Arcade Stick with Pi inside

[Impman66]

I have always wanted to build some sort of retro arcade, but never really had the time or finances to do so. However, during this lockdown I thought I would have a go at building an arcade stick with a pie inside it.
I wanted my first project to be a relatively simple affair, and to be portable, but I also wanted it to be unique to me.
I decided to buy from that well known rain forest company, a ready made enclosure that had 6 buttons on top, plus the smaller Start and Select buttons, but also had to pre - drilled holes on the side not for buttons, but for something I wanted to include, that hopefully would be useful.
So the top panel originally looked like this

As mentioned before, I wanted to utilise the pre-drilled side holes for something else. In my case it was for an HDMI and USB adaptor for panel mounting, I found the ideal thing online, I also used the other hole for a fan for cooling (this was on the Pi case I had, but I discovered the whole unit wouldn't fit in, so I ditched the case and kept the fan).
Unfortunately, I had lost one of the screws for the fan, but 3 is enough.

There was quite enough room for all I wanted inside the box, after securing the fan and adaptor, I was worried that the cables for the adaptor were going to be too long.

Bu I got around it by using cable tie bases, and cable ties, around the edge of the box, which freed up the centre of the box, it also gave the added bonus of more security for the power lead, so that it wouldn't (hopefully) be accidentally pulled out the Pi.

I was quite happy with the result at the end of all the cable work.

The final piece was to add my own custom made vinyl to the top panel, to make it more unique.
Don't know if I am allowed to but massive shout out to Rockstar Arcade at Rockstar Arcade who allow you to customize your own stuff, but have loads of other things to choose, and are well priced. For instance mine was £7 for 2 x A4 size sheets.
I tried to make it look as though the characters were coming out of the arcade machine, heroes one side, villains the other. So here it is on the control lid.

Put it all together and here is the finished result. Sorry for photographic quality.

My next project will be a Bartop Arcade.

[theissdev]

Gorgeous! Nice job!