Just wanted to post a pic of my first panel before I tore it apart recently. It's built out of a 48" shelf that I bought from the hardware store. At the time, I didn't have a saw, so I asked them to rip it to the pieces that I needed. It's cheap 5/8" particle board with cheap wood grain laminate on it. I ordered Happ Ultimate buttons and a Happ Ultimate stick for it because I didn't know any better. For about 5 years, It ran on a keyboard hack. I had plug the thing in, reboot and play my games. If I wanted to use the keyboard again, I had to reboot again. When I got MAME fever again earlier this year, I ordered the iPac and installed it.
The holes in the upper right were for the P1 & P2 start buttons, but I drilled them before putting the top on the base and to my chagrin, they didn't clear the sides. D'OH!. But with my lemons, I made lemonade and used the ugly holes to route the PS2 cable out of the box.
![](http://fredgolden.net/mame/images/oldpanel/old_control_panel1.JPG)
The hideous series of holes below the joystick are there because the stick shaft was bottoming out and I didn't have a way to route some room, so I drilled a bunch of holes. It used to be a mess of 24ga solid wire connected to .250" 18-22ga female quick disconnects. When I installed the iPac, I just threw all that crap out and soldered everything. Also while I was doing that, I used my rotary tool with the drywall cutting bit and the depth attachment to route out another 1/2" of clearance for the stick. It took a long time and looks pretty rough, but I was able to beat the particle board to submission and get the extra clearance I wanted.
![](http://fredgolden.net/mame/images/oldpanel/old_control_panel2.JPG)
Well, that's it for our tour of my first jankey old control panel. I'm going first class on the my next one. The next one will actually be attached to a damn arcade cabinet this time.
![Grin ;D](http://newforum.arcadecontrols.com/Smileys/default/grin.gif)