Arcade Cabinet - Venture

Fabien · May 23, 2025, 1:11pm

One of those things you make for a friend of a friend of a friend…

A friend of mine has a retro-gaming guild/association where they collect and preserve old computers and arcade games

As a gift to one of the members, he wanted me to cut-out an arcade cabinet for the “Venture” game

I started from a 3d model one f the members did with onshape, and tweaked/adjusted a few things
I mainly added some dowel-pins holes to align and hold the elements

Again, I used Fusion360 MapboardsPro plugin to lay out the parts
The model spans across 3 whole 18mm MDF sheets
After tinkering quite a bit and doing some complicated maths, I got this part layout which allows me to split some of those sheets in 2 or 3 for easier transportation

Then, off we go to the hardware store

A project can’t really be complete without implying a few side-rpojects though…
The first one here, is that my LR3 isn’t long enough on the Y axis to fit the side panels
Nothing to worry about though, I added a small Y-rail extension (witha 3d-printed insert to keep everything aligned) and changed the Y belts for longer ones

Then it was time for side project 2: re-surfacing the whole board - Y extension included

Of course, when you have this kind of project, be wise and always start by cutting the smallest part first!

And then skip directly to the largest one

Also maybe check before assembling that your basement’s ceiling isn’t too low
I got lucky on this one

For some of the parts, I skipped a step and crudely cut the chamfer directly on the CNC
Those edges will be hidden, and it just avoids having to cut them with the circular saw…

Then it’s just a matter of cutting different parts for almost a whole week

You may have spotted some larger holes and white “dots” on the sides.
Those are holes and inserts for metallic dowels and cams that will “lock in” the parts

While I can mill out the holes on the faces of the part, I can’t access the edge, so it’s time for side project number 3!
I designed and cut a small jig to locate and drill the different holes for those cam and dowels

I used small brass bushing as drill guide for the dowels, but it’s mostly a throw-away jig so I didn’t bother too much about it wearing out

Assemble, glue-up and fasten with screws…

And then just spend half of your weekend drilling various holes (making a few mistakes and starting from the wong side for a few of them, of course…)

All done

Time to start the assembly

Note: too many dowels… really… >_<

Now the cabinet has been delivered to the association for installing the electronics, painting and adding trims and vinyls
I’ll add some follow-up picture when/if I get some

Looking back at all the work it involved, I said yes just a bit too fast but in the end it was a fun project
The LowRider definitely shines at cutting large parts like this!

waimea · May 23, 2025, 1:35pm

Looks great. How long did a large piece take to make on the cnc?

Fabien · May 23, 2025, 1:53pm

That’s approx. 20 minutes per side-panel (not pushing it)
8 minutes for boring the holes / 12 minutes for contouring the part (3mm passes)

Tokoloshe · May 23, 2025, 1:55pm

Now I know why your basement looks like this, seeing the neighbourhood. Very neat.

DougJoseph · May 24, 2025, 4:25pm

Very cool. Thanks for sharing that!

Stoli · June 2, 2025, 12:44pm

All those dowels! That’s a well build cabinet. It must weigh a ton. I built something like that years ago. Didn’t have a CNC back then and it wasn’t put together nearly as good as this one. It weighed so much that I threw it in when I sold the house because I didn’t want to deal with getting it out of the basement.

Found a pic of the finished cabinet…

Waspjr · June 3, 2025, 10:11pm

That’s so awesome thanks for sharing

DesignFlaw06 · June 4, 2025, 5:32pm

I really want to build one of these! I don’t have room to actually have it, but it would be fun to make I think.

If I can ask, what do you have into it cost-wise?

ttraband · June 4, 2025, 9:19pm

Look into the designs that hang on the wall instead of being a free-standing cabinet. Googling “wall arcade cabinet” will get you started, but be ready for some sticker shock if not planning to go the DIY route.
Here’s a link to a DIY YouTube video from The Geek Pub channel.
And here’s one where someone who’s build several talks about what to consider before getting started.

jeffeb3 · June 4, 2025, 10:56pm

That looks like a great design. I was also considering one built into a bookshelf, so I could still use the storage above/below.

Fabien · June 10, 2025, 12:26pm

Cost-wise, the wooden cabinet itself was approx 200$
That’s roughly 2 and a half sheets of 18mm MDF, plus dowels and fasteners

The complete cabinet with original hardware, electronics and sticker, I don’t even want to think about the total cost

jhitesma · June 10, 2025, 4:29pm

I’ve wanted to build one for a long time as well - but size was always an issue. I’ve seen some wall mounted ones but that just seems inconvenient to me since I don’t have much open wall space and then it can’t really be moved around.

But…the timing of this topic just sparked an idea. We have a closet in our front room - it’s meant to be a coat closet but we live in the desert so don’t really use coats and instead it’s a cleaning supplies closet. It’s the door on the left here:

For reasons I can’t adequately explain it bugs me…it just looks out of place to me. So the idea of hiding it has occurred to me. I was thinking about making it into a “hidden room” with a bookcase facade because that’s something I’ve always wanted. But I don’t really need or want a bookcase there.

But…an arcade cabinet…hmm…wonder if I can talk my girlfriend into that. Would be unique…and if I did a wall mount style that’s not very deep it wouldn’t be in the way. Probably a long shot getting her to go for it but sometimes she surprises me. When I replaced the 2 separate fan/light switches by the thermostat with a single wifi enabled controller she not only didn’t complain but encouraged me when I had a sudden vision of how to fill the empty hole:

Man I love having FDM and Resin printers as well as CNC available to make my ideas come to life

Fabien · June 10, 2025, 7:23pm

Maybe have a look at this? Bartop Arcade Cabinet From Scrap and E-Waste | Hackaday.io
Looks like a nice little bartop machine

Personally Ijust can’t justify having an arcade at home…
I’ve been gaming for the past 35 years, likkke… an awful lot… but still I know I just wouldn’t use an arcade cabinet more than once or twice a year…

My best friend I cut this one for has multiple arcades in the basement.
It was kind of a dream we had whenwe were at school together, but everytime I go to his place, as fantastic as having a whoel absement filled with arcade may sound, we just enojoy being together a lot more than playing games, and we just let the kids have fun

To me, the best arcade cabinet you can have is the one you don’t actually own
Maybe that’s what “growing up” really means… living the dream may not be as exciting as it seemed
The kids do enjoy it a lot though

jhitesma · June 10, 2025, 9:12pm

That’s a beautiful build. But…I really don’t have any open tabletops either

And to be fair…the main reasons I want to build a cabinet are: 1 - I want a real CRT in there, and 2 - I want that standing experience. I already have a couple of retropi’s I’ve build and some arcade controls to go with them but playing on a flat screen (even with shaders) and sitting just isn’t the same.

Very true. I’m ‘responsible’ for an original pacman and a mata hari pinball that my boss literally dragged out of a barn a few years back:

Having it in my living room for a day made me realize just how much larger these things are than they seem in a commercial setting:

The pacman actually fired right up once I cleaned some mouse nests out of it and washed off all the dirt. But the first day we had it in the office the monitor died after a few hours. I ended up doing a recap on it and it’s been going strong since…but it does start to freak out and reset randomly after being on for a few hours and I still haven’t figured out what’s causing it. The power supply is literally two transformers on a board:

Most likely it’s the main board edge connector which is notorious for having insufficiently large traces on the power pins. But…it’s good enough for us…just means our high scores don’t last more than a few hours. And since we turn it off at night that’s not a big deal since pacman only saved a single high score and it was lost at power off anyway.

The Mata Hari was a much bigger project. It had multiple nests on the playfield and the coin bin was full of mouse nest as well. Shockingly my GF let me use her spare room to work on it though and after an afternoon of cleaning when I powered it up it mostly worked.

Still had to do thigns like strip down and clean most of the mechanics:

And even the Display units had been used as mouse urinals…but a visit to the ultrasonic bath cleaned them up was better than I expected:

One display was totally dead and did have to be replaced with a modern LED replacement. But otherwise I was able to keep it all original. It did take two weeks of tracing wires to track down one fault in the lighting but the rest was fairly standard cleaning and replacing old rubber.

Unfortunately last month we turned her one one morning and she didn’t boot. Yesterday I finally brought in my test gear and started ivestigating only to find that the 5v test point on the MCU board is showing 24v haven’t found exactly what went wrong yet but some kind of regulator failure appears to have occured and now all of the IC’s on the MCU board are probably toast

So…yeah…they’re a ton of fun to repair and play…but I’m also really glad I don’t have to pay for the parts or provide the space for them

jeffeb3 · June 11, 2025, 3:03am

Closets are often built super cheap. Just hang a shelf and a hollow door and sell the house…

I like to take off the doors and install cabinets (usually Ikea ones because they don’t require any finishing). Building a secret room behind a bookcase (or just a cabinet where the fronts look like a bookcase) would be cool. Hiding an arcade would be neat. Or using the arcade as a false door to hide storage would be cool.

In my house, it would be a pantry. We never seem to have enough pantry space.

jhitesma · June 11, 2025, 3:36pm

Yep, that’s what I was thinking - instead of a bookcase hiding the secret closet use an arcade machine. Unfortunately as I feared it didn’t go over as well as the han solo filler plate did

Oh well, bookcase is still pretty cool and I’ll still get my hidden “room” even if it is just a closet.

I hear that. We have a hallway that’s all cabinets which is our pantry as the kitchen has way less cabinet space than it looked like it would have. And it’s overflowing. But this closet is way too far from the kitchen and moving cleaning supplies out of the kitchen and into the closet did free up more space for kitchen stuff so it still helps.