Is it feasible to build the control panel first and the cabinet later?

[guytalbot]

I have been doing some research around here for the past few weeks.I was wondering if you could build your control panel first, hook it up to your pc, and later attach it to the cabinet you build, is there any problems with this approach?

[Chemixtry]

You might have to modify the dimensions of you control panel depending on what kind of cab you get as they have varied widths unless you are building your own. If you build it now it will help you figure everything out and you can always take all the buttons and sticks and put  them on the right size cp. Plus you get to play now! When I discovered MAME I immediately went and bought a Hotrod just so I could start playing.

[Gumby]

If you do your control panel first, you'll just sit and play it and never quite get around to building the rest...or restoring the rest...etc.

-G

[Minwah]

If you do your control panel first, you'll just sit and play it and never quite get around to building the rest...or restoring the rest...etc.

Plus you'll have to make sure you're very accurate when you build your cab.  Building the CP last allows you a margin of error when you build the cab...

[BldnACab]

Of course it is possible, but the amount of planning in order to get it to fit into a cabinet (built or refurbished) would have driven me insane. I made so many modifications to my cabinet plans as I was building it.

Guess it all depends on what you want, and how good you are at planning.

Just my $0.02

BldnACab

[Zathras]

Depends on the cabinet type you are building - I built a Lusid style cab and the CP is essentially a separate box that could be built before hand easily.

[patrickl]

I'm building my control panel first too.

I figured it the other way round. My idea is that it's the most complicated part of the cab (I'm doing one with replacable panels) I thought I'd better first get that right before I build the whole thing. So I'm first building/prototyping an integrated "monitor shelf/control panel/control panel docking bay/monitor cover glass holder". The cab will then be build around that.

In fact I, started out building a prototype control panel and I was unable to get it built the way I wanted it (I had figured on bending the lexan in an L-shape and was unable to do so) I'm glad I tried that idea out first. Now I try my ideas for swappable panels and if that works it goes in the cab, if not I think of something else again.

Besides having a control panel first gives you the chance of testing the diemensions of your cab. I found that it's pretty important to have the monitor and CP at the right height (which depends on personal wishes I guess) The best way to figure that out is to test on a mock-up for a couple of hours

[ErikRuud]

Depends on the cabinet type you are building - I built a Lusid style cab and the CP is essentially a separate box that could be built before hand easily.

Yes, exactly!  That is what I did.  As long as you are building ypour own cab, you should be able to build the CP first.

Unless of course you are building a 1Up style rotating CP.

[hulkster]

im building a showcase cab, and im building it to basically be 4 parts.  so my control panel and the pedestal will all be seperate, and so i can do it all individually....but thats just if you want to build the same style cab

[rchadd]

Originally i was going to just build myself a CP for my PC. Then I saw an arcade monitor on ebay and won it... the next thing i knew i'm ordering the rest of the stuff to make my own cab...it sort of snowballed from there!

go for it now! whilst you've go the initial motivation