This is going to be the first of a few topics for my cabinet rebuild. Currently I have 4 player cabinet with trackball, spinner, 4-way joystick and Lightguns that I initially built 16+ years ago. I got rid of the CRT TV a few years back and did a little minor update to hang a 43" tv to it. I also replaced my old actlabs light guns with Sinden ones. Surprisingly my 3 teenage boys use it a fair amount especially when their friends are over. They seem to favor PC games via Steam (Super Blood Hockey, Puyo Puyo Tetris, Move or Die, Knight Squad to name a few) and some console ones over Mame games. The wife likes to play Atari 2600 (Asteroids) or arcade games (PacMan, Frogger) with a 4-way controller or an Atari knockoff joystick (Hyperkin Trooper II). Right now I'm only in the conceptual/planning phase of my rebuild. In the coming weeks I plan on mounting the TV on the wall and either building a new pedestal box or cutting down the existing one so it's not as deep. I want to start this topic (and others) before I start a project based one. I want to throw out some ideas, get some feedback and share. I will probably start some other topics (if I can't find existing ones) on keyboard vs gamepad encoders, how to physically attach a secondary/swap control panel securely, trackball on main control panel or separate, joystick types, etc in addition to this one.
This one is focus on swappable control panel. I've seen a lot of topics out there on this subject but I didn't see one that I was thinking about. My initial thoughts was to build a standard 4-player cabinet with each player having 6 (or 8 - don't flame me - it's easier for PC games) buttons each in addition to player/coin (start/select) ones. I want it clean looking so I was thinking that I should have other controls on a separate control panel. Initially I was thinking about building a separate cabinet or a pedestal on casters but I'm probably going to see if I can integrate it into this one.
My concept is to use a standalone RPI and not the PC (running Launchbox/BigBox) for the secondary/swap control panels. To save $ and to make it simple my thought is to have the RPI and encoders separate from the swappable CP. Basically one encoder for most, if not all, secondary CPs. The encoder will connect to the controls (joysticks/buttons/etc) via serial cables (DB15 or DB25). The RPI will be connected to an unused HDMI port on the TV. Inside the control panel there will be a usb flash drive that will contain the roms and most likely the OS running retropie. I figured I can get a 4GB flash drive on the cheap ($3) and boot of it instead of the microSD. I can easily back up the usb flash drives and re-image if there is a corruption.
All the user should have to do is plug in the control panel, swap the input on the TV and power up the RPI (probably via a button on the control panel). It will load up Retropie or the game directly if there is only one rom for that control panel.
Hopefully that makes sense but if not take a look at the picture. Feedback, suggestions, etc are all welcome. Because I'm not in the building phase (and the secondary/swap panels may be later in the rebuild) I probably won't have any progress to share for a little while. Just trying to foster some discussion and ideas for now.
Thanks all!