Hello, in this post I will show the progress of a mini arcade cabinet creation. This is not a regular arcade cabinet, it's more like the ones that called "table-top" designs. This is how it looks:

And this is how it's played by:

The idea has came from that I had some spare buttons and joysticks when I used on the real arcade cabinet that I acquired. So with that spare parts and more importantly the 7" screen that I had for long time, I decided to assemble a mini cabinet with a Raspberry Pi. 

So first, I made a quick design on Solidworks.

Made some coloring and texturing by the library.

So with the screen size, form factor and the buttons and joystick I have at hand, I pretty satisfied with the result, so it was OK to continue making this real. But first I made a cardboard production. It's easier, less time consuming and low on cost to see how the thing will look like.

I extracted the surfaces from solidworks like this:

And printed these curves to use them as an overlay on cutting the cardboards. Regular printers are good devices that prints in a precise scale of your CAD software. So it2s the most important part that you had the correct scale of the production relative to your 3d model.  

I easily managed to build the shape by packing tape.

So the general size, and the components look allright, cosidering the inner parts to have enough clearance to put electronic components as well. With that confirmed, I went for shopping some Plywood, MDF etc.

I bought 4mm Plywood (lighter wood), 8mm MDF (darker one), 3mm MDF (with white layer coated). This is the bill of materials. PDF version can be downloaded by this link (if you're going to use, don't forget to check the dimensions and scaling):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11J50BwOvIOB7_zke6LjI_HYhrdQiZcWt/view?usp=sharing

First I put the templates that I printed with a regular printer over the wooden boards and draw the boarders around the templates. Then I started cutting with fretsaw.

I used wooden sticks to connect perpendicular boards together. I used self tapping screws to connect the sticks with the boards.

To make the 90 degrees connections I used a hand drill to make the hole for the self tapping screw, and then drive it through.

This is the look of connected boards, which made me happy since it's my first experience to work with wooden material like this.

I cut the rest of the planar boards with a saw.

And connected the rest of the boards. Result is like this:

My workspace is kind of messed up.

Now it's time for the side boards with 8mm MDFs. I used the same templates I used for the cardboard process to draw the border of cutting.

I used the same automatic saw to form the curvy sides. I wasn't so sure but it worked good since it's a flexible saw.

So I mounted the side boards too.

After this part, I drilled the holes for the button and the joystick.

Since the joystick I have, has a metal plate to screw to the wood from top, I ended up with a thickness on the top of the 8mm board. That was the reason why I also have 3mm white MDF. I used it to cover this metal sheet. I also applied some thick 2 sided sticker tapes to balance the thickness of the metal plate.

This is how it looks when I added the 3mm MDF over the 8mm MDF.

So I mounted the buttons. These buttons has a tightening ring and mounted as through hole. So they also act like a fastener for these two boards.

I ordered some carbon textured sticker foils to cover the boards. I had 3 types of foils:

Metallic Gray (for the surfaces between sides)
Black Carbon (for the corners, later I removed them)
Pain black (screen area)
Dark Blue Carbon (sides and corners)
Metallic Carbon (for the button area)

So started applying stickers over the boards, by first unmounting them, applying sticker, then cutting the edges.

Screen and the button area are like this:

Next I covered the side edges on both inner and outer surfaces (these photos show that I only applied to the outer surfaces but later on I covered the inner surface as well). And also I used plain gray sticker for the rest of the surfaces.

For the intersection corners, I couldn't stick a simple foil over, because it wouldn't be rigid and will be peeled. So, I made up an approach with a transparent PET sheets I have. I store this kind of transparent sheets for using on many cases like repairs, or any other developments I make using 3d printing etc. I get them from the toy packages mostly.

So first, I cut a stripe from the PET sheet, and I bend it. For that I had a guillotine paper cutter.

After cutting the stripe, I apply foil over it. I used black carbon foil on this one, but later on I didn't like the result and I switched to the dark blue foil instead of black. Progress is the same. Applying foil over the pet stripe makes it more durable and rigid. 

Next I placed stripe with foil to the guillotine, but this time I used the black tiny tool to squish the bending edge through the middle of the stripe. You can use any rounded and tight metal that doesn't scratch the PET but make it easy to bend through the rail of the guillotine cutter.

This is how the bended corner looks.

Next I mounted a LED stripe for the lighting the cabinet. This board is the G board on the part list I shared above. Then I covered it with plain gray foil and mounted back.

My lovely daughter is playing some Sonic racing game with her PS Vita back there.

As I mentioned before, I didn't like the black corner covers, so I changed them with dark blue.

For the top lit panel, I had only frosted plexiglass at the hand. So I moved on with the frosted PG and ordered a translucent one to switch later on.

There materials are very fragile on bending without heating. But you can cut them with the back of the box cutter. You use the back of the knife 4-5 times, and bend it. So it breaks through the scratched line.

I drilled the holes and mounted it first. I will use corner covers, so it's not important that there is a clearence at the edges.

So the following part is the graphic design for the lit panel. As you know from the previous blog post, I bought an old school cabinet, which is named as "Delta II". I decided to move on with the same name with this one by naming it as Delta S. S is for "small".

I took the photo of the existing cabinet and recreated the same design in Affinity Photo.

"Delta S" looks more like "Delta 5" but I can live with that :)

I used 2 sided tape to stick the printing to the plexiglass. These photos shows the application on the translucent PG not the frosted one, but process is the same.

So I applied the one with the frosted PG and looks nice but blurry which I will solve on later stages when my clear glass PG is arrived.

One big problem was I had no T-molds for the edges of the cabinet. You can see the MDF section on the both sides that you can see the wood/MDF texture through it. I solved that problem by discovering a nice material with a pure luck. We got a 1.5 year old baby and I ordered some rubber corner protection attachments for the furnitures in 1-2 areas in the house. 

The corner rubber parts are arrived, we used on some furniture corners but they put some strip rubber as well. Which was useless for our baby's safety with the furniture, but that stripes were great and useful for the cabinet I'm making.

It looks flexible and durable. So I used it on all the edges through the side parts as well.

It looks great but it needed some stapling to secure the connection better. Because I don't like it when it peeled of at the corner bends. I know it doesn't look good but until I find a better glue solution, it's better to keep it that way.

I designed and 3d printed a screen frame.

Screen I'm using is a waveshare 7" DPI screen which I was holding for a long time for a project. finally got it used on. I 3d printed it in a beautiful evening when we got a lovely snowing in Ankara.

I applied the printed frame and it looks great.

Now it's time for the electronic assembly!

The electronic components I used on this projects are:

• Raspberry Pi 3B+
• DPI screen hat for raspberry pi
• DC-DC Step-down voltage circuit
• USB game controller circuit
• Audio amphilicator circuit
• DC jack connector
• 2 pcs 8 ohm speakers

I decided to feed the system with 12V DC adapter since the LED stripes for the lighting works with 12V DC. But since the rest of the components works with 5V DC, I used a step down converter to set 5V output from the 12V input.

I sketched some placement over the bottom MDF board to fix the components. I also 3d printed some rings to offset the components from the surface when I screw them.

This is the placement:

I adjusted the step-down circuit to output 5.04 volts.

I soldered some cables to the raspberry pi for USB port, analog audio output (later I removed it), and power input, 

And after connecting all switches to the USB board, final electronic assembly is like this:

As a final addition, I put an SD card extension cable for accessing the SD card easily.

Looks like a cyberpunk B-movie set from 90s :)

Finally I can test the machine. 

This is Retropie loading screen. There is a good match about the "carbon texture" choice I made on the sticker foils :)

A comparison with the draft and final product!

Some shots with the big cabinet and the new one.

Let's test it out!

This is a brief timelapse of the project.

And one final shot with the clearglass light panel.

It was an amazing experience to create something like this. Normally I do 3d printing and electronic assembly to that cases with more lower form factors. But this one was a good practice to work with wood, larger form factor and a way of both mechanic and electronic device. I hope you like it too. And see you soon.

Hello everyone! I made an attempt to repair an old robot toy from my childhood. Actually this robot was owned by my little brother.

You may remember this robot from one of my artworks named "a Scene from 90s". When I was creating that scene about 3 years ago, I couldn't be able to get my hands to this toy, so I created the 3d model by finding photos of the toy from internet, instead of modeling it by correct measurements. I made enough similarity at least.

Anyway, toy is manifactured by Taiway (Shing Kee) Toys Co. Ltd. from China in 1986. It's called "Botoy".

First I checked up the product for the faulty parts. The most recognizable problem was the corroded battery compartment. That was the main reason that the robot is not operating.

I find some brass copper sheet to replace that connections. Also I removed the cables from the corroded parts and dumped all of them.

I tested the toy and it operated after that move.

Next I went for completing the missing parts of the robot.

Antenna part was easy. I modeled it with Solidworks by measuring the one at hand.

I 3d-printed the part with my Ender 3-v2 printer with black filament. We're good.

Nest step was the gun. The particular case with that gun is, it touches to the copper parts in the arm of the robot and got current to operate.

It was missing for a long time. So I checked the internet to get some photos of the gun to model and print it.

I had pretty much reference to 3d model the gun. For the inside part of it, I referred to my previous experience on creating cases for the electronics :)

For the red translucent part, I printed it with a white translucent part because I don't have red tinted translucent filament. Instead of it, I used red LED inside.

I used copper sheet once again for the connection areas to lit the gun. I thought form factor was challenging for a 3d printed case of that gun but I even had space left inside :)

Black screws would be better. Don't have any :(

Take cover!

For the last missing part, I checked the photos I gathered by google to model the keyboard part in front of the screen. this was the easiest part.

And as a one final replacement, I remodeled a rail part that connects head and the right arm to move accordingly. Because the existing part was breaking too much.

And the robot is completed as it was, back in 80s.

I'm sure there are some mechanical problems in the engine box, but I couldn't dare to open it yet, maybe next time. Meanwhile I will be looking for a solution for the ripped of transparent sticker on the screen. I hope you like this lazy replacement process, and have a good weekend :)

P.S. I can't believe I modeled this robot "that similar" by looking to the photos I gathered from the internet 3 years ago.

Hello! Previously I made an handheld design using Raspberry PI and 3d Printing / Painting. This time I added a detachable keyboard module to my console so it would be easier to access whole c64 keyboard and experience.

You can check the making of process by this two links:
https://www.artstation.com/blogs/blockmind/lMOo/making-of-handheld-commodore-64-project
https://www.artstation.com/blogs/blockmind/lMee/handheld-commodore-64-project-finalization

This time with the help of C64Istanbul from PCBway, I got a keyboard replacement PCB where you can also order by this link:
https://www.pcbway.com/project/shareproject/COMMODORE_64_USB_KEYBOARD_FOR_BMC64_Poor_man_s_Keyrah_89d5c4fc.html

This keyboard has the exact mapping with a real C64 keyboard so the emulators recognize it %100 compatible. It uses an Arduino Pro Micro to make it reconized by a USB interface on the Raspberry PI or PC devices.

image courtasy C64iSTANBUL

So by having this keyboard PCB, I decided to make an expansion module for my handheld console. Normally I have a stand for the device to put it on surface vertically.

This two holes on my previous design made it possible to attach the keyboard module by here. So I completed the design according to that principle.

And 3d printed those with my good old Ender 3 v2.

After the printing I go for the weights. Since my design has a shifted weight center because of the angular screen case, I needed add extra weight in front of the keybaord unit. So I found some steel screws to use for that.

Since I'm using conductive materials as weight, to prevent any short circuit under the PCB, I isolated the back part with 3 layers of masking tape.

I also hacked the Promicro's usb input to use it as an extension cable. So I soldered 4 cables to relevent areas where you can see on this article.
https://www.instructables.com/Fixing-an-Arduino-Pro-Micro-the-USB-Port-Came-Off-/

This is the actual look of the bottom part of the case.

And the weights and keyboard works!

Before painting the parts, I masked the electronic components and the attachment hooks.

I used acyrillic paint with a special mixture to get the famous "Commodore Beige". Here is the recipe: %60 Mocca %40 Desert Brown :)

%100 color match with the old painting.

Let's do an assembly.

At that point, the thing that bothered my was the white color of the faceplate. they can be ordered in few colors but any of them cannot match with the beige color. So I decided to change the color of it. Overpainting it with a thinner was not an option. because the surface was too glossy to hold the paint. 

I found a strange workaround about this. I decided to print the same design with beige background with my color printer. But I printed the design on a sticker paper.

Next I needed to use my laminator device to cover the paper with PVC. Because standad paper would worn out in time while using the keyboard.

Laminators work with heat treatment to make the PVC sheet welded with the paper. Perfect way of protection. To make it one sided to my printed sticker, I added an extra layer of standard paper to the backside of the sticker.

This way I had my sticker PVC laminated on the printed side where I can also easily peel off the cover for the sticky side.

My next problem with this printed keyboard layout was the holes. These holes are drilled by machines, so making holes by hand was not an easy task. I also printed the outline of the holes and to make the holed I modified a pen as a punch pen :)

I used various drill bits to enlarge and sharpen the tip of the pen.

So I used this punch pen to punch the holes.

And finally I applied the sticker on top of the faceplate. Very acceptable match!

It looks way better than the white one because of the color match.

I didn't stop there. My next step was to add some SMD LED lights to the clearance I designed for the screw heads. It lookedlike a perfect placeto add the lights for some decorative key lighting.

I soldered a simple board for the resistors of the LEDs. I added a 90 degree pins to put a connector, because board is on the bottom part, and the LEDs are on the top part. So I needed to detach LEDs from the bottom part of the case for maintenance purposes.

And the lights on!

These are not so powerful lights bu they added a nice touch I suppose.

For the USB connector, I made up a case like this. I know it's not looking so good but at least it secured the soldier and cables on the tip.

Because of the bad masking decision I made, the bottom keyboard module was looking like this:

I kept that black are masked because it is the attachment hooks. Painting them will cause losing tolerances on the shrink fit. But it looks terrible this way and even it's not exposed after attaching to the screen, I wouldn't let it be like that. So I re-painted that area. But as you can see, there was an height level variation between the first paint and the secondary paint surfaces.

I sand papered it and painted one last time and it's done!

And finally completed this project. Here is the final shots about it. 

It was a real fun making this device get closer to my reverse-visionary HX-64 design (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/dOqA8K) and it was great to make up some homebrew workarounds during the process. I hope you like it too!

And some FPV shots :)

Cheers!

Hello once again,

Previously I made a case design for a handheld Commodore 64 that I made by a Raspberry Pi. You can see the making of process by this blog post.

https://www.artstation.com/blockmind/blog/lMOo/making-of-handheld-commodore-64-project

I know that project has been a disaster on 3d printing, so the resulted case was not looking good enough. 

This posts shows what I did to save the look of the device :)

As a started I re-printed the top part.

Next I used putty over the case parts.

And sanded after it dried.

I painted the parts with a primer.

...and made some tiny scratching on cavities.

Now it's time for painting with reference color!

Second trial had been better on match.

And this is the resulted piece!

Acceptable color match!

I hope you like it this post process. Cheers!

Hello, I'm here with another homebrew Commodore 64 Handheld project! It is a Raspberry Pi-emulated electronic assembly. It has it's own screen, it has two 18650 batteries inside that makes it work for 3 hours and 55 minutes in full load with gamepad activity.

You can see more info about this device in this video:

I used BMC 64 emulator on this device. You can find it by this link: www.accentual.com/bmc64

Here is the simple diagram of the components

First I combined these parts on my table and measured them. I modeled rough blocks of these in Solidworks and made a placement first.

Next by considering the port clearences and placement, I modeled a 3d printable case.

After modeling is done, I 3d printed the bottom part first and fixed the components on it.

For the controller part, I made a different approach on this one. I directly used a controller circuit which I detached from a very cheap gamepad controller (around $4). Because all GPIO pins on the Raspberrry Pi is used on IPS screen. So I needed to connect the controller with a USB interface. Instead of doing it with an Arduino, I directly used a gamepad circuit which was faster way :)

And fixed the screen to top part as well.

And we have the whole system cased!

And system works! (I know I work messy - P.S. no apricot seeds are used on this project)

The top part was 3d printed very bad because of some filament issues and placement. I tried to recover the bad surface by a 3d print surface finisher tool that makes ironing.

I know, it's not perfect but at least it can be sanded and painted later...

Tape loading!

The last ninja!

♥️

Dimensional reference photo (metric)

Some nature photos! In my childhood, some travels we do was sperating me with my Commodore 64. I wish it was possible for me to build this device in 1989 :)

And some renders! You can find the rendering project page by this link: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/GalrWW

I hope you like it! And thanks for your attention as always!

Last weekend I painted this case by trying to match the colors of breadbin cases. 

Actually, it was very hard to match the color by mixing acyrillic paints that I have. 

Anyway, first I applied a surface primer (gray) and then used sandpapering to clean up surfaces. After that I used putty to fill layered surfaces that caused by 3d printing. And applied sandpapering again. 

Careful while using this kind of putty products (in my case Tamiya Putty). There are huge warnings about how hazardous they are.

I'm trying to match a color here but it's far from good. So I decided to use it as a one more primer layer to sandpaper once again. 

Sandpapering again has made the gray at the bottom look more visible like some Substance Painter edge damage filter is applied :)

Color in the container is my second mix where you can see that previous one (the right part) looking more off.

I'm using airbrush for the job BTW.

And looks better.

Finally I assembled the pieces and paint the icons on the front panel with black permanent pen.

A close up with flashlight.  

One comparison with Commodore 1702 monitor.

Now it looks more like the one I rendered for the the blister pack project on my portfolio :)

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lxbNeo 

And oıne final comparison with before and after the painting process.

I'm here with another case and electronics design related to BMC64 Emulator (https://accentual.com/bmc64/). It's a Commodore 64 emulator for Raspberry Pi devices.

My purpose was to assemble a portable All-in-one device to be usable by just connecting to a TV or Monitor by a video cable.

Previously I made a similar design which is detailed by this link:
https://www.artstation.com/blockmind/blog/NgDK/portable-commodore-64-design-with-bmc-64-emulator

This time I combined this design with my Firepad64 design (Thanks to my brother Cihangir for this advice). BTW, Firepad 64 is a fire rate adjustable controller for 8 Bit computers. For more detail:
https://www.artstation.com/blockmind/blog/RYL0/firepad-64-v3-home-production-logs

First you can check this introduction video I recorded about this device:

Now let's see how I made it:

First I gathered the components and soldered them. 

Power Bank Charge Unit

18650 Battery

Raspberry Pi 3A+

2 x DSUB9 Connectors

6 x 8mm Switches

SD Card Expander

Firepad 64 mechanism (Custom made)

USB Expander (Custom made)

GPIO hat (Custom made)

3mm LED light

---

I made a GPIO hat for the Raspberry to distribute all joystick and custom function pins to buttons.

Once I gathered all the components together, I designed the case by part by part which I'm lucky that all fit together at the end.

First I designed the bottom part and 3d printed it. Made the assembly fixed onto it by screws.

Next my measuring the result with the bottom part, I designed the top part of the case and 3d printed it.

Connected the firepad unit to it by screws & nuts.

All system is ready to be encapsulated.

I made this translucent keycaps by 3d printing. I applied translucent filament into the direction icons and used sandpaper to smooth and blend them together.

Here is the lit version with labels I printed with my color printer.

Finally I printed little key caps fot the left panel, and device is ready to use.

It's connected to HDMI screen.

And here it's connected to A CRT screen (Commodore 1084).

Looks like batmobile right :)

And more photos... Thanks for your time!

Yesterday I was detaching keycaps of my Commodore 64 to clean the mess under, because some of the keys were not pressing well. But while detaching the keycaps I broke 19 of them. Since the time passed, these key mechanism plastics got crunchy.

Normally this means you need to send your computer to service, and make them replace the key mechanism. Since there is no service of this brand, that mean I need to solve this myself.

First I tried to super glue the thing but it was not a good idea, since doens't work. After that, I decided to 3d print the parts that I broke down.

But first, I needed to remove the broken part inside the caps. For that, I used "wine cork technique" with a tiny screw! First I screwed it 3-4 steps into the broken part and I pulled it back.

Next, I modeled the existing part with Solidwoks by taking measures with calipers.

Before printing this kind objects that needs to be used on mechanical purposes, I make the slicing angular (about 30°). This way printing layers will be angular, so part will be more durable for the forces on the arms.

Since it is roughly 10mm to 18mm part, I wasn't sure that it will come out correctly. Because there is a rubber conductor part that needs to be attached to that part to make it work.  

I'm very happy with the result.

Time to attach the rubber conductor.

Let's apply the replacements!

Alignment is perfect as well!

Works great! Thanks for reading.

Also this part can be downloaded by this link: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4691398

Hello, 

Recently I made an advancement on my Firepad64 design, which is the Version 3 (possibly the last update) for this device. It's a joystick replacement for Commodore 64 that has a keyboard layout for easy playing. You can check this post to see the first creation steps of this device:

https://www.artstation.com/blockmind/blog/zPLm/making-of-firepad64-joystick-replacement-for-commodore-64

I want to share the steps of the creation of this device because (except the PCBs) it's all homemade manufacturing which is a great achievement of our world has come to. I didn't even get out from home to create this "mechanic and electronic" product. So I find this important to share the details of creating an end-user product at home. It's cyberpunk! :)

Anyway, Version 3 of Firepad64 has 3 major advancements after the previous version.

1. Professional Outemu brand mehchanical keys with regular linear (red) and clicky type (blue) versions.
2. Backlit Lighting
3. Screw Assembly instead of shrink-fit

This video shows some details of the product but it's in Turkish.

The most problematic part of this update was to adapt the Mechanical buttons to my existing PCBs. Because the pin positions are totally different. Since I have some 50 pieces of the previous PCBs, I decided made an adapter for the buttons to comply with my existing boards.

Without those adapters I was adapting the keys with prototyping boards. It was good for some 1-2 adaptations but it was not durable and it was so much time consuming to make the buttons adapt to my existing PCBs.

Wtih the help of the adapters it was easy for me to make usable mechanical switches in a fast way.

Next I 3d printed a template to make the perfect alignment for the keys before soldering them.

You can see the lighting under the keys. Best part of these mechanical keys, they are designed for to let the light under them. So I used a serial light cable which are used on new year lighting applications on homes to make the keys lit.

I assembled the PCBs.

This is how they shine like a Christmas tree :)

My next step was to finalize the 3d design and make the 3d printing. I made the whole design with Solidworks but I love how Rhinoceros show the CAD models. Look at this fast AO computation in viewport!

So I started 3d printing and assembled each set after they're complete.

Nice part about these keys is you can use regular keycaps.

So here is the army of Firepads :)

And finally the connector & cable design.

Time for boxing.

Enjoying Mr. Steven Wilson's great music while working on the stickers and product sheets.

...and voila!

I hope you like the steps of this home production phase for some friends from the community of retro gaming. Thanks & see you!

Easyflash3 is re-programmable Commodore 64 cartridge that supports all CRT files and fastload cartridge binaries like Action Replay, Final Cartridge Etc. You can find more details about it by this link: https://skoe.de/easyflash/

I used Solidworks to measure and model the existing electronic part first. I use calipers to measure all distances and clearences while creating the model. And next I modeled the case by referencening the electronic part.

This way I had a chance to get rid of that center screw which I don't like on cartridges. It's economic and easy way for an assembly but my version is more rock solid at the end with no loose fixation between case and the PCB.

You can see the timelapse video by here:

Here are some photos of the assemblying 3d printed parts. Hope you like it, see you on next project :)