New user & looking for control panel layout feedback

[cryoguns]

Hello!

About a month ago I decided to seriously start the arcade cabinet I had been thinking about (and occasionally gathering parts for) for the past few years.  The cabinet design is basically an Asteroids replica and it's mostly a weekend project.  Plans at the moment include using a PC and also tossing an old Playstation and N64 inside with use of a video switcher to go between the three.  Below is a picture of where I am currently at on the cabinet itself as far as assembly:



I believe I have most of the remaining assembly worked out for my build.  However, the past week or so has been working primarily on designing the control panel (approx 23.5" x 10.25").  I'm planning to go pretty much with OptiMarc components (3" trackball, Ultrastick 360s, buttons, Opti-Pac).  Since it is my first control panel, I wanted to seek out some feedback from members of the community for things I may want to change or at least consider revising.

Here's my plan so far:



And a few items I wanted to note in particular:

• The trackball and both joysticks will mount from underneath, the bases are shown just for clarification of placement under the panel.
• The sides of the cabinet rise above 1/2" above the control panel surface.  I was concerned about the amount of space I was leaving for the left joystick and my arm being comfortable that near to an edge.  Right now, is about 2 1/8" from the left side to the center of the left joystick.
• The left side buttons are a bit closer to the trackball than I would like, but I don't anticipate my hands sliding much and don't believe it should be a problem.  Center of the last button to the edge of the trackball is about 2".
• There should be about 3" from the bottom of the second row of the joystick button cluster to the front edge of the control panel.  I think this will probably be fine for resting my palms on but really couldn't find any distance recommendations.
• The right side joystick and buttons should not pose a problem.  My wife will probably be player 2 most of the time and she's 5' with very petite hands
• I could downsize to 6 buttons if needed (7th is just for Neo-Geo games) but I wasn't sure I wanted the joysticks any closer to the other 6 buttons.  It's about 3" right now from the center of the joystick to the center of the first column of buttons.

[Generic Eric]

That is a common configuration for what you are trying to accomplish.

Do you have any of that hardware?  The buttons, joysticks and trackball?  I don't have a 3" track ball, but I think its very close to the button.  Do you have your keyboard encoder?  Where will you put it?  I didn't consider that when planning my CP and had to fit it in.  It was even more of a challenge when I was making room for 2 KADEs.

I made a test CP before my cab.  It helped.  If you can make a test box the size of your CP to test your layouts, I think it will help in understand where everything goes.  YMMV.

[DaveMMR]

That's pretty much how my panel was: the buttons were pretty much practically on top of the mounting plate. Worked fine for most TB games.

My only suggestions are:
- Remove the "Restart Game" button. Unless you have a compelling need for it, it seems like a useless function.  If you do need it (you like to reset the game), mount it off panel somewhere like the back of the cabinet or under the bottom panel so you're not hitting it accidentally.
- IMO mouse buttons (or dedicated TB buttons) are gratuitous, confusing and you will never be able to use them comfortably the way they are laid out. The main buttons are way more comfortable.
-If you find a cheap coin door, you can rig up the rejects to act as buttons.

Otherwise, solid.  Do test it out though.  I know with my layout, the bottom row was less comfortable to use than the top, so the seventh button may end up being useless if you find that true for yourself as well.

[harveybirdman]

Do you really need two pause buttons?

[mgb]

The cabinet progress looks great. Do you plan on painting or laminate for the sides. I couldn't tell if you slotted for t-molding or not but you'd be best to do soon.

That's a good standard cp layout.
Personally, if it were me, I'd get rid of the game reset button as well as one of the pause buttons. I'd also ditch the coin buttons and use a coin door or similar.
I also see little reason for the mouse buttons. You can just use your regular player buttons for trackball games. Besides those mouse buttons will prove real uncomfortable for use with the trackball.

[cryoguns]

Thanks for the feedback so far!

That is a common configuration for what you are trying to accomplish.

Do you have any of that hardware?  The buttons, joysticks and trackball?  I don't have a 3" track ball, but I think its very close to the button.  Do you have your keyboard encoder?  Where will you put it?  I didn't consider that when planning my CP and had to fit it in.  It was even more of a challenge when I was making room for 2 KADEs.

I made a test CP before my cab.  It helped.  If you can make a test box the size of your CP to test your layouts, I think it will help in understand where everything goes.  YMMV.

I haven't purchased the hardware yet, but I will soon.  I really wanted to plan out the control panel before deciding on what to buy.

For the keyboard encoder, each of the Ultimarc Ultrastick 360s say they allow for 8 buttons each to be connected to them.  My plan is to run each of the 7 player buttons to their respective joysticks.  The rest of the buttons and the trackball would go to the Mini-Pac Opti controller (not OptiPAC as I erroneously listed before).  Ultimarc lists the board size as 2.25" x 1.5" which should be no problem placing.  I can easily fit it horizontally between the Player 2 top and bottom button set, which is about 2.25" x 6" of room.  If I ditch the mouse/trackball dedicated buttons as Dave suggests next, that space would be about 3.5" wide and 9" long. 

I do plan to make a test board out of 1/2" plywood first to see if it will feel comfortable, but that will be after I order all the components.  I wanted to get feedback about the layout in general first before ordering parts

That's pretty much how my panel was: the buttons were pretty much practically on top of the mounting plate. Worked fine for most TB games.

My only suggestions are:
- Remove the "Restart Game" button. Unless you have a compelling need for it, it seems like a useless function.  If you do need it (you like to reset the game), mount it off panel somewhere like the back of the cabinet or under the bottom panel so you're not hitting it accidentally.
- IMO mouse buttons (or dedicated TB buttons) are gratuitous, confusing and you will never be able to use them comfortably the way they are laid out. The main buttons are way more comfortable.
-If you find a cheap coin door, you can rig up the rejects to act as buttons.

Otherwise, solid.  Do test it out though.  I know with my layout, the bottom row was less comfortable to use than the top, so the seventh button may end up being useless if you find that true for yourself as well.

Thanks!

For the "reset game" button, I will definitely think about it.  My preference would be to keep most buttons on the control panel to keep everything easy to swap out (control panel will be removable in case I want to have swappable ones in the future).  There's not many MAME function buttons I would want to include, and 'Reset Game' and 'Exit Game' are the only two I would probably get any use out of.

Regarding the mouse buttons, I agree...they did not look comfortable to use there but that trackball has a large footprint underneath the panel   I like the idea of dedicated mouse buttons but I can axe these without much concern. 

I did get one of the dummy coin doors from Suzo Happ awhile back.  Unfortunately...no buttons.

Do you really need two pause buttons?

Honestly just simplicity and symmetry to make it easy for player 2 to be able to hit Pause without having to reach all the way across the player 1 controls.  The Asteroids cabinet is fairly tall (6'1") with a tall control panel and it is really more convenience than anything else.

The cabinet progress looks great. Do you plan on painting or laminate for the sides. I couldn't tell if you slotted for t-molding or not but you'd be best to do soon.

That's a good standard cp layout.
Personally, if it were me, I'd get rid of the game reset button as well as one of the pause buttons. I'd also ditch the coin buttons and use a coin door or similar.
I also see little reason for the mouse buttons. You can just use your regular player buttons for trackball games. Besides those mouse buttons will prove real uncomfortable for use with the trackball.

Thanks!  I'll be painting the cabinet rather than laminating.  All the furniture in my office is painted black, and it will match better in there.  The sides are already slotted for t-molding (going with white t-molding on the black cabinet instead of the original Asteroids black t-molding on a black cabinet).

As above...yeah, I agree on the mouse buttons and will probably lose them.  The second pause I'm planning to keep, and still undecided on the 'reset game' button.  I will definitely give it some thought. 


Thanks for the great input so far!

[shponglefan]

FWIW, I did two pause buttons on my first CP.  While they rarely were used, there was the odd time they came in handy.

[PL1]

Since you are planning on having several consoles (PS and N64), are you planning on using the original controllers for them?

For the PC, have you installed/configured the emulators you want to use?

You may want to do that before you finalise your choice of admin buttons.

Check out some other suggestions here.


Scott

[mgb]

Well it sounds like you've got a good idea of where you wanna go with it.
Black cabinet with white t molding will look great. My cab is black with white t molding and I love it. The contrast really pops.

[Paul Olson]

I would probably put a single pause button in the center. When you need to use the pause button, it is usually needed quickly, and you are probably going to mash other buttons as laid out. The exit and restart buttons can be shifted to other buttons. I have a coin button and a pause button on each side of my CP, so they are not cluttering up the top. I shift ESC on one of them, and tab on the other. The coin return idea would work well for the coin inputs as mentioned.  I think that the restart game button will probably keep you from ever finishing a game. I know I would start over if I died early and had that available.

My original cp had mouse buttons, but they are a pain to use. For anything you need mouse buttons for, just grab a wireless mouse. It is just easier to use.

If you are planning to swap panels, you may want to make start, coin, pause, and any admin buttons part of the cab so you don't need to add them to each panel.

[DaveMMR]

If you are planning to swap panels, you may want to make start, coin, pause, and any admin buttons part of the cab so you don't need to add them to each panel.

Agree on that. Though I'm going to add that I'm a weirdo stickler for aesthetics and whenever I've planned multiple panels, each one got it's own set of start buttons. I was never a fan of the look of "off-panel" buttons as you see in rotating/modular panels.  But again, that's just me and this is not about me. 

[cryoguns]

Since you are planning on having several consoles (PS and N64), are you planning on using the original controllers for them?

For the PC, have you installed/configured the emulators you want to use?

You may want to do that before you finalise your choice of admin buttons.

Check out some other suggestions here.


Scott

For right now, I am planning to use the original N64 & PS1 controllers for those consoles.  I originally thought about building separate panels for them, but they involve upwards of 8 buttons and I had seen a lot of feedback that many people didn't find them overly comfortable to use (especially with shoulder buttons, etc).

The PC I will be using using did have emulators on it previously before I put it in storage 3 years ago due to boot problems.  I'm currently sorting out the boot issue and wiped the HDD due to a corrupted boot sector.  I didn't plan to include a lot of admin buttons (Pause, Exit Game, and occasionally Reset Game were the only ones I used from time to time).  I will definitely check out the linked article as well...thanks!

I would probably put a single pause button in the center. When you need to use the pause button, it is usually needed quickly, and you are probably going to mash other buttons as laid out. The exit and restart buttons can be shifted to other buttons. I have a coin button and a pause button on each side of my CP, so they are not cluttering up the top. I shift ESC on one of them, and tab on the other. The coin return idea would work well for the coin inputs as mentioned.  I think that the restart game button will probably keep you from ever finishing a game. I know I would start over if I died early and had that available.

My original cp had mouse buttons, but they are a pain to use. For anything you need mouse buttons for, just grab a wireless mouse. It is just easier to use.

If you are planning to swap panels, you may want to make start, coin, pause, and any admin buttons part of the cab so you don't need to add them to each panel.

Thanks!  I do like the coin return idea for a 'reset game', but didn't really consider that before I bought the dummy coin door.  I didn't plan to rig up the game to actually require quarters, so that's why I didn't get anything fancier than the blank coin door.  I do have the same feelings as Dave in that I prefer to keep my buttons on the control panel rather than the sides.  I wouldn't be opposed to putting a 'reset game' on the back of the cab where it wouldn't be seen, though.

The single pause in the center is definitely being considered since I am losing the mouse buttons, but I don't want to have it close to the 'exit game' button.  That sounds like a great accident waiting to happen...reach to pause a game and accidentally kill it   If I mash the wrong button when it's close to the player 1 start or player 1 coin...well, no big deal.