Arcade1Up - RetroPie PCB mounts

Last crawled date: 4 years, 1 month ago

The Arcade1Up home-arcade games are becoming a very popular item. At 3/4 size of the commercial cabinets, they're great for home use.
They also provide a near-perfect framework for building a RetroPie cab - using a Raspberry Pie SBC to run Games. I took my least-favorite and most control-board rich of my A1Up cabs (the Street Fighter cab) and decided to convert it to RetroPie.
There are dozens of YouTube videos on doing the work and they've helped me tremendously. I refer you to them for conversion questions.
To use the Raspberry Pie, you have to replace a couple of interfaces previously provided by the A1Up PCB: video and controls
To use the existing A1UP LED screen, you need an interface between it and the Raspberry Pie HDMI output. There is an inexpensive and commonly-available controller that does this. For all the buttons and other controls, you put them on USB with a couple of interface boards.
Each of the builders attached the new PCBs to the A1Up cabinet using "double-sided sticky tape." I've used that mounting method before, but I wanted something a little less messy if I needed to move things. Plus, it's a little hair-raising trying to pry up a PCB stuck to a surface, should the need arise.
I modeled some PCB mounts as well as a cover for the video button-board. You can mount these with sticky-tape if you wish - I did for the video interface board, or you can use some short (very short) screws to attach the mounts to the cabinet surfaces.
The PCBs attach to the mounts as expected. The holes are expecting an M3 screw - I used M3-6 with a button-head. The video interface board is a little different in that it requires the grounding strap from the original A1UP PCB to be attached. I left off a post in the "upper-left" mounting position to leave room for the bolt normally used to attach the strap.
Note that all of the A1Up -> RetroPie videos say not to mount the video board on the metal back of the LED panel. Good advice if you only use sticky-tape since component leads can poke through and contact the metal back. However, to mount them anywhere else, the cables must be long enough to reach. Unfortunately the CFL power cord on my A1Up unit was so short that I couldn't mount it anywhere else without modifying the cable. With the printed PCB mount, attaching to the metal back (with sticky tape, please) doesn't present a short-circuit risk - and also provides an opportunity to put the video control button-board outside of the cabinet.
I have two version of the button-board cover - the only difference is that the connector slot on one is easier to attach without removing the cable. Also notice the two slots on the short end of the cover - this allows you to pry open the cover. I modeled it to be a bit tight.
You may notice the "museum putty" I'm using to trial-mount everything. Highly recommended.