Raspberry Pi Slot Machine

4/8/2022 admin

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The Raspberry Pi is a small, credit card sized computer that doesn’t require a lot of power to use. When you combine the Raspberry Pi and Kali Linux together, you get a super-portable network. This setup is surprisingly comfortable, even with both battery packs inside the slot machine, and it holds the machine at the perfect height for people to play while I am walking around. Here is a quick shot of how I am powering the Raspberry Pi, the Touch Screen, and the Arduino Nano / Neo Pixels.

For some reason, when slot machines went digital, they lost their best feature — the handle. Who wants to push a button on a slot machine, anyway? Might as well just play video poker. [John Bradnam] seems to agree, and has built an open-source three-color matrix slot machine complete with handle.

In this case, you’ll be losing all of your nickels to an Arduino Pro Mini. The handle is an upgrade to an earlier slot machine project that uses three 8×8 matrices and a custom driver board. When the spring-loaded handle is pulled, it strikes a micro switch to spins the reels and then snaps back into place. Between each pull, the current score is displayed across the matrix. There’s even a piezo buzzer for victory squawks. We only wish the button under the handle were of the clickier variety, just for the feels. Check out the short demo video after the break.

If you’re not a gambler, you could always turn your slot machine into a clock.

In the 80s, you may have put coin after coin into your favourite arcade machine, giving a countless amount of money to a large box. Fast-forward 25 years or so, and using a £25 Raspberry Pi 3, along with some creative hacking, you can relive your high-score glory days as you play your favourite old-school classics to your heart's content.

Independent Sheffield-based web developer Matt Brailsford, aka Circuitbeard, shares his retro-Pi plans, which use a repurposed miniature desktop arcade machine as the housing.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

For this build, you'll need a Raspberry Pi with a memory card, a Pimoroni Picade PCB, and a TFT screen with an HDMI input, and an HDMI cable and power supply. Additionally, procure a panel mount joystick, generally using microswitches, electrical buttons, a USB power supply with a micro USB plug, and a USB-A to micro USB cable. Four-ohm speakers and a 3.5mm audio jack are needed for audio. A Wi-Fi dongle (or the Pi 3's built-in Wi-Fi) and wireless keyboard are helpful for setting everything up after it's in your cabinet.

INSTALL THE SOFTWARE

How To Make A Raspberry Pi Slot Machine

Power up your Raspberry Pi and monitor, then connect them with the HDMI cable. Install a piece of software called RetroPie, following the instructions that can be found on GitHub. This will set up your Pi as a retro-games emulator and will allow you to put ROMs, or copies of video games, on to it to play. The simplest way to add ROMs is with a USB
drive, as also outlined in that wiki. A good source for these files is archive.org/details/internetarcade.