Anyone who has been considering making their very own Raspberry Pi powered desktop arcade machine using the awesome RetroPie emulation software. This sure to be impressed by this new project which has been posted to the Thingiverse website by member Christian.
The well finished and superbly designed desktop arcade machine is available to download directly from the Thingiverse website as well as full instructions provided via the Hack A Day website.
Christian explains a little more behind the inspiration and design of his RetroPie Raspberry Pi arcade system.
I grew up in the 80s during the golden age of arcade machines, so I have always wished I had an arcade machine with real arcade joystick + buttons. Now that I have a 3D printer, I thought I should put it to good use and make myself a desktop arcade machine. I used TinkerCAD to do all the 3D modelling. Also, I wanted my arcade machine to have a lot of detail, so I also created things like vintage design coin slot and also created artwork which I sent to a commercial printer to have them printed on vinyl sticker.
This is not the first 3D printed arcade machine, there are already many around. However, there were certain things which I prefer it to be designed differently. Take for example the palm rest area. I did some testing and found that without sufficient space to rest your palm, you will get tired very quickly. Most of the existing designs I found had this issue, so I made sure my design had a big palm rest.
I should note that I actually designed and printed these parts before receiving the actual parts like the LCD screen, controller, speaker, amplifier etc. 3D printing takes quite a lot of time and I didn’t want to wait till everything I ordered has arrived in the mail before I started printing. So, some of the parts were designed with some flexibility in terms of how it would be laid out. Also, this was a learning process for me as I am still relatively new to 3D printing, so some parts have gone through many changes as I experimented with the design. I believe all the files I uploaded should be correct, but in case there are any mistakes, do let me know.
Source: Thingiverse : Hack A Day