Building the Picade Mini Part III, with a custom rear jack panel!!!

Time for another Picade Mini update! In Part I of this build, I put together the main parts of the cabinet. In Part II I got the screen’s faulty driver board replaced and the screen and control electronics tested.

Now, according to the instructions, my last construction steps are to install the rear door and mount my computer. Then I should be good to start setting up the software. But, you don’t own something until you’ve modify it, so let’s modify this cabinet.

I wanted to have a cleaner rear interface than just a bunch of cables sticking out the pre-cut slots in the bottom of the rear door. My idea was to install some jacks, so my first step was to create a template of the jacks that I want- 2 USB, 1 power, 1 Ethernet, and a nice power switch.

At first I saw two choices: cut individual ports directly into the rear door, or cut one large hole and make a separate jack panel to mount there. Either way I’d need a template, so I did just that with a thin sheet of wood with graph paper glued to it. Then I traced out and labeled the jacks where I wanted them on the graph paper.

I used a drill press to cut the hole for the power jack and for the screws of the other jacks. Then I used a jigsaw and file to make the holes for the jacks themselves.

All in all, I was pretty happy with the template. It was a nice compact arrangement of everything I wanted. Next it was time to decide whether to start cutting holes in that rear door, or make a separate panel. Given the thickness of the rear door, I chose to make the separate panel.

The next question was what material to use? My first idea was to use a thin sheet of metal, or even to use another thin panel of wood. Instead my future father-in-law (whose workshop and tools I was using for this part of the project) suggested I try plastic, specifically a light switch blank. He thought it’d be easier for me to work with and look better than what I could make out of wood or metal.

Home Depot carried them in black for $0.89, so we picked up two and I got to work. He was right; the panel was really easy to work with. I transfered the template design onto it like a stencil with an awl and cut away. I’ll have to keep light switch blanks in mind when I’m working on electronic enclosures in the future.

After cutting out the holes and making sure everything fit, it was time to  figure out where I wanted to mount it on the rear door. I chose the center bottom as the place to give me the most room inside the cabinet.

It was time to cut a hole in that beautiful rear door. I drilled holes to mount the panel and drilled out the corners so I could take the jigsaw to it. I cut out the smallest square I needed, and then for the moment of truth…

Viola! My custom jack panel installed perfectly, and looks way better than I expected! I realize it’s a little dirty in the pic- it got some glue stuck to the panel and I was too excited to take a photo to clean it off first. Now all I have left for the physical part of this build is to wire everything up and get that rear door installed onto the cabinet.

Stay tuned for the next part when I do just that!

/jon

Update (03/05/14): Part IV is up!

Update (03/05/14): See the video: Picade Mini build running RetroPie.