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projects / arcade / Plans

Plans

Here is the design of the cabinet. I bought three 4'X8' pieces of 1/4" particle board. I used 1/4" particle board for almost everything.  I was able to get everything here from the three pieces. I also bought some 2"X2" boards (I think it was four of them) to use to screw the parts together. I figured that they would hold the screws better than the particle board.





I left room in the plans for the thickness of the particle board when it was put together. I put the 2"X2" boards on the side pieces at 1/4" from the edge so when I put the particle boards together, they were flush with each other.


I got some 5/8" particle board from work and used that for the face. Since I made it to interface with playstation 2 and Dreamcast controllers, I put enough buttons for the PS2. The PS2 has 10 face buttons plus the D-pad. I put 10 buttons for each player plus the 4-way directional D-pad. I made a hole for the console switch and other holes for the memory card slots. The threads of the buttons were just over 1" in diameter. I drilled all the holes with a 1" hole saw. I should have used a 1 1/16" hole saw. I put the buttons at 1 and 1/2" apart because the outside diameter of the button face was at 1 1/4". That left about 1/4" between each button.
When I cut out the box portion, I cut the small front piece at an angle to match the sides. I should have done the same with the back piece. When I put it together, there was a gap in the back. I know no one would ever see it, but it would fit better if I had thought about the back the same as the front.

Here is the button map. I put pictures of the switches to which I soldered all the wires on this jpeg. I think you should be able to see everything but if not, you can download the original OpenOffice document here. Just right click and "save as" to save it to your computer. If you cannot read it, goto openoffice.org to download the program.