Arcade Cabinet

Overview

The arcade cabinet is a standing coin-operated game machine built around a wooden cabinet, an LCD monitor, a deck of player controls, and a single-board computer that runs the game. It follows the classic upright layout: a marquee header, an angled control panel, a near-vertical monitor behind protective glass, and a coin door in the lower front.

The Cabinet forms the structure. CNC-cut Cabinet Side Panel pieces and a panel set box in the interior, adhesive vinyl side art and a printed Monitor Bezel finish the exterior, and flexible T-molding protects the edges. A lit Marquee Header header crowns the machine, lighting a translucent printed graphic with an LED strip.

How it works

Players see the game on the Display Module module: an LCD panel driven by a scaler board, held in a steel VESA mount behind tempered glass. Input comes from the Control Panel, a routed wood deck with a printed overlay carrying two Joystick units and twelve illuminated buttons. Each 8-way joystick uses a shaft, ball top, and a centering spring, with an actuator that presses four direction microswitches against a swappable restrictor gate; each Push Button is a snap-in plunger over a microswitch and an LED.

The Game Board is the brain. An Single-Board Computer runs the game from a storage module, while an I/O Encoder Board converts every joystick and button switch into USB HID inputs through screw terminals. Sound runs through the Audio Module module, where a class-D amplifier board drives two cabinet speakers behind the marquee.

Money handling lives in the Coin Door Assembly: a stamped steel door with twin coin mechanisms that validate coins, microswitches that signal each accepted credit, and a lockable coin box. Power enters through the Power Distribution assembly, where a switched and fused IEC inlet feeds a main switching supply and a fused DC distribution block that splits the 5 V and 12 V rails out to the boards, monitor, lighting, and the two cooling fans.