Ok, proper update time.
First, the important part: Buttons. Susan was a HUGE help over at Paradise Arcade. I asked a metric ton of questions and she was kind enough to put up with me. Like seriously. Just awesome. The button/LED order has been made, and with the exception of a few building materials i've gotten all the huge purchases out of the way. This order included all the buttons, RGB LED's for everything, some new ball tops and a few random small things i needed.
Again, Susan if you're reading this,
thanks for putting up with my crap! Also, the t-moulding samples i ordered have arrived. They all look pretty good except the standard black one i asked for. Its the one i was mainly looking at and it's the wrong size. Oh well. The translucent one gives me an idea though.

Lee (HaRuMaN) has been helping me with some design issues. Preparing the complex bits for me in a CAD file that I can take to a CnC to be milled. I'm loving what he's done so far. He's also someone who needs to be given a medal for putting up with me.

Here's a rough mockup so far

Now, on to the cool bit. Late last night I was awake and trying to figure out how I was gonna solve the problem of lighting the joysticks. I didn't want to use LED ball tops, (personally i think those look goofy). And as stated before i'm a huge fan of Nephasth's Two-Headed Beast, but i don't have the luxury of popping a layer of acrylic between my CP top and the joystick plate. Then it hit me, i have 3/4" of depth to work with! So, mind the crude drawings i made at 4am last night but here's what i have in mind:


Lee's working on the design and building it into the CP. I've ordered a foot of the acrylic tube, the plans call for 1/2" inserts in each joystick. and i figure if i rough them up with a wire brush i'll be able to experiment with the amount of light they give off. More on this later.
