The Kegerator Arcade Build

Written by Andy Denton on May 2, 2019
Cheers to Arcades and Beer

This project was a ton of fun to build, but it will also teach me to keep my mouth shut when I am just spouting off about cool ideas in the presence of my wife. With that said, before I go any further I need to thank a few people who without their help this project would have never been completed. Kirk and Eddie of Graphic Partners, who printed the graphics, Amanda McCann who designed the images, Mark K who installed the controls and had a far better understanding of the the Raspberry Pi than myself, and my cousin Bryan who donated the cabinet from his personal collection. Thanks for all the help. In the end, this machine was auctioned off as part of a fundraiser for my kids school, Village Green Montessori.

Getting it loaded in Northern Michigan.
Originally a Williams Double Dragon Cabinet

Lots to remove before a kegerator would fit

This far into the project I realized a few things.

First, Northern Michigan had an obscene amount of snow this year 2018 /2019)

Second, These cabinets have about a thousand staples / nails holding them together and about 600 lbs of glue or so it seemed. It took considerably longer to remove things that I considered no essential to the functionality of the unit.

Third, I cut a lot of the structure out of the cabinet, lets hope it holds!

It Fits, barely!
Installing the graphics
New buttons and controls

We had to cut a new piece of metal to so we could add additional buttons to the cabinet. Unfortunately we did not have room to add more buttons.

We couldn’t fit a door on the front so we wrapped the door of the kegerator

Honestly the kegerator could not have fit more perfectly. It only has up to a 1/4 inch of room on each side.

This is the longest shank that we could find, and it just fit, almost like it was meant for this.
Testing before the monitor was installed.

Everything is running off of a Raspberry Pi with Retro Pi software. This could be the coolest little cpu on the planet.

Faucet Installed
Finished Product! Time to Test.
Ready for Auction

In the end stared and finished the build over the span of 5 days and several late nights. It raised over $2000 for Village Green! It was so much fun that I am searching for another cabinet or two…