I got my 3D prints today and they really turned out quite nice! Very close to the real model, which means I must’ve done something right. I just need to make a few modifications.
The pins I’m using to hold the thing together are a little small. They work, but it’s quite difficult to handle them and I’m afraid they could pop out at any point. So, I’ll make those a little bit longer. I’m also going to add a couple more pins to prevent flexing near the back corners.
Additionally, the piece holding the screen is a little too snug – so snug it almost bends my screen. Some modifications with my dremel fixed this but I’m still going to make an update to my files.
3d Print Game and Watch Gallery
Compare my 3D printed Game and Watch Tabletop to an original below (with screen inserted, too).
3D printed Game and Watch Shell
Mario’s Cement next to 3D printed version
Angle view of the two games
Perspective view of Game and Watch Tabletop
Next Steps
I’ve already made these changes digitally, just have to wait for them to arrive physically. For this build, I’m planning to use a Rasberry pi and similar controls to what I’ve used in the past. I want to get all the electronics working before I try to fit them in there though. That might have to wait, I’m very close to finishing my Wreck It Ralph Coleco and will probably finish that first.
Months later, and this is done! Wow, was that a lot of work. I also have plenty to share so let’s get started.
Finishing the Sound
After acquiring my own soldering iron, it was time to finish wiring up the speaker and sound amp. I bought a sound amp as small as I could. I had to connect jumper ends to wires to fit the pins. I quickly realized after some test fitting I wouldn’t have room for two speakers. Mono sound it is! That’s really okay, none of these games originally had two speakers anyway. The amp is powered over USB.
I originally was going to use the USB C port on my mini PC to power this bad-boy but, after much testing and frustrations, found out that the USB C port doesn’t always output 5V. It first has to negotiate with whatever it’s connected to. That doesn’t work for me. So, back to good ol’ USB A. Cut open a cable, grabbed the 5V lines and wired that into the amp. Wired a headphone jack into the audio in. Wired the speaker to the audio out. Tada! Worked wonderfully. Until I attempted to power the amp through my mini-pc. It still worked but had a crazy buzz sound.
This was another case of chase the goose but I’ll save you the trouble. It was a ground loop problem. If I powered the amp through a separate line it worked fine. So, I bought a small ground loop eliminator and everything was good to go. I was worried about the extra space though.
Soldering the wires
Speaker wires into amp
wires into the amp
Shrink tubing
Getting the Screen To Work
Time for a mini assembly to see how it all works together! Up to this point, I had tested each piece individually but not all together.
You can see my setup in the photo. Booted the pc up, no video. What!? It worked fine a week earlier. What’s going on? I’ll save you the tale again but it was a a combination of a bad decoder board connector and a loose connection. The ribbons on these small LCD screens are incredibly fragile and the connectors are almost just as fragile. So, be extra sure all the pins are fully inserted before giving up, like I almost did.
The Front End
I’m using Attract Mode for my front end. I created a custom skin that was VERY basic and clean. Since the screen is so small, and I’m replicating 1980’s technology here, I didn’t want to over-complicate things. Want to make your own Attract Mode theme? Use the cool tool here! Created by “liquid8d” on the Attract Mode forums.
Assembling the Fix It Felix Coleco Handheld
Let’s put this bad boy together! I’ll start by saying everything is a tight fit. My mini pc is a little larger than a raspberry pi so that takes up more space. My joystick is larger than a gamepad control. My mini-pac encoder board (keyboard encoder for the controls) also takes up space. The ground loop eliminator was also an unexpected add. Plus I’m not good enough to create my own USB cables. So, I had to cut up pre-made ones. That works fine but their male-ends are longer than is necessary for something like this – more space!
bottom of my control panel
fix it felix handheld control panel
holes drilled
The mini pc inside
control panel testing
Test fitting
Still need to fit the encoder!
Booting for the first time
Running Windows 10
VFD Fix It Felix Game running
Handheld running
VFD game running
Plays other VFD games too
In the pictures above, you can first see me getting the controls into my panel. I went with just two buttons (very few of these ever had more than two) and a joystick restricted to 4-way. The buttons are friction fitted and the joystick is hot glued on. I know, not the best. BUT, I wasn’t about to have screws on top and it’s such a small stick the glue should hold.
The Artwork
You can also see the beautiful artwork! I did it all myself, by modifying the artwork originally vectored for full-size Fix It Felix cabinets. I did a decent amount of customization to make it match what I think Coleco would have done though. I matched patterns from an original Donkey Kong. The decals were printed by a great guy on the BYOAC forums named “SlammedNiss”
Putting it Together
Eventually, I got everything together. A couple tips for others. Get your cables as short as you can! I ended up having a lot of slack which just gets in the way. Right angle HDMI cables and USB cables are a miracle. They really came in handy saving a centimeter here or there, which ended up being essential. I glued in my sound amp to the back (for volume control) and Velcro attached the video decoder board to the bottom of the screen frame.
The spare button on the back is the 1 player start and does other administrative stuff. The back also contains volume and power adapter. Can’t run this machine off batteries. There wasn’t room and it just requires too much juice!
Finally booted it up and BAM, you’ve got something pretty amazing. It runs a full version of MAME but I only loaded vertical VFD style games on it.
Custom Fix It Felix VFD Game Software (and Bonus Wreck it Ralph Game Too)
I wrote two games for my project. A Fix It Felix game modeled after the original arcade game made to promote the movie (learn more about that in my full-size cabinet build) and a completely original Wreck It Ralph game! I was trying to get better and game coding so decided to challenge myself with a second game. Although not complex, it’s better optimized than my first game. I also thought it might be fun to someday create a Coleco style Wreck It Ralph cabinet. It could be red!
Both games feature newly made 1-bit sound and music, just like Coleco handhelds would have had, made by me. I am no musician! So, this took a long time but I think it turned out well. The graphics are also all single color, replicating the VFD displays of yesteryear. I tried to limit myself to 8 colors maximum.
You can see gameplay of both in the final video below.
The finishing touch on any arcade machine is the serial plate. I have to start by saying THANKS to CoryBee for showing me the way. I actually bought a custom made plate from him a few years ago but sadly misplaced it before I finished. After really thinking about it though, I knew it was something I could make myself.
Even better, I’m providing all the files for you to make your own! Let’s get started.
Design and Print Arcade Serial Plates
It’s worth mentioning that for my job, I’m in Adobe programs every day. The natural program for many people for this would be Photoshop – because of its ubiquitous nature. But the real obvious choice is InDesign. Serial plates are essentially laid-out text and meant to be printed in a specific size. That’s InDesign’s bread and butter. Illustrator would also be okay (which I used for customizing the logos). Before I got designing, I needed to know what size to make these things.
The hard workers before me often used cut-up soda cans. That works but isn’t my forte. Cutting them straight, making them flat, getting those rounded corners. Nope, not something I can do. So I searched and searched. I figured some service might be able to do the printing for me but found something even better! Amazon sells a variety of metal business cards. They’re a great size and come in a few different thicknesses. I started with VERY thin versions (.2mm thick) and they worked fine. No problems. They’re pretty flexible though and I decided I wanted just a bit more rigidity so went with .47 mm thick versions. For our purposes, you’ll want to go with silver or natural metal colors since we’ll be printing in black.
Fix It Felix Serial Plate Image (low rez – full resolution download available)
Defender Serial Plate Image (low rez – full resolution download available)
Now I knew what size to make the cards, it was time to start designing. I’d be printing on clear sticker sheets, so the key is knowing that everything in white will show through to metal (essentially white=clear). That leaves black. I used inspiration from CoryBee’s designs and of course looking at real plates. Space is tight, many real serial plates are slightly larger, but I think they look nice. Since they’re really meant more for MAME and scratch built arcade games, I didn’t worry about keeping everything original. The hardest part was probably converting arcade logos into black/white and keep them looking nice.
After designing, it’s just a matter of printing. I used NEATO labels, SKU: CLR-FULL. As they suggest, I set my printer to gloss print, ran them through and let them sit for 8 hours – both to dry and flatten out. I cut out the labels with a scissors and applied to my metal cards. TIP: I suggest cutting the stickers out larger than you need and let the edges overlap on the plate. Then, use an exacto knife to trim. If you cut to size, they’ll likely end up being just a hair smaller and you might see the sticker edges.
Sticker sheets ready to use
Serial badges in progress
Serial plates cut and ready to glaze
I wiped off any fingerprints, made sure they were on flat, and then applied a light coat of Krylon Triple-Thick. Don’t over-spray! The goal with the triple-thick is just to ensure the sticker never comes off. It’s not to add a bunch of glaze. If you put on too much, it’ll end up fogging your serial plate and giving it a weird texture.
Serial plate ready to use
Arcade serial plates drying from triple thick
A final serial badge
Another final Fix It Felix serial plate
That’s pretty much it. Let them dry for 12 hours or more, then use a rivet gun (or punch small holes in the corners) to apply to your cabinet. You can clean up any sticky edges with fine sand paper which I haven’t shown in the photos. Compare one of mine to a real Nintendo arcade serial badge below, not bad right? Remember, I wasn’t going for replica accurate, I’m going for something that anyone can make for their scratch built cabinets.
Download the Files
Ready to make your own? The link below contains the full package with a variety of games, with both InDesign and .pdf versions of the serial plates I made. It includes the fonts and logos as linked files so very easy to customize!
I’ve recently evolved how I do these serial plates, allowing things to be a bit more authentic but still fairly easy. The process is largely the same but I now use aluminum flashing (which I can cut to any size) and number stamps so I can “stamp” in the serial number before applying the final clear coat. It really makes them pop! See an example below.
Time sure has flown. I got a new job and moved so haven’t posted an update (or worked on the Felix cabinet) in a while. But that’s okay! It was basically already finished but I just spent a weekend buttoning the game up and thought I’d show some photos and video.
First up, some pictures of the completed beauty!
Finished cabinet, front view, Fix It Felix
Finished Cabinet, Side View artwork
Finished Cabinet, Bezel
You can see we got the bezel inserted. This was a real work project! My father, Mr. Jim Meyer, really wanted to make the bezel easily removable – i.e. not screwed in. That’s a dream I gave up long ago. Jim was right though. He was imagining these old friction clips that used to be used to hold in storm windows. We found some at a hardware store. So, with them in the down position we can insert the bezel and then flip them into the up position and it’s impossible to remove the bezel. It’s still not the easiest thing to insert but the bezel would only really ever be removed if there’s a problem with the monitor.
We also used a large black piece of paper to hide the monitor frame and black out any extra light.
Next, you can see the side art installed! That’s was a lot of fun but scary. We used the normal method of taping the bottom half into position (painters tape) and then remove the backing from the top half. Squeegee it on and it’s held in place. Then you remove the backing from the bottom half and squeegee that section. We think we did a good job! Not perfect, but nearly no bubbles.
You can’t see it in the pictures, but I also applied the coin sticker and instruction sheet. They’re visible in the videos coming up.
Outside Game Felix Cabinet Video Tour
Let’s take a look at the cabinet! The below video shows the entire Fix It Felix Jr. arcade cabinet on the outside. You’ll see we got a back door installed (with hold for power wire), all artwork applied, and plenty more.
Interior Game Cabinet Video Tour
Below, I’ll give you a working demonstration of the game cabinet. Show how the controls connect, how it’s wired, what’s inside, a tour of the software front-end and a few other little insights.
The Arcade Cabinet Is Complete – Now What?
And really, that’s it! You might be wondering, what’s the plan for this great looking arcade game cabinet? Originally, I planned to keep and play it, of course! Dreams change and so do lives though. I’ve decided it’s not really practical to store and keep and neither does my father. The real joy was building the damn thing together. So, I’m planning to donate/permanently loan the entire thing to a business. I’ll get a real kick seeing kids wonder exactly what it is and how this thing from a movie came to life! Coincidentally, the next Wreck-It Ralph movie comes out soon so it could help promote the film. Seeing it put to good use is better than it sit in a basement.
If that happens, I’ll make sure to take pictures and share them here.
