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My standalone CP project
llars:
I'll start off with a little background. Like most people here one of the things I have always wanted was a game room with a pool table, bar, pinball machine, Tron Cabinet (favorite game growing up), Mameroom UAII Cabinet, and a projector. Being impulsive I bought a blank quad panel from arcadesrfun a few years back when they were still selling them with the intent of building it after I bought a place. Well as luck would have it I ended up buying a condo instead of a house and the panel is still unassembled waiting for the day I have space for a true dedicated game room.
Being that still is quite a ways off I decided to build a stand alone control panel to bide me over. For controls I want to have a trackball, spinner, dual sticks for Smash TV, and a Capcom layout with an extra row for Neo Geo. I also wanted something somewhat portable and a limited number of cables to plug in since this won't be attached to a cabinet. I already own an Ipac4 (part of the quad blank impulse buy) but that's overkill for this and I'd still need separate USB cables for the trackball and spinner.
One of the downsides of having a condo is a distinct lack of space. My garage is big enough for my car and some metro shelving but that’s it. That means all I have are basic power tools, no router or table saw. So I figured I would draw up plans for the panel and have someone build the box for me then do the rest myself. So that brings me to the present, I have the plans finished and a fellow BYOACer is in the process of building it.
Here are some renderings I made up for the panel. This is basically a Capcom layout with an additional stick to the right for Smash TV. I opted for two rows of four buttons as opposed to the standard seven button layout most people use. Although button 8 probably won't get much use I like the uniformity of the layout better and I am OCD about those kind of things. The top row contains coin and start buttons, admin buttons, and a spinner. This panel is strictly for solo use but I figure with two sticks and 8 buttons I can play older games like gauntlet and control P1 and P2 myself if I want to.
llars:
During the design process I started looking around at a lot of the different vendor sites trying to figure out the best way to approach the hardware while minimizing the number of cables coming out of the box. A standard setup would have three USB cables coming out and I definitely don’t want to have to plug this thing into power. While looking around the Ultimarc website at the Ipac2, I discovered their Mini Pac product which basically combines the functionality of the Ipac2 and the OptiPac into one board so you have inputs for 32 switches plus their trackball and spinner. I also decided on using Sanwa JLW-UM-8 joysticks because I prefer the bat top and I wanted something that wasn’t as boring as the look of the standard bat top (more on this in a future post). With this hardware in mind I finalized my plans for the box and it is in the process of being built.
So far I have ordered a U-Track with a red ball, the two sticks, a mini pac, and mounting hardware. I also ordered two Ultralux pushubttons to see how those feel vs. the standard convex pushbuttons. Electric Ice is not an option because the LEDs are 12v and I don’t want an external power source and they are significantly more money in bulk. If I like them I will order the rest and possibly a Pac Drive to power them. I still need to order the spinner and some other odds and ends I will get to as the build progresses.
llars:
And here’s the overlay I am going to use on this panel. This is a modified version of the Space Paranoids artwork found here
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=39025.0.
borals:
looking good!
Great idea as well, might make one for the old man ;)
Donkbaca:
You are going to need another cable for the pac drive to drive the LEDS. IF cable management is a concern, why didn't you just get a little non-powered 4 port USB Hub? You put the hub in the box, only the uSB for the hub comes out. YOu could plug ipac, trackball, spinner and Pacdrive all into the hub.
All in all a pretty good design, though I think the 8 buttons are a little much, but I understand the reasoning.