Button placement

[Dartful Dodger]

I'm sure this question gets asked a lot, but I couldn't find it with the search tool.

I'm designing my CP want to put the player's buttons as close together as posiible.  Measuring from thier centers, I was going to put the buttons 1.5 inches apart.  But I need just an inch or two more, to make the cp fit into the cab.  I don't want to use a box cp, so I was wondering if 1.25 inch apart will work.  I'm afraid that might make the cp very weak around the buttons.  
Will 1.25 weaken a 5/8 CP? Will the buttons fit if they are seperated by only 1.25 inches?

I want 6 buttons with this type of layout

            OO
          O
            OO
          O

the diagram above is not to scale.  
I don't care about the over/under distances, just the left/right ones.

Thanks

[Vol]

Please keep in mind that the nuts for the buttons have a 1.40" inch diamter and therefore that can be the minimum distance between the center of two holes.  So, 1.25 won't work for you.  You may be able to grab the space you need by reducing the distance between the joystick and buttons.  On my cabinet I plan to have 3" from the center of the joystick hole to the center of the closest button hole and then the buttons 1.5 inches apart (center to center).  Calculating in the base of the joystick and nuts for the buttons that gives me a total width requirement of 8 35/128" per player (similar to but smaller than 8 5/16").  This of course does not factor in for the space between player 1 and player 2.

How much width do you have to work with and what controls other than the 2 joysticks and 12 buttons are you wanting to incorporate?

[Dartful Dodger]

Thanks Vol, I plan on starting my cabinet this weekend. I created a test cp out of spare shelving I had, just to make sure I have all the right tools and to learn from any mistakes. From the top it looked like I could squeeze the buttons together another .25 inch.  I'll look at Happs site to get the exact measurements, over and under, for all the parts I have.  

I'm going to have a track ball, two players each with two joysticks one top fire and one Super, and six buttons(not including the top fire).  I have only 27 inches across, I would have like to leave 8 inches between each player, and give each player 7.5 inches.  The cp I've drilled has 2.5 inches between the buttons and the joysticks, and an 1.5 between buttons.  I guess I can still make this work, I just need to carefully bend the prongs on one of the outside joysticks microswitches, and scrape out a little of the cabinet to give the wire more room.

BTW, Nice Icon.

[Tiger-Heli]

This should be accurate, but it depends on the button types you are using:

Happ lists their buttons as having a 1.3-inch wide face.

[Vol]

So you are going for something like this:

8way | buttons | top-fire | trackball |8way | buttons | topfire

that's a tight fit for 27"

What may work for you, but I'm not sure how it would look, would be to position the topfire joys above the buttons:

..............topfire................................topfire
8way | buttons | trackball |8way | buttons

Your original idea called for the left most buttons to be displaced vertically, giving you less of a width requirement.  You can gain even more room if you displace only the middle buttons:
  o
o  o
  o
o  o

Keep us updated, I'm very interested in how this works out!  
BTW, what size trackball?

[Dartful Dodger]

BTW, what size trackball?

It's a 3 inch ball.  I'm thinking of doing this:

8way|buttons|top-fire|-8inches-|topfire|buttons|8way
                                     trackball

Your original idea called for the left most buttons to be displaced vertically, giving you less of a width requirement.  You can gain even more room if you displace only the middle buttons:
  o
o  o
  o
o  o

That is how originaly cut the test cp, but after playing a couple of games, I didn't like the feel of the right most button being lower than the middle.

I know it's going to be a real tight fit, but it looks like it will work(on paper).

When I start work on it I'll post to the Project Announcements.  I plan on being done in two weeks so I can have all the unforseen bugs ironed out by Thanksgiving.

[Ren Hoek]

"...only 27 inches across."

Geez, I'd be happy with 27 inches length-ways.

Sorry again for this smut.