My Arcade Machine (with Teensy controlled game-pads)

V

vitormhenrique

Well-known member
So I wanted to build a arcade machine, but as everybody else I like LED's, I wanted to have an ws2810 on each button and have them show led patterns and animations when playing and while the arcade is idle.

I created a small PCB to help wire everything, I tried to use one teensy as two joysticks, got that "sort of working" on windows but both on mac and on linux the game pads would appear and disappear, I ended up staking to teensy's on the board and reading the buttons for each player on the appropriate teensy, and having teensy #1 to drive the LED's.

The brain of the arcade is an Raspberry Pi 3, a little bit overclocked and with a lot of cooling power. More than 100 wires soldered, and this is the result so far:

It is still lacking the arcade marquee, but I'll get that worked this weekend.

Arcade 0.jpgArcade 1.jpgArcade 2.jpgArcade 3.jpgArcade 4.jpgArcade 5.jpgTeensy PCB.jpg
Arcade - Wiring.jpg
 
GremlinWrangler said:
Nice build on the frame. Are the buttons lit with the pre wired strands of pixels, or have you got a little PCB in there?
Click to expand...

I actually tested a bunch of solutions, a small PCB inside of the button got into the way to the mechanism, so that did not work properly. I ended up using APA-106-F5 that are basically round 5mm round ws2810 mounted underneath the button on a 3d printed light defuser.

light mount 1.pnglight mount 2.png
 
Awesome setup!! Are you planning on posting plans? I have a 19" and 21" monitor taunting me to put them in an arcade cabinet.
 
blittled said:
Awesome setup!! Are you planning on posting plans? I have a 19" and 21" monitor taunting me to put them in an arcade cabinet.
Click to expand...

Sure! I have no problem posting the plans, I designed the cabinet using Fusion 360 and used the it to generate g-code to cnc each side on a cnc router table, so I'm not sure what is the best way to share the project, dimensional drawling? The entire step file of the 3d model? everything?

The pcb is a very very simple break out board, you can order it from oshpark here, OSHPARK has a minimum order of 3, so I have two unused, the cost of each board is 8.67, so if you are interested I can ship you one for the cost + shipping.

I can also share the code that I used for Teensys to handle buttons and light. I'll create a github and put everything there, and update this thread when it's done.
 
Excellent project, looks great. I've been wanting to build one of these for quite some time, your build may just get me moving off my butt. Very interested in how you handled the lighting on the teensy's, can't wait to pour through your github once you get it set up. Thanks for posting!

Chief
 
At least the dimensions of the Arcade machine. I don't have a CNC machine but I do have a friend that does have that and a laser cutter and uses Fusion 360 so those files would be great to have. Does the PCB board use a Teensy LC? I just bought a 3.5 to get into the Teensy.

If you can show a wiring diagram that would be great. I probably will take you up on the offer of buying one of your spare boards.
 
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