[peanutwarrior]

if anyone is removing the standard graphics on the side of the icade, I highly recommend the black textured vinyl off ebay, cheap to buy yet gives as close to the texture as the rest of the icade. I removed parts of the vinyl carbon fibre as compared to this textured vinyl it’s just not as hard wearing. I can’t decide on side graphics yet so going black / carbon fibre

I took the panels apart and applied the vinyl, trimed with a sharp blade and ran the hot barrel of a soldering iron all around the edges, this removed any loose edges.

[peanutwarrior]

I made a few different designs for the screen framework. the first relied on being fixed to the side panels of the icade, this although worked, meant it was difficult to take apart again.

my final designs were drawn on CAD and laser cut, purely because I could not achieve an accurate surround for the screen and the tolerances were so small.
the frame is made of 3mm MDF and glued with PVA and then hot melt glued in the corners to add strength.

The lid section of the icade has a 4mm wide groove cut underneath to allow the Perspex marquee to sit in to create a tight seal. two pieces of perspex sandwich an inkjet printed marquee graphic.

the speaker sections is merely a rectangular piece of MDF with laser cut speaker holes.

[peanutwarrior]

The vga driver board was ordered off ebay from a china supplier, I ordered the one with the remote which came in at about £25, when you order you leave in the order comments the type of screen you have and the supplier gives you the correct cable. It’s pretty much plug and play. I have two different types, the cheaper version at £19 has no remote but is plug and play it just works, the dearer one however had to have a firmware update in order for the ipad screen to work with it. What wasn’t included was a 12v transformer, so you will need to pick one of those up.

I have two icades, one running retropie using a raspberry pi2 and another running a NVidia shield portable, left the console out one day and my dogs had chewed it up a fair bit, so I modified it with a quick release plug so it could still be used as a portable but currently sits permanently in the back of the icade running hyperspin.

I do prefer the setup of retropie better, much cleaner interface.

to save effort buy the more expensive vga driverboard as they have the remote and a built in amplifier for external speakers, plus an external 5v USB this will power your pi. With a 12v 2amp transformer you can run everything purely from that, no need for separate cables for speakers and hard drives etc.

[peanutwarrior]

Carbon fiber vynal added to all panels, used a hot air dryer to pull round corners. Filled in slot that used to hold ipad with filler, sanded and carbon fiber vynal added. Slot cut in old for marquee. TV board hidden behind screen now. Final touch chrome car trim on edges.

[peanutwarrior]

Apart from trying to force the sound through hdmi, which worked on recalbox, retropie is having non of it at the moment, the icade is running, I ditched all the switches and used sanwa which are connected through a usb snes controller board. An extra smaller sanwa button was fitted at the front to allow easy exit of a game.

I used the heated barrel of a soldering iron on all edges of the vynal which created a better finish. Just waiting on chrome trim, side stickers and figuring out how to make a more permanent marquee light control.

the mid section now pulls apart separate, if this could be copied it would make a nice conversion kit to icade that wouldn’t require hacking to fit.

I’ll post final photos and any detailed parts. In all minus the pi 2 you would be looking at around £100 for parts. That’s if you can find a cheap icade as a Base.

[peanutwarrior]

Cable arrived today, screen works a treat although sods law the screen frame was the wrong way round for the lcd, so file and packed edges. The screen is slightly off center so filed frame on one side greater to straighten out. The tv vga driver runs off 12v and that runs the marquee light the screen the pi and the sound amplifer. Pleaser with the result except the encoder is knackered so adding a xbox360 board instead. Nearly complete.

[peanutwarrior]

Sanwa controls arrived. Carbon fibre vynal added to sides and front. Marquee light controlled by pressing hex screw. Side art symbols and chrome trim next.

[peanutwarrior]

This is the marquee lit

[peanutwarrior]

Sourcing how to light the marquee as bright as possible. Bought a usb led desk lamp glued into place, the 5v is powered from the vga board with a switch on the lamp to turn on and off. the light was £4 and works a treat. cable still not arrived so no working screen. Sanwa buttons and joysticks arriving. I found for £2 car cjrome trim at 12mm wide which is the same thickness as the icade side panels, hopefully a cheap t mould effect.

[peanutwarrior]

Just waiting on replacement lcd cable and usb lamp to come. The lamp consists of 12 led that runs off a usb port. the tv board is quite detailed and provides additional sources of power. the speakers ran off a cheap usb amp which sounded awful so ditched that and used the tv boards built in amplifer. everything par the screen is running off a 12v adapter.

A back cover hides the wires and the top lid provides access to the micro sd. so far so good, downside is marquee is far too wide, I couldn’t gain any more vertical room so most images unless altered look stretched.

[peanutwarrior]

Cheers, not as nice as your full size one, just don’t have the space.

[peanutwarrior]

Extending power cables to front light. Running lvds cable to front, leaving pi and driverboard at the back of the screen. Coin slot turns green to show on, red for standby.

[peanutwarrior]

Took the joystick apart removed front red power light and swapped it for the infra red sensor and power led from the vga driver. The vga driverboard has enough juice in its usb to drive the pi. End result being the tv remote powers both the screen and pi by pointing at the fake coin slot.

[peanutwarrior]

If anyone ever tries this don’t spray the sides the spray paint damages the edging trim. I’d made copies of these side panels and used black vynal straight over the decals and trimmed with a knife. The carbon material looks good, not sure all over. Removing marquee sign for something more fitting. Side art images and buttons.

[peanutwarrior]

Another shot

[peanutwarrior]

Sides have been primed and sanded. had to remove all black trim from sides as spray paint ate into them. Glued all components behind screen. Pi sits underneath where the batteries used to this allows detachment.

[peanutwarrior]

wasn’t a fan of the ion artwork so striped off graphics. Finish left is a little rough so sanded and applied hi build primer.

[peanutwarrior]

Just needs vga driver board. Shell complete

[peanutwarrior]

Few photos showing how to mount the ipad screen, it’s a tight fit and could be designed better but it holds the screen firmly without glue marks.

[peanutwarrior]

It should be the top row nearest the edge of the board, I took these two ports off the board it’s far easier, if you leave the board in you will have little to no height for the pi b+ to go in, if you look at the photo of mine open you will see the tops of the USB ports hang out into the CD area. The ports glue back in the same place and are held in with screws.

apart from a cover for the HDMI port and a new power port mine is done, downside is I can’t fit a hard drive in so a large SD card is the only way.

[peanutwarrior]

Removed the original power connector as that was on the original motherboard, used a larger power pin jack and wired that to the pi via the mini usb. Before the wires reached the mini usb of the pi I added the original switch connecting the live so you could switch the unit on and off. I never used the original playstation power block, you could but you would need to lower the voltage, instead it plugs in as standard but uses a 5v power block instead.

[peanutwarrior]

As the cases are hard to come by easily, I created a Vacuum formed mould to make a small neogeo that would house a rapsberry pi and allow 2 usb’s to be mounted at the front, being vacuum formed the plastic is easy to work with being so thin, just use scissors and a drill to mark the holes out.

[peanutwarrior]

it’s a standard 4 hub usb off ebay again, about £3, just strip back the plastic on them to make them more flexible. the faceplate I made on a laser cutter using plastic from another project which happened to match, the memory card doors are too thin and small to adapt.

It’s not pretty inside with all the glue used to hold them but once put together you don’t see anything of this.

[peanutwarrior]

I’ll dig out some more photos as I am back tinkering with this one as the Neo Geo X one is done.

I used a PSX to usb dual converter, removed the original ports off the psone board and soldered the pins, replacing the converter ports. Ebay sell them for a few pounds. I think you can use the GPIO ports but that seemed too much hassle. RetroPie reads the usb as a twin joystick, works out the box.

The biggest pain in the arse is wiring in the 4 usb hub above it where the memory card used to sit, not much room there.

I Have another PSone unit that I will perform the same on, I’ll take photos of that process as I know how to make it smarter looking.

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