Control Panel Database: Post a picture of your Control Panel!

[konp]

Here is the final form of the first project I started.

If I ever rebuild it I'm going to scale the speaker size down (they are awesomely loud, but didn't look quite how I was expecting) and swap the button LEDs out for dimmable RGB ones, as the white is almost overwhelmingly bright.

That looks great. I love the marquee.

Thanks. Took me a while to get settled on a marquee design but I'm very happy with it.

Getting it attached was another story. Seeing as it was my first build, there were a ton of mistakes I made. But in the end it all turned out good.

[Bambam1963]

Here is the final form of the first project I started.

If I ever rebuild it I'm going to scale the speaker size down (they are awesomely loud, but didn't look quite how I was expecting) and swap the button LEDs out for dimmable RGB ones, as the white is almost overwhelmingly bright.

That looks great. I love the marquee.

What manner of sorcery do I see in the form of a display in the center top portion of your panel. Could it bemore of thy coveted bling?


Thanks. Took me a while to get settled on a marquee design but I'm very happy with it.

Getting it attached was another story. Seeing as it was my first build, there were a ton of mistakes I made. But in the end it all turned out good.

[konp]

What manner of sorcery do I see in the form of a display in the center top portion of your panel. Could it bemore of thy coveted bling?

It's the controller board from an LG FA-3000AWE sound system. I gutted it, screwed the dolby/dts decoder+amp to the inside of the front of the cabinet, ran the cable up to where the board is, and made a sub box for the tiny subwoofer (seeing as I had to destroy the stock box to get the parts out).

Putting a 5.1 system in an arcade cabinet is a little bit of overkill, but the sound system was sitting in the closet gathering dust, and probably wasn't going to see use for anything else, so I figured why not? I've got an Auzentech soundcard outputting everything in DTS 5.1 and it sounds pretty awesome.

Here's a couple photos from the construction phase showing how I got the board in.

[Bambam1963]

What manner of sorcery do I see in the form of a display in the center top portion of your panel. Could it bemore of thy coveted bling?

It's the controller board from an LG FA-3000AWE sound system. I gutted it, screwed the dolby/dts decoder+amp to the inside of the front of the cabinet, ran the cable up to where the board is, and made a sub box for the tiny subwoofer (seeing as I had to destroy the stock box to get the parts out).

Putting a 5.1 system in an arcade cabinet is a little bit of overkill, but the sound system was sitting in the closet gathering dust, and probably wasn't going to see use for anything else, so I figured why not? I've got an Auzentech soundcard outputting everything in DTS 5.1 and it sounds pretty awesome.

Here's a couple photos from the construction phase showing how I got the board in.

That uber-cool.  There is no such thing as over kill in this hobby. :-)

[EMDB]

 



Just need to add the (red) t-molding...

[Generic Eric]

This is the best work I've done to date I think. Much better job when I take my time.  Anywho..

Don't mind the painters tape.  It was to remind me the orientation of the joystick. 

The 2 kades were super easy to work with.  Next time I will choose an encoder before committing to a design.

[Bambam1963]

 



Just need to add the (red) t-molding...

That is a beauty.  I am biased due to my love of Metal Slug though ;-)
The colour scheme is really nice. 

[Bambam1963]

This is the best work I've done to date I think. Much better job when I take my time.  Anywho..

Don't mind the painters tape.  It was to remind me the orientation of the joystick. 

The 2 kades were super easy to work with.  Next time I will choose an encoder before committing to a design.

There is a definite art to it and I don't have that "art" ;-)

[mcseforsale]

That's OK, I actually sharpie my switches. 



AJ

This is the best work I've done to date I think. Much better job when I take my time.  Anywho..

Don't mind the painters tape.  It was to remind me the orientation of the joystick. 

The 2 kades were super easy to work with.  Next time I will choose an encoder before committing to a design.

[shadow05]

My Bubble Bobble bartop...

[Bambam1963]

Very nice graphics. The colours just pop. 

[janey6152]

Here's Mine. which i want to add more buttons , a flight stick. flippers with a plunger ,
and a spinner.

[CoOlSlY]

Just finishing up my first project the  "Biz Arcade" 
Ill try to keep it brief 


its a 4 players console, player 1,2 have 6 buttons and player 3,4 have 4 buttons. 4 8-ways joysticks and i got 2 lightguns on the way

Photo 1: As an architect i must say always build a model first!

I would really like to have your cad files, I would add a button (7th one) for player 1 and 2 but everything else is perfect!

[dkersten]

Here is my 4 player CP, just finished it the other day.  LED's aren't in yet and the pic is blurry on the left, but it gives you a pretty good idea:





And the scale vector PDF if you want a reference.  Keep in mind the P1 and P2 joysticks are off a couple mm's, they should be the same as the P3 and P4 but Ultimarc has them spec'd wrong on their site.  (p1 and p2 are u360's and p3 and p4 are j-stiks)  Trackball is the U-Trak from Ultimarc.
http://www.davidakersten.com/Photos/dave/control%20panel.pdf

[telengard]

I have a lot of control panels because I use a modular setup.  Rather than posting pics here, they are all at this page.

http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/15568023/site/mame/controls.html

Not much of a looker as far as artwork, I just have Happ's Pica vinyl on it which is *extremely* durable.
Still making modules for it, this weekend am finishing up a 2.25" trackball for Centipede.   

[stavros693000]

not yet wired up and still waiting for the 2 white buttons for exit and enter to use with hyperspin....but anywho there it is, will edit post when finished(if i remember)lol with led trackball n buttons lit

EDIT......finished all wired up with trackball n led buttons lit
camera broke so this pic is a few months old so no pics of the wiring yet.......but you get the idea....my first attempt, I hope to improve with my next cab.
ps sorry bout the crappy pic and have since added coin decals to the led credit buttons and left/sroll/right click decals to the blue led mouse buttons

cheers stavros

[bkrownd]

  No bling, just business.  I put this together last night, and have been enjoying the benefits today.    I mounted everything on a simple melamine board.  This setup is really intended for 1 player, plugged into my laptop.  Ultrastik on the left.  I have a mag-stik plus for the right, but haven't been able to mount it yet.  U-trak and spin-trak in the center.  1 yellow button is missing.  Everything except the Ultrastik is run by a minipac.

  I'm hoping to get the mag-stik hooked up soon.

[aldub516]

This is my first EVER control panel.. my first try even.. Cut the giant piece of wood, and went from there..

[winstonwaite]

[Gravity123]

Ok, so I made a new arcade panel.  What's special about it is that it has analog buttons and joysticks.  Yep, the buttons are pressure sensitive.  Also, this is compatible with Xbox 360, and an game system (PC included, but not Xbox One or PS4).

I'm doing a Kickstarter for it.  Check it out, but this is only preliminary.  Let me know your feedback before I launch the campaign.  I appreciate your input very much!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chrisgerding/597456651?token=03d17579

[Gravity123]

Here's a photo of the handhelds that can be attached to the front.

[Malenko]

My 4 player panel

[nnorton00]

This is a project that has been a year in the works.  I just finished my entire build last weekend and I'll be posting the build in the Project Announcements here in a bit.  First, I thought I'd share my control panel.  So many others before me have inspired me, I hope I can inspire someone else.

4 player with track ball.  The last thing I plan to do is pick up some of the vinyl stickers that one of the members here sells.



My best attempt at wiring porn.



Hope you enjoy!

[Old_School]

This is a project that has been a year in the works.  I just finished my entire build last weekend and I'll be posting the build in the Project Announcements here in a bit.  First, I thought I'd share my control panel.  So many others before me have inspired me, I hope I can inspire someone else.

4 player with track ball.  The last thing I plan to do is pick up some of the vinyl stickers that one of the members here sells.



My best attempt at wiring porn.



Hope you enjoy!

Hey nnorton00,  I like the wiring job. Real clean and nicely color coded.  What type of wires did you use and where did you get them?  I'm looking to start a build but wanted to get the details before I dove in.  Thanks

[mcseforsale]

+1.  that wire is purdy.  Is it solid core or stranded?  I've been using solid core doorbell wire from Lowes but it's getting harder to find and bending it a lot causes shorts.

AJ

[mike.ferreira.37201]

Here is my CP that just finally finished after getting parts years ago. Anyway it's not my best work but the kids are loving it!!

Mike

[rovingmind]

After many odd years of never getting around to building anything, i finally put together a control panel.

The daughter ( is overjoyed.

[IAmDotorg]

Figured I'd toss mine up on here. There's three of them because its for a 4-player cocktail cabinet. MAME just orients the games and controls based on if the game is horizontal, vertical or uses the trackball/spinner. Everything I've tried so far plays very well on it, including some 4-player games like Gauntlet. (I rotate the joystick settings so the player's movements match the stick for the two players at the end of the table.)

Everything is RGB lit, and the spinner is a push/pull so I can play games like Tron that need a spinner and a trigger. (You just push the spinner instead of pulling the trigger to shoot.)

Overlays are the polycarbonate prints from Game-On-Graphix. Yes, there's a blue lightening bolt on it... but there's also x-ray images of a galaxy and a nebula care of the Spitzer space telescope, so its not *that* blue lightening.

[lebronfaling]

How do people get their wiring so neat and tidy and organised? Every time I try it just winds up looking like the creature from the black lagoon. It's terribly distressing.

[IAmDotorg]

How do people get their wiring so neat and tidy and organised? Every time I try it just winds up looking like the creature from the black lagoon. It's terribly distressing.

That's why you don't build your cab out of Plexiglass. No one will know!

Seriously, though -- the back side of mine are like an explosion in a wire factory. 37 buttons, RGB LEDs on each across the whole unit. That's 222 wires running to two controllers, plus four USB joysticks, a USB trackball and USB spinner, each with their own set of wires. There's no sane way to keep it all neat. I don't have any photos of the back of mine, but I basically cleaned things up by zip-tying things into smaller bundles and then zip-tying them together into bigger bundles. But its a giant mess, but no one would ever know looking at the cab, so who cares? With buttons only, you can buy a bunch of bulk wire, crimp connectors and heat shrink tubing, but its a lot of work that probably isn't worth it if you're not neurotic about wire neatness. (I have friends who would break into my house in the middle of the night and slowly rewire my whole cab if they knew what it looked like inside!)

Edit: I should add, having done LOTS of wiring over the years -- I'd rather have a less neat wiring job that had things with good color coding and labels, that something neat where every wire is the same color and nothing labeled. Nothing against some of the "neat" wiring in this very long thread, but when every wire is the same color, unlabeled and bundled together you have to end up cutting the bundles out if anything goes wrong anyway. As messy as mine is, every single bundle, every connector, every USB cord are all either tagged with labels from a label maker, or in some cases heat shrink tubing with printed labels. DYMO makes heat shrink tubing for their "professional" grade labelers. I used them a LOT building a couple cars, and used them on all the USB cables, and longer jumper bundles. (I have two ~50 wire bundles that get the LED wiring from the small CPs to the LED controller, which are zip-tied, covered with mesh wire loam, with labeled heat-strink on each end, for example.)

[ChanceKJ]

How do people get their wiring so neat and tidy and organised? Every time I try it just winds up looking like the creature from the black lagoon. It's terribly distressing.

It's really not hard at all. Take your time, plan your wire routes in advance, use things like Velcro strapping or ties, go one wire at a time or cut multiple lengths for similar needs, trim to fit.  Simple.

I just finished a minor rewire of my coin door and P1/2 sticks, so I took some pics of the setup. None of the USB lines are strapped in, but you get the idea.

[byancey]

Here's a quick pic of my control panel:



Project thread with more details is here.

[fr_303]

My first attempt at a Control Panel for my Street Fighter Upright Cab.

[waiwainl]

Looking very slick!   

[DocHolliday]

Here is my setup:







It is a full mame setup that I had custom made. 

I just bought one of the DIY kits from monster arcade to try to build one on my own as well, so looking forward to starting that when it arrives.

[Typefighter01]

Epic wiring job

[Hics1934]

I also want to have control panel at my home .. But I am unable to install that

[billknust]

This is a project that has been a year in the works.  I just finished my entire build last weekend and I'll be posting the build in the Project Announcements here in a bit.  First, I thought I'd share my control panel.  So many others before me have inspired me, I hope I can inspire someone else.

4 player with track ball.  The last thing I plan to do is pick up some of the vinyl stickers that one of the members here sells.

Where'd you find this cpo? Love this.

[mcseforsale]

GameON@
http://www.gameongrafix.com/products/atomic-orange-control-panel-from

This is a project that has been a year in the works.  I just finished my entire build last weekend and I'll be posting the build in the Project Announcements here in a bit.  First, I thought I'd share my control panel.  So many others before me have inspired me, I hope I can inspire someone else.

4 player with track ball.  The last thing I plan to do is pick up some of the vinyl stickers that one of the members here sells.

Where'd you find this cpo? Love this.

[DocHolliday]

My first control panel build.   I love the way it turned out!