Key Takeaways
- Tinkerer creates a full-sized, portable arcade cabinet with two halves.
- Arcade cabinet uses Raspberry Pi 4, Sanwa arcade accessories, and a 23.8″ VA monitor.
- Alternative Raspberry Pi uses include retro gaming and transforming old TVs into magic mirrors.
Sometimes, a client wants something that’s seemingly contradictory. And while most would simply not entertain the thought, some people find a way to get the best of both worlds sorted and make something extremely cool. Such is the case for this tinkerer who managed to make an arcade cabinet that’s both full-sized and easy to carry and store.
Related
Raspberry Pi 5 review: The holy grail of DIY projects got even better (and rarer)
The Raspberry Pi 5 is one of the most powerful consumer-grade SBCs out there. Sadly, its limited stock means you’ll have a hard time finding one.
Making an arcade cabinet from a Raspberry Pi 4
As spotted by Hackaday, this project began when a client approached Leigh Hackspace with a request. They wanted full-sized, full-blown arcade cabinets that were also portable and easy to store. At first, it sounds like a pipe dream, but Kian Ryan from Leigh Hackspace had a plan. He could create an arcade cabinet consisting of two halves – the top with all the electronics, and the bottom which acts as a stand. That way, you get all the luxury of a full-sized cabinet that can be split into parts once it’s time to put it away.
If you’re interested in the project, you can read more about the thought processes behind it in the blog post linked above. However, if you want to make your very own, you can instead check out the GitHub page for the arcade cabinet. Under the hood is a Raspberry Pi 4, some Sanwa arcade accessories, a Cooler Master GA241 23.8″ VA Monitor, and a ton of electronics and devices to get everything running.
If you don’t feel like building a full-sized arcade cabinet, you can still get a lot of use out of a Raspberry Pi for retro purposes. We’ve covered how to use your Raspberry Pi to emulate games, and our writer Ayush Pande made a retro-gaming powerhouse with one. And if you have an old television collecting dust, you can turn it into a magic mirror using a Pi.
