Homemade Star Wars Upright Cabinet
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This is incredible work! I'm building a full scale Star Wars upright at the moment and came across your build while searching for the elusive monitor surround. I've had the cabinet CNC cut and I've managed to source the metal control panel from the US (that'll be the only original bit!). I've got the Alan-1 yoke and USB adapter and I'm planning on using a Pi3B+. Display wise I've got a 19" Dell TFT.
Are you willing to share the plans for your surround? I've got a 3D printer so could print any of the plastic bits necessary but I don't have the skill to design them myself. Someone is selling a repro on eBay but it's £500 which is crazy expensive.
Any help much appreciated!
George
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@georgek , Hi there, sure I can help you out with the bezel. My bezel is resized to suit my ¾ build cabinet. Its only 520mm wide and my monitor is a 5:4 17" Dell. I'm sure it would be possible to adapt it to suit your cabinet though.
I've had a look for the replica you said was on eBay but I can't find it, can you post me the link please, I'm curious.
Regards, James
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@james-milroy Any chance you would share your Fusion360 files?? I would love to get one of these cut out for my gameroom.
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@ryan73 Sure, I can give you copies. Its not a kit though, from the fusion files I had to create DXF's to send to the CNC firm and the sheet metal firm to cut my parts. You'll need the fusion files to see how it goes together. You'll also need access to a 3d printer or someone who can print for you as there are a lot of 3d printed parts that would be otherwise difficult or nigh on impossible to create any other way. I'm willing to forward to you any files we used and I can recommend companies to do the CNC work etc. If I was to start again myself, there are a lot of aspects of the build I would have done differently, it was pretty much a learning curve from start to finish. On the other hand, there is a guy on eBay who is making pre built replica upright cabinets out of 18mm ply. These come bare but will take original or repro control panels and bezel mouldings. It would take a lot of the difficulty out of the build. I can forward you a link to his listing if you think my version would be to difficult to undertake. Let me know what you think.
Regards, James
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Just wow! Takes me back to the 80's! I wish I had that kind of talent to build something like that. I always remember the cool enclosed cabinet that you sat in from back in the day. Never lasted long though🤣
Im still struggling with just getting controls to work. God knows where I'd be without Mitu.
Really, really nice job Sir;)
👍🏻
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Oh, sure, more than welcome. Credit where it's due and all👍🏻. I remember when I was a kid dreaming if having my own arcade one day. It was always the cockpit, servo'd Afterburner unit that did it for me. Loved that. That and Phoenix in cocktail table version! Enjoy your unit, you deserve it😉.
Mitu's a legend. Only person who offered me any help to fix my issue's. Im sure it's obvious to those that know Retropie inside out but I've been totally lost on how to fix them. Even Pimoroni seemed to have no advice that helped....and it's their stuff. I guess it's really a software thing but I can't understand why Im the only one having the issues (esp as I can duplicate them every time). Still, Mitu to the rescue. Helps me understand doing it to help others so all's good🤞
Cheers, dw😁
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Awesome build !
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@james-milroy Thanks, that would be awesome!! I have a CNC machine but would have to find someone for the 3d printer stuff.
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Excellent work @james-milroy! I'm right there with you on the wiring...so clean!
I do have a 3D Printer and just bought a GRS Flight Yoke to start putting a full control panel (and hopefully cabinet) together. Would you please share your 3D files with me and please tell me what height the yoke should be off the floor? I'm doing some prototyping now. Thank you in advance!
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@james-milroy Just plain WOW!
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For those who have asked for me to share my files, I'll endeavour to get copies put up on my Google Drive over the weekend when I'm off work.
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Cool, one of the most beautiful I saw here on the forum. Professional and clean work.
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Ok then, the Fusion 360 file is in the cloud but it can be accessed using this link: Fusion 360 Public Link
The DXF files for the metalwork and the wooden/MDF cabinet parts are in a zip archive on my google drive.
The STL's for the 3D printed parts (bezel details, coin door and speaker grills) are also in the same zip archive.
The Fusion 360 file is only intended as a visual reference to construction, it is by no means a tutorial. As I have said before, if I was to start again, there are a number of things I would have done differently. But this was only ever intended to be a one-off, and snags had to be rectified on the job or new parts made. Thankfully though, the metalwork and all the parts I had cut from MDF all fitted together beautifully from the off.
I can provide links to the companies I used for the sheet metal and the CNC cutting of the MDF if required, but I'm sure there are any number of similar outlets available elsewhere or you may even have access to the required tools yourself.
This is the link to the zip archive: On my google drive
All STL files now in the archive.
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@dissent Hi there, just measured my cabinet and the height of the flat part of the control panel is 39 inches (99 cm) from the ground. That is the distance I measured on a real cabinet. To get my 3/4 scale cabinet up to the required height, it sits on a riser much like the arcade1up cabinets. One last thing, I've just uploaded links to my files, you'll need fusion 360 to view the main file, its free to download and use for personal use!
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@james-milroy said in Homemade Star Wars Upright Cabinet:
This is the link to the zip archive: On my google drive
All STL files now in the archive.
This is awesome!
I've been hemming and hawing for the last year about how to finish up the panel for my scratch built sit down version. Last winter, I ended up building a 8'x4' CNC cutter in preparation to try to cut some of the paneling and had sort of settled on making my own greibling out of half cuts of large dowels and stuff like that. I'm going to try to blow up your 3/4's up to full size and give it a test.
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Wow, this is really cool, well done!
Can you give more details about the hardware solution used here ?
A Pi3B+ with a Pimoroni Picade X HAT connectd on it, but do you also use and adapter to transform the HDMI signal into VGA for your monitor ? I would be interested to see pictures of all that stuff connected together? :-) -
@dnuno As you've said I'm running a Pi3B+ with a Pimoroni Picade X HAT. This gives me a power switch and LED, buttons and an audio amp with speaker connections. The Pi is connected to the monitor with an HDMI to DVI cable. I had tried HDMI to VGA using a dongle but that resulted in an inferior picture since I was effectively converting the HDMI output (digital) to VGA (analogue) for the monitor to re-convert back to digital internally to create a display. The yoke is an Alan-1 replica with an Atari plug on so you can install in a 'real' arcade machine. I connect this to the Pi with an Alan-1 USB yoke adapter. Thats really the extent of the electronics in the build. There are pictures earlier on in the thread. I can take some more if they would help. Next time I have the back off of the cabinet, I'll be replacing the Pi3 with a Pi4 to get more oomph and hopefully a better emulation using one of the newer emulators.
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Thanks for your reply.
I've just finished my projet :-)
I'm using a real Star Wars flight yoke controller. I had a computer based system for more than 15 years! But this computer eventually broke, and I got this opportunity to replace this old PC set up with a more reliable & modern solution : a raspberry :-)
I was about to order the Alan1 usb controller to hook the orignal yoke, but I had the very good surprise to see my Microsoft Dual Strike USB hack (See here) I've done for PC 15 years ago .... is also recognized by the Retropie 'out of the box' :-)I however still have one issue to fix... a very strange issue.
Sometime, at the end of the first level, I don't fly to the death star.
The game is not frozen, I mean I can still flight, I can shoot laser, but there's no more enemy... and I can fly endless, without entering to the death star... see ->
This not happen to every game, but quite often. I believe it's because at this time I do not have at this time a power supply enough powerful to correctly feed the raspberry... I've just orderer it now. Or maybe the Pi3b+ is not powerful enough? A very strange issue... Did you got this too?
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@dnuno Hi there, well done on completing your project. I'd like to see more pictures of the finished cabinet if thats ok. As for gameplay, I think the 'not flying to the Death Star' you are experiencing is a bug if I recall correctly. It is rectified in newer versions of mame and better reads of the original roms. What emulator are you using? and which roms? I must say I've not experienced this bug myself. I'm using a combination of Advmame 3.9 and lr-mame2003 plus.
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