Alex Builds an Arcade Stick Part 1: In Which Failure is Inevitable
A few months ago, I bought a Raspberry Pi and some cheap controllers to turn into a little emulation box so that I could play old video games. After loads of trial and error I got it working and played Super Mario World for about 15 minutes before setting it aside. It was pretty clear I was more into the project than the product, so in the interest of continuing to work with it, I decided that I one day would like to turn it into an entire custom arcade cabinet. Because I have neither the space nor cash for that at the moment I am starting small, and building an arcade stick first. I figured it could be both a learning process and some foundational work for an eventual cabinet. As I know basically nothing about woodworking or electronics, I am writing this as an opportunity for the reader to watch an idiot build something with zero prior experience.
My requirements from the outset were pretty basic: A stick and some buttons contained in a box that could be plugged into the Raspberry Pi via USB. I was able to find a parts kit on Amazon that contained all the hardware I needed (for two players’ worth of controller even) for about $60, all of which could later be reused for an actual cabinet. As a bonus the whole set is LED-lit.

The next thing I had to figure out was an enclosure to put it all in. I spent a lot of time looking online for prefab ones where you could just slot everything in and wire it up, but they were expensive and defeated the whole mediocre DIY spirit of the thing. Instead, I decided to go buy some wood and power tools and make something ugly.
Here is a (very) rough sketch of what I was thinking: two boards, holes drilled in the top board, with some wood spacers in between to contain all the wiring. This is going to be absolutely hideous and give me splinters, but that’s part of the charm.

I went to Lowe’s and got a 2'x2' chunk of thin plywood, a stick that I think is for building fences(?), and I invested in a power drill, because now I am the kind of guy who owns a power drill. My first step was to do a very bad job cutting the board in half, forming the top and the bottom of the enclosure. It did not come out anywhere close to straight.

Next I had to start punching holes in the thing. I found a layout I could use to start marking the board up with where everything should go.

Here is where things started to go awry. I measured everything out, penciled everything in, and started to cut holes. The buttons have a 30mm diameter, and the largest drill bit that I had was 3/4 inch. No problem, I figure. I’ll just cut these out, shave the rest of the diameter out with a Dremel, and I’ll be good to go. I was not good to go.

I drilled the holes, everything looked pretty ok, then I got to Dremel-ing. The first thing I noticed was probably toxic plywood dust flying over my office, fine. The second thing I noticed was smoke coming off of it, because the grinding wheel was starting to char the wood. Cool, cool. The third thing I noticed was that my grinding wheel was completely smooth by the time I had made one hole big enough to fit one of the buttons through. Hm.

Another trip to Lowe’s, and I came back with a 1" bit and a 1 1/4" bit. Now, if you do the math, you will realize that none of these things are 30mm, but I figured I could get close enough. Instead, I fucked the whole thing up and have to try again on a different board. How did I manage that? Turns out those big paddle drill bits really don’t work well for expanding a hole that is already present, and you really need to start with a fresh hole.

Long story short, before I started fresh, I decided to test the other drill bits on this now mostly ruined board and hey what do you know, the 1 1/4" bit was way too big and the button would wiggle around, and the 1" bit was too small. Thanks metric system.
So here is my preview for part 2: I bought these, and they will arrive on Thursday, and I will cut some exactly 30mm holes.

Hopefully by the weekend, I can move on to the electronics.
