Pacman, Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble and the like.. I’ve thought about upright cabinets, cocktail cabinets but with no space and 3 kids these are still a pipe dream. Over the years I’ve tried putting arcade emulators on various machines running Windows and Linux, with with USB controllers and dedicated arcade controllers, none of which is quite what I’m looking for.

For a while I considered using a tablet / phone but with the advent of the Single Board Computer (SBC) like the Raspberry Pi I’ve designed and built a standalone counter top arcade gaming system, with built-in arcade controls, display, processing unit, battery, speakers and power on / off, etc.

I used the following:

£10 Square wooden box external 340mm x 250mm x 50mm
£20 Arcade Controls (joystick, buttons, Zero Delay USB encoder)
£ 3 USB travel speaker
£31 Raspberry Pi 3
£11 Power bar
£ 9 5″ 800×480 XPT2046 HDMI LCD
£ 4 A4 Perspex sheet I chose purple, the choice is yours
£ 2 Power switch
£ 4 Pack of 3 Male USB A to Micro B
£ 6 Spray on Lacquer
Some thin electrical wire
Undercoat / primer
Left over sparkly paint

Tools-wise I used:
Electric drill, Li-Ion battery is the best
Hole saw kit for 22mm, 24mm and 30mm holes
Jigsaw
Jigsaw blades specially for cutting Acrylic
Rasps

I started with the unpainted wooden box.

I gave it a sand and a clean, and then marked out the holes for the screen and arcade controls. I used some paper on which I’d drawn some grid lines, and then marked out where I wanted the screen, the joystick and the buttons to go. 22mm for the joystick, 24mm for the 2 smaller side buttons and 30mm for the larger top mounted buttons. I then laid that onto the box and pushed through with a pencil to mark out the hole centres, and the corners of the screen.

To cut the wooden box for the LCD panel I drilled some small pilot holes in the corners I’d marked out. I made this the size of the front of the LCD panel so that it fit snugly, the perspex goes on top and overlaps the LCD slightly making everything look neat. I used a small drill bit, wider than the jigsaw blade width. I started drilling inside the line so that the edge of the drill bit was on the line. I drilled about 5 or 6 holes next to each other along the line until it was long enough to fit the jigsaw blade. Once I’d done each corner I use the jigsaw. I finished with the wide rasp with square corners.

Cutting the holes for the joystick and top mounted buttons I placed a block under the top because it is a little flexible without the perspex.

Once I had cut all the holes I needed in the box, I put on a couple of coats of undercoat / primer, inside and out, sanding the outside between each coat with a very fine sandpaper. Then after cleaning I used a roller to give it 3 coats of paint on the outside only, sanding between each coat with a very fine sandpaper. Once the last coat was on I left it to dry for 24 hours. Then used a clear lacquer spray to finish the box, the trick here is lots of very light coats, otherwise the lacquer pools and runs. I did around 4 coats on the bottom / sides first leaving 5 minutes between each coat. I think I ended up doing 8 coats on the top / sides, I didn’t intentionally spray lacquer where the perspex was going to cover. I left this to dry for 24 hours.

To cut the perspex for the LCD panel I used the same technique as for the wooden box except the following. I put the perspex on a wooden block so that any exit marks on the bottom of the perspex were minimised. I set the jigsaw set to its fastest setting. I clamped a metal rule to the perspex with some cloth to ensure it didn’t scratch the surface to help keep the line straight. The hole in the perspex should be smaller than the hole in the wooden box, to overlap the edges of the LCD you don’t want to see.

To cut the perspex for the buttons and joystick is similar. Using the correct sized hole saw – I used 22mm for the joystick and 30mm for the larger buttons. I’d already marked on the perspex where the buttons were located. I put the perspex onto a wooden block and drilled into that to ensure the underside of the perspex was not damaged.

In the above picture I’m running Mame, though now its running RetroPie so its also emulating NES, SNES, Mame, PS2, N64 as well as running Duke Nukem 3D, Doom, Quake, and of course, an Atari VCS…

When we moved into our house it had quite a large proportion of the back garden was taken up by a bouncy rotting deck. Each winter the deck rotted a bit more and each spring I repaired it until I could take no more. So, I ripped the decking up and put down a very nice block paving patio in its place.

So I was left with all this decking which was a bit rotten in places, but I couldn’t just chuck, so I’ve come up with various structures to use this up.

This is the Picnic table

These are the tools I used to make it:
Screwdriver (cross head)
Tape measure
Cordless drill
Wood saw
Workbench
Level
Pencil (though I mainly used chalk)

These are the materials:
60 * 60mm all weather screws Check that the screws you order match the decking you will use.
Bunch of old decking cut as follows.

7*1200mm (straight cut)
2*600mm (straight cut)
4*800mm (straight cut)
2*??1300mm?? (35 degree angle at each end)
1*790mm (straight cut)
1*480mm (90 degree angle at each end)

This is how are did it:
Note, I used the ribbed planks which were 34mm x 140mm x different lengths, the depth of the plank will make a difference to the length of screw you use.

I used 5 of the 1200mm lengths for the top giving me 700mm x 1200mm table top.

I used the 2 600mm lengths, 24mm in from each end and screwed 1 or 2 60mm screws from the bottom through the 600mm length into the underside of the tabletop.

I used the 4 lengths of 800mm at an angle of ??degrees for the legs which are screwed (2 * 60mm screws per leg) to the outside of the 600mm lengths under the table top so that the angle of the legs touched each other at the central line of the table.

I used the 2 * ??1300mm lengths with a ?? degree angle for the seat hangers which were fixed so that the top of the seat would be ??mm from the floor. I fixed this to the outside of the table legs with 2 * 60mm screws per leg.

From now on, before screwing anything, ensure that the legs are vertical and that the table is square.

I measured the distance between the outside of the legs (lengthways) at the table top. I then cut a length of wood, in my case 790mm, fixing it horizontally with 3 * 60mm screws at each end, to the centre of the seat hangers.

I put the 480mm diagonal strut into place between the angle where the table top meets the legs, and around 20mm off centre (so there is room for an umbrella hole), making sure that it was a tight fit whilst the table was still square before fixing. This gives the table a lot more lateral strength.

I fixed the 1200mm seats on having ensured they matched up exactly with the table top and the length of each hanger.

Our decking had been varnished and was in a relatively poor state so a lot of hand sanding of the tabletop and seats was then carried out.

The result is a remarkably robust, stable picnic table. If I did another one I’d remove the 790mm strut and 480mm diagonal strut, and use 2 *480mm diagonal between the centre (-20mm for the umbrella hole) of the table top and the middle of the seat hanger for lateral strength with a bit more leg room.