Cp Layout, help requested.

[bfossett]

I bought the Project Arcade book today, which i must say is fantastic! I am going to follow the Project arcade plans to creat my own mame cab but have run into a problem. I really love smash tv and would love to have 2 8-way sticks as well as the 7 button fighting game layout per player. I am having difficulties fitting all of this as well as a trackball on the 13"x30" available space on the plans. I do not want to expand the size because then it wouldnt fit through my doorway

This is where i need the help, any suggestions on how i can get this all to fit? Any help is very much appreciated.

[JAZ]

Have swappable or modular panels.

[Gameboy.au]

My cabinet's control panel is actually wider than the cabinet itself.  The cab will fit through a doorway but only if the control panel is removed.

The entire back panel of my cabinet comes off when undoing 2 locks and then I can reach in and undo to clamps/hinge locks.  Because I plan on using MOLEX/quick disconnect plugs, I will be able to quickly unplug the wiring, and unclip the control panel, allowing me to move it when requied.

I have attached a photo of when I first moved it into my garage (can you tell I just moved in?)

[krick]

I'm also a big fan of Smash TV.  In fact, it's because of that one game that I got involved with this whole hobby at all.  I started out trying to buy my own Smash TV machine.  After I found out how much they usually sell for, I started researching mame and ended up here.

I thought you might find it useful to know that the spacing between each player's left and right joystick on a full sized (25" monitor) Smash TV machine is 6.5 inches center to center.

I've made a Microsoft Visio 2002 drawing of a Smash TV control panel.  Everything is correct except for the distance of the 1 and 2 player start buttons from the top edge.  The person who gave me the measurements for the rest of the control panel omitted that measurement...
http://www.3feetunder.com/krick/mame/visio_smash_tv_unfinished.zip


And in case your also a Robotron fan, the spacing between the two joysticks on a Robotron machine is 10 inches center to center.

Here's a thread where I talk about possible 4 joystick (player) layouts and their fitness for playing Smash TV...
http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=16720

I've been fiddling with a design for my control panel trying to incorporate 4 joysticks and 2 trackballs.  Keep in mind that it's a work in progress but here's what I've come up with so far.  I don't know if this is the design I'll use or not...




I hope some of this helps.
...
Krick

[REBIRTH]

Rotatable Panels!!!!!!!!   Check out my website for an example of what I did (3 panels which you can rotate around).  Even if you don't do that, I think you can still fit it if the items you mentioned are all you are going to have.  My 2 player panel has 2 joysticks, each with 6 buttons (not 7 like you plan) and a 3" trackball in the middle.  The joysticks are great for two of my favorite games - Robotron and Smash TV.  I will admit the 2 joysticks are not in the exact spots as Robotron/Smash - but they aren't off by much and I don't really notice any difference at all.  The picture below does seem to show the left joystick way over to the left, but it really isn't that far over...   Even if you wanted the sticks in the exact spot where they should be for Smash, I still think you could fit it all on a 13 x 30 - my panels are exactly 12"x30" and all that fits on there with room to spare.  

But again, think about rotating... I did it to get a pretty exact replica of the Defender control panel on one of my 3 panels, and then I have a 1 player panel and the 2 player panel.  Not that hard to do really.  Just a thought....  

[Doc-]

My cabinet was space constrained - so I came up with a pretty innovative way to attachand remove modular panels (with no tools) to create a "build your own" layout.  Mine is only 24" wide, but I can still put up to four joysticks in it for 2 player "smash tv" or tank layouts.

Individual joysticks, trackballs, spinners and button panels can be inserted and removed very easily on the fly to create game specific layouts.  It takes less than a minute to reconfigure the entire panel for any game.  Panels are connected with CATV (network patch cables) or USB to a simple USB hub.  All are hot-swappable.

Link is below.  I actually have more a few more panels I've created since that I need to add to the site.

BTW - Nice rotating panels REBIRTH - great job!

[REBIRTH]

My cabinet was space constrained - so I came up with a pretty innovative way to attachand remove modular panels (with no tools) to create a "build your own" layout.  Mine is only 24" wide, but I can still put up to four joysticks in it for 2 player "smash tv" or tank layouts.

Individual joysticks, trackballs, spinners and button panels can be inserted and removed very easily on the fly to create game specific layouts.  It takes less than a minute to reconfigure the entire panel for any game.  Panels are connected with CATV (network patch cables) or USB to a simple USB hub.  All are hot-swappable.

Link is below.  I actually have more a few more panels I've created since that I need to add to the site.

BTW - Nice rotating panels REBIRTH - great job!

That is a cool idea.  I like how you can literally attach anything to the panels when yo need too.  A couple of thoughts/ideas:

- If you really wanted some CP art you could probably do it with a repeating pattern type of design (like a tiled background of a web page) - all the edges of the design one one section would match up with the edges of the adjoining sections?

- ever thing of using a track instead of dowels to hold them in place?  If the underside of each section had a track running along the bottom and top, and there was two tracks the width of the CP on the cab for the section tracks to ride on (like a drawer slider type track) you could slide them out and in and not have to worry about locking down the joystick panels?  Like you could have small hollow metal tubes underneath the sections and two solid rods in the CP which would fit through the hollow ones - just slide them in/out from one side, with a stop on that one side.  Only issue would you be that you would have to slide all the sections out and then slide them all back in each time.... the way you have it now you could replace just one section if you wanted.....

Anyway, cool idea to have an endless amount of CP's!!!!  

[Doc-]

- If you really wanted some CP art you could probably do it with a repeating pattern type of design (like a tiled background of a web page) - all the edges of the design one one section would match up with the edges of the adjoining sections?

- ever think of using a track instead of dowels to hold them in place?  If the underside of each section had a track running along the bottom

Yes, I think you could add some art in a repeating pattern or perhaps something graduated from top to bottom.  Printing it on sticky vinyl would probably work best, as the lexan over art could leave seams.  I toyed with a variation on the Galaga theme, but it would take a LOT of vinyl as I have (for example) something like 9 joysticks at the moment and over 20 panels in all!

I looked at some "track" options, but I really the system I have works better.  You can remove any panel by just pushing up on the front edge and pop a new one in just as easily.  Its not uncommon to swap just a panel or two for many games.  I really wanted a system that would make it very easy to swap panels with no tools.

[REBIRTH]

- If you really wanted some CP art you could probably do it with a repeating pattern type of design (like a tiled background of a web page) - all the edges of the design one one section would match up with the edges of the adjoining sections?

- ever think of using a track instead of dowels to hold them in place?  If the underside of each section had a track running along the bottom

Yes, I think you could add some art in a repeating pattern or perhaps something graduated from top to bottom.  Printing it on sticky vinyl would probably work best, as the lexan over art could leave seams.  I toyed with a variation on the Galaga theme, but it would take a LOT of vinyl as I have (for example) something like 9 joysticks at the moment and over 20 panels in all!

I looked at some "track" options, but I really the system I have works better.  You can remove any panel by just pushing up on the front edge and pop a new one in just as easily.  Its not uncommon to swap just a panel or two for many games.  I really wanted a system that would make it very easy to swap panels with no tools.

Very cool!

[bfossett]

Thanks for the info everyone. Unfortunately i am a novice woodworker so i do not want to do anything too fancy for my first cab, such as rotating or break away cabs. Krick, thanks for the measurements! Based on those i have come up with this:




Does this look ok? Is it too crowded? I would love to hear anyones thoughs on how to improve it.

Thanks so far for the awesome help!

[bfossett]

*bump*

[FractalWalk]

IMO, I don't like the trackball so close to the cabinet. it will certainly be hard to play any golfing games without follow-thru room.

I had the same problems that you did (wanted TB and SMASH TV) but didn't have the room to make it work. So I opted for rotating panels and moved my trackball to a different panel and ended up placing a spinner on my SMASH TV panel.

[krick]

I too think there may be a problem with your trackball placement.  I think the joysticks will be in the way and prevent you from using it comfortably.  That's why I'm trying to squeeze in two 2.25 inch trackball units into my design.  I'm trying to line them up directly between each player's joysticks.  I'll have to reach over the 6 buttons, but at least there won't be any joysticks in the way.

[jdjuggler]

I agree, the trackball is almost unusable in it's current position.
You may want to swap them.  Put the joysticks/buttons forward and the trackball in the back (bottom) of the control panel.
JD