The cardboard box that I mounted everything into is an upside-down recycled retail box for frozen burritos. It's dimensions are 10" x 7.25" on the face that is used as the top, and 4.25" deep. There is plenty of room to spare inside and on the top face of the box, the project could certainly be fit into a different-sized box. You are encouraged to recycle a box you have lying around rather than try to match mine exactly.

Fancy It Up (Optional)

To decorate my arcade box, I printed out decals to cover each of the 5 visible faces from full sheet sticker paper and a standard inkjet printer. Click the button below for a copy of the decal sheets I printed. If your box is similarly sized, you can print some for yourself to use.

If your box is a different size, or you don't have access to the sticker paper or printer, no problem. You can get creative and decorate using markers, paints, or just plain paper and glue.

Cuts To Make

To cut the box, I used a sharp X-acto style craft knife. As always, please be careful when using cutting instruments!

Assembly

The display and microcontroller are mounted onto the box with pieces of adhesive Velcro "hook and loop" tape. I used two small pieces each for the display and the microcontroller, but neither are very heavy, one each probably would have been enough with the 1" or so sized pieces I used.

Stick the display ribbon cable through the slit first, and then stick the display down with its adhesive Velcro piece(s). Then flip the box over to access the inside. Carefully plug in the ribbon cable to the Qualia driver board, and then mount it into place with its piece(s) of adhesive Velcro. Doing the display first, and connecting the ribbon cable next allows you to find a good placement for the Qualia driver board that results in the ribbon cable being not too tight or too slack before you stick it down.

All that's left after that is to carefully press the arcade button into its hole and connect it with the JST 3-pin to Alligator connector.