Arcade Cabinet – Installing & Wiring Cabinet Electronics

• Top Speakers Sound System
  • Stereo MB Quart QX-165 80W/RMS speakers (Bol, eBay, eBay, eBay)
  • Amplifier 2x100W RMS (eBay)
  • 36V 400W PSU (eBay, eBay, eBay, eBay)
  • (Optional) Volume Control Module (eBay, Here, eBay)
  • Logitech Z2300 2.1 Bottom Cabinet Speakers (Discontinued)
  • RCA-3,5MM & RCA-RCA Cables (eBay, eBay, eBay)
• Coin Doors (eBay, eBay)
• Coin Door LED + Bulb Holder (eBay)
• Marquee LED Strip 3/5m (eBay, eBay, eBay)
• 12V PSU 200W+ (eBay, eBay, eBay, eBay)
• Cabinet Lighting
  • RGB LED Strip (eBay, eBay, eBay)
  • RGB LED Controller with Remote (eBay, eBay, eBay, eBay)
  • LED Strip Profile (Here, Here)
• (Optional) In-cabinet Lighting LED Strip + Switch (Here, Here, Here, Here)
• 12-Point Wiring Terminals (eBay, eBay, eBay, eBay)
• Cable management loops (eBay, eBay, eBay)
• RJ45 Chassis Connector (eBay, eBay, eBay, eBay)
• RJ45 Ethernet Cable 1,5m (eBay, eBay, eBay)
• Power connector with Fuse & Switch (eBay, eBay, eBay, eBay)
• PC Power Push Button(Momentary) (eBay, eBay, eBay, eBay)
• 12V 14mm FAN (eBay, eBay, eBay, eBay)
• 140MM Fan Gril (eBay, eBay, eBay, eBay)
• 10-Port 3A Powered USB 3.0 USB HUB (eBay, eBay, eBay, eBay)
• 3,5mm Microphone (eBay, eBay, eBay)
• PCB Feet (eBay, eBay, eBay, eBay)
• 8/10 Outlet Power Strip (Local store?)
• Computer

Tools:

• Drill
• Zip ties
• HotGlue
• Double Sided Tape

To provide power in the cabinet, first install and wire the power connector with fuse & switch. The folowing video will explain the wiring in detail

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcU1jxFmFs0

Then get your power strip and cut off its wall plug. Then attach clamps on each of the 3 loose wires and attach them to the chassis connector you installed and wired before.

Then mount the power strip somewhere centered in your cabinet

(Photo Soon)

For my cabinet, I will use 2 separate audio systems, one is an old Logitech Z2300 2.1 400W set which will be used to provide bass and the two front firing speakers in the kickplate and two car speakers that will be mounted above the screen… The subwoofer was mounted using l-hooks.

Then to mount the car speakers in the top of the cabinet, I mounted the power supply using zip ties to the back of the marquee, then I mounted the amplifier onto the speaker board using the white PCB feet. then the speakers were installed.

The speakers are connected to the amplifier, the amplifier is powered by the 36V 400W PSU. To power the PSU, I cut off the end of an IEC (pc power) cable and attached the loose wires onto the correct terminals on the power supply. Then the plug was inserted in the power strip I installed earlier.

Then I mounted my volume knob module onto the left side of my cabinet using the white PCB feet, the volume module requires 5V to operate so I found a spare adapter which fits just fine. To split the sound coming from your computer to both of the sound systems, I used simple passive RCA splitter cables like THESE to split the signal just after the volume control module so the volume stays the same for both systems.

To install the computer inside of the cabinet, I used the PCB feet to secure the motherboard onto the bottom panel of the cabinet.

(Photo Soon)

Then I stuck the Power supply to the back of my cabinet using double sided tape, the hard drive was mounted using L clamps.

then I wired up the motherboard, installed the GPU and added the boot drive SSD.

First, assemble the coin door by securing the lock in place. All coin doors came with a mounting bracket and screws and a LED to light up the price tag. To install the LED doors in the previously cut holes, screw the hooks onto the back of the doors.

Now the coin doors are installed, We need to wire the LEDs. I have a lot of unused pins on my pacLED (the one that’s used for the cabinet part of the control panel) I added another terminal from this pacled on the bottom of the center cabinet plate, then wired the LEDs onto this terminal by soldering the cables onto the bulb holder.

Now the coin doors can be controlled over USB, say only 2 players are playing, you could only choose to light the two corresponding coin doors

(Image Soon)

RGB Cabinet Lighting

For the RGB cabinet lighting, I will use 144L/M RGB led strips mounted on the back of the cabinet. these will be controlled by a controller that comes with a remote. The strips will be powered using a dedicated 12V power supply. I first mounted the power supply in the bottom of the cabinet.

Then I mounted the controller to the inside of my cabinet and connected the + and -12V wires using some old speaker wire.

I used one of the 12P terminals to attach multiple strips to the output of the LED strip controller.

Then soldered wires onto the left and right led strip and connected these to this terminal

(Photo Soon)

Marquee

For lighting the marquee, I ordered a  2,5meter 12V White LED strip. This strip can be connected directly to the 12V power sypply. To feed the wires trough to the front of the marquee, i drilled a small hole.

More info soon

Power Strip

To provide power in your cabinet, I used a 10 socket power strip which I stuck in the center of my cabinet using strong double-sided tape.

Power Switch

I bought a “chassis power connector with fuse and switch” which I will use to power my cabinet. first, cut off the wall plug of your previously installed power strip and wire it onto the chassis connector as follows

Fans

To keep the internals cool, I added 2x 120mm 12V PC Case fans I had laying around. Since these fans are PWM controlled and usually come with 3 or 4 wires. Converting these fans to work on 12V full power. I first drew a 120mm circle on the panels and then used the hand jigsaw to cut out the hole.

One blowing in from the bottom and one blowing hot air out on the top. Both fans were covered using the included fan grills. Both were installed using regular screws.

USB Hub

I used a powered 10 port USB 3.0 Hub to connect all my USB controllers and other peripherals to. I used double sided tape to stick the HUB to the side of the cabinet. The power adapter is plugged in the Powerstrip I installed earlier.

RJ45 Chassis Connector

I ordered a Neutric RJ45 chassis passthrough connector, I used the same drill that was used for the smaller arcade buttons and used screws to secure it in place. On the inside, I ran a Gigabit ethernet cable from this connector to the computers Network port.

External PC Power Button

My motherboard has a power button on it but we want to turn on and off the arcade computer without opening the cabinet. so I added a small momentary push button to the rear of the machine that will act as the power button for my computer. I used some breadboard test wires and soldered on both terminals of the button.

(Photo Soon)

These connectors will plug in directly onto the motherboard front panel connectors. make sure to plug it in the correct pins. the correct wiring should be shown in the manual of your motherboard

Microphone

LEDBlinky and some games can use a microphone to react to sound or music. I had a cheap microphone laying around which I stuck to the bottom of the center plate facing out to the front of my cabinet.

The 3.5mm jack was plugged in the RED 3,5mm plug on the motherboard.