The problem with fittings

Building your own custom arcade leads to some interesting problems. One that left me scratching my head for far too long was fittings; how do I neatly attach all the circuit boards to the cab? How am I going to seamlessly attach the main glass screen to the cab? What specific brackets do I need to hold the speaker grills in place and can I find those specific brackets at exactly 6mm in length? You get the idea, lots of Googling with results that often matched only 90% of the criteria for the given fitting. After lots of trial and error, wasted time and money and probably new bald patches on my head I decided a custom arcade cab deserves custom fittings.

Custom fittings for a custom cab

With a basic understanding of 3D modeling under my belt, I decided that if I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for, I should just make it myself. I picked myself up a 3D Resin Printer and fired up blender to make a start on the first fittings, the mounts I needed for holding the main glass screen in place. Have you ever tried to do precision modeling in Blender? Its not ideal... Thats when I found CAD Sketcher for Blender - what a game changer! Within minutes, I was able to knock up some simple designs and get printing.

Screen mounts

The main glass screen was designed to look as flush as possible, this means that I couldnt have any mounts on the side of the screen so was only left with the top and bottom. In fairness, the bottom mount could be anything, just needs a ledge to rest on and gravity does the rest but the top posed more or an issue. The glass needed to get as close to the speaker ceiling as possible but also sits at a 73 degree angle from the ceiling.

todo: finish writing this when I have the images