Newbie Question - Control Panel

[flavad99]

Hello all,

I have found a gutted 26" wide cabinet on craigslist that needs some work.  The old control panel needs to be ripped out and started from scratch.

I am looking to build a Street Figher 2 style mame cabinet, no trackball (no room).  Ideally, I could install a metal or wood control panel on the cabinet.  Does anyone have any specific product recommendations for this undertaking?  I'd be open to building one myself, although my woodworking skills are fairly limited, hence going the used cabinet route.

Anyways, I figured I would register and get some feedback from people who have been down this path already - as my topic suggests, I am new to this but have been lurking for a few weeks.

[mgb]

Hello and welcome,
  Looks like you've got a good starting place there. That cab should work for a basic street fighter layout.
One option may be to take the existing metal control panel, fill the holes and fix the dings and redrill it or you can start from scratch.
Check out slagcoin.com and you can print out layout templates and see how they fit.

Not exactly sure what kinda answers you're looking for on equipment. But you have a lot of options.

You can use Ultimarc Ultrastiks and connect the buttons right to them or you can use regular joysticks and buttons along with an encoder.
The vendors to check out include Ultimarc, Groovy Game Gear, Paradise Arcade and Focus Attack. There's also arcadeemulator.net.
Popular encoder include the ipac (ultimarc), keywiz (Ggg) as well as lots of others.

When choosing your controls, be wise and think about your main games you plan to play.

Popular sticks and buttons include Happ/IL, sanwa, seimitsu, zippyy and others. Groovy Game Gear has a good assortment of joysticks.

[MamedInCanada]

You can scrap the metal control panel and use 3/4 mdf to build your new control panel.
You can use plexiglass/lexan to cover the control panel.

[flavad99]

Didn't even think about filling the metal holes first.  Thanks for the feedback.  I'll give that a shot first and see how it goes.

[harveybirdman]

If you spend money for a plexiglass cover and artwork you don't have to fill ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---...

Check out Malenko's Shoryukade

[mgb]

that is true, you can use an overlay and plexi to make a decent cp using the existing
Or you can fill, make it nice nice and redrill and then cover it with a proper polycarbonite overlay from gameongrafix and have a real sweet cp without the damn plexi