The Stuff I made: May 2013

In my last post I introduced the problem my brother Ricky has with watching his favorite TV shows and movies and how I planned to build him essentially an arcade game system to play his shows that can stand up to his unique needs and unintentional abuse of equipment. Now I've built the player and it's been working pretty well the last couple months for Ricky. Here's the basic rundown:

Materials:

1x 5 disc DVD player
1x CRT TV (LCD would be too easily broken, Ricky likes to tap the screen sometimes.)
1x Composite to RF video adapter for TV
1x Power strip
10x Arcade control buttons, (5 white, 3 black, 1 green, 1 red)
1x Sheet of lexan for control panel
~2x sheets of 1/2" plywood (Might be more, need to get exact dimensions)
1x Ratchet strap
1x 6-8ft cat-5 cable, solid strand prefered
1x RCA video cable
~16ft of 2x2 lumber
~50-100 drywall screws (didn't keep count)
zip ties for cable management
2x small cabinet hinges
1x hasp latch and padlock
2x right angle shelf brackets to hold cabinet to wall

This is just what I used, and it's by no means definitive. Feel free to work with what you have. The general design plan was to build a cabinet similar to an arcade cabinet scaled for sitting height with a flat top for ricky to be able to keep his DVD cases on and not have them fall behind the unit. The control panel's buttons are set back to give him room for a snack or drink, and the whole unit is screwed to the wall to discourage him from moving it around or trying to get into the back (it's been a problem before.)

The back panel is a door that can be locked shut, and like many arcade cabinets it's construction is basically one of sandwiching everything between the two side panels, having a shelf for the screen, and keeping the electronics down low. I don't have a photo of the back with the door on, but that also has a bunch of vent holes for air circulation.

Oh, and I built this all start to finish at the local hackerspace/makerspace I helped found a little over a year ago JaxHax in Jacksonville, so if you're in the area and happened to stumble across this page come check us out!

Here's some construction photos:

Drilling out the holes in the lexan and control panel.

Installed in Ricky's House

The painted cabinet without front panels

Cables and buttons mounted and wired into the DVD player's button panel. As you can see the green button's different than the rest. HAPP didn't ship part of the green switch I ordered, but luckily I had one leftover from my arcade cabinet still around. They never did answer phone calls or emails trying to get the missing parts....