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

[evitagen]

Wiring pic taken earlier when I wasn't done with everything:

[dekar24k]

Just finished the control panel for my bartop:

[drventure]

I love the graphics but why not undermount that trackball plate?

[dekar24k]

I love the graphics but why not undermount that trackball plate?

Yeah I thought of it, but I kinda like the plate's surface so I decided to keep it that way for now.

[Ummon]

Well, it would've been really sexy mounted under. But it looks more like an older style route machine with it on top.

[Honzo]

Alright, since I love "Panel Porno" as much as the next BYOACer, I figure I should contribute what I've got.  This is great all in one place.

Does anyone have the artwork for his first panel he posted? I tried dropping him a message but he hasn't been on in a month...  This is pretty much what i'm looking for when it comes to making my own layout, with a few minor modifications, but I do want to go with the Atomic Mame theme and this is perfect!

[Bonesaw Ownage]

Here are some construction pics of my 4 player CP that I am adding to a Tekken 3 podium cab.

[Bonesaw Ownage]

More pics, about 50% done.

[Ummon]

Definitely room for everyone.

[Ginsu Victim]

Definitely room for everyone.

...to be buried in.   

[redketchup]

My first controle panel

[Ummon]

Definitely room for everyone.

...to be buried in.  

A-hahahahah.

[Bonesaw Ownage]

......tear....... I was so excited to finally get moving on this project, now my dreams have been crushed. 


-JC

[thatitalian]

My first controle panel

Glad to see my CP put to good use!

[foleykoontz]

My first controle panel

That control panel looks really really nice, I wish I had done the art around the buttons and joysticks like that. Problem is I drilled everything and built art around it so it was harder since there was no template. Also very interesting choice with the gun holster, is that a string swing?

[Arcadiac]

Hi Y'all I just finished a very simple 1 player control panel for my son Kev's arcade.

Mag-Stick plus and 12 convex buttons with an I-pac2.

Panel made from a scavenged piece of an entertainment center.

I bought a hole saw set from Harbor Freight for $5, Plotted/drilled the holes.

Bought dark blue marine vinyl from a local fabric store for a ridiculously low price of $1.79 for 56" x 12", enough for 2 CP's!

Using directions from the wiki here, cut material to size, stapled one end to the wood.

Pasted the hell out of the CP and the back of the vinyl with Duro brand all purpose spray adhesive, $3.99, taking care to make sure the areas where the holes would be cut were covered well.  I used way less than half a can at that.

Stretched and smoothed the vinyl and finished stapling all around the non-visible edges to secure it.

I let it dry overnight and then cut out the holes, carefully tracing them out with an exacto knife.

Installed the buttons and stick and Viola!

A decent professional looking, soft covered control panel for the kid.

It also occurred to me that this type of material may be useful for arcade side covering, costing only $8.99 to $14.99 a yard, comes in a bolt 54" long.
A similarly priced alternative to paint!
 
It comes in a lot of colors, I guess the question would be how well would side art stick to it?

Anyway that's it for now, thanks to the wiki contributors, it really helped give me the confidence to approach what for me is the most dreaded part of arcade building, the control panel!

ARCADIAC!

[dmel75]

Here you go, that reminds me, I should submit this to the examples page!

Centipede theme cab (actual centipede w/restored sideart)
Dual competition sticks
Dedicated Wico 4-way balltop
Oscar (RIP) spinner
Happs High Lip Trackball

I have to say, I love this CP. I rarely have more than 2 people wanting to play the MAME cabinet at a time and these super large CP's just make me cringe. This has all I need, 2 player setup, trackball and a spinner. Very well done, I think I may mimic this one soon.

[supadave]

Here is a preliminary drawing of a cp i'm working on.. The design is based on a stock deminsions of a 4pl cp from NBA JAM TE. (37 X 14) The button layout is similar to NBA JAM, The only differance is the addition of 7 buttons to the middle two sticks. And if you notice the bottom 4 is layed out Neo-Geo style so it can double. Even the Neo color scheme is used. (colors of course are subject to change as I am not totally sold on them yet) I left out coin buttons and other gadgets. I want to keep it simple and money functional.

Let me know what you think.. Thanks.

[Honzo]

Here is a preliminary drawing of a cp i'm working on.. The design is based on a stock deminsions of a 4pl cp from NBA JAM TE. (37 X 14) The button layout is similar to NBA JAM, The only differance is the addition of 7 buttons to the middle two sticks. And if you notice the bottom 4 is layed out Neo-Geo style so it can double. Even the Neo color scheme is used. (colors of course are subject to change as I am not totally sold on them yet) I left out coin buttons and other gadgets. I want to keep it simple and money functional.

Let me know what you think.. Thanks.

I like it, can you tell me what program you used to make the layout with though? I've been browsing all over and that looks like what I'm looking for...

[supadave]

Microsoft Visio, along with the template plugins I found from this site. It is a very nice tool indeed. When printed it pints 1/1 so it's usefull for drilling template as well.

[tyson171]

Well here is my first attempt at a cp.  First time every using any wood working tools, soldering iron, ect.  I'm pretty happy with it(soldering the leds was easy, soldering the buttons grounds is a different story, got the hang of it in the end, but the first few were kinda rough), its a converted mk2 cab, cp is done, just getting ready to build my compy and start putting everything together! 

[emphatic]

My Taito EGRET II:


Seimitsu LS-32-01 sticks + Seimitsu Pearl snap-in buttons. Sanwa 24 mm for the start buttons.

My Xiong Ba 29" tri-sync with custom CPO (original CPO was horrible) by myself from MameMarquees. Design based on SEGA Astro City and Taito EGRET II:


Seimitsu LS-32 sticks + Seimitsu Pearl snap-ins here as well. And Sanwa 24 mm for the start buttons.

My Danish JK cabinet just got a Suzo Inductive installed along with Seimitsu screw-ins + Happ start buttons (not pictured):


Need to get a dustwasher for the Suzo as I like to have these on top! 


Edit:
Forgot I just did this little Playstation control out of boredom:


Inexpensive plastic CD case + Seimitsu LS-32, Seimitsu screw-ins and rather mediocre PINK chinese 24 mm start buttons that came with my Xiong Ba cabinet. A hacked PS1 Airpad is inside. Shelf paper "CPO". Very comfortable though, the stick has an extremely short throw as I glued an extra mounting plate (Sanwa JLF) underneath the plastic and screwed the Seimitsu to it.

Edit2: Here's a pic of my MAME cabinet (that I've sold years ago):


X-Arcade with the front sawed off to get a straight edge and a sheet of metal on top.

Emph

[Spyridon]

Here is mine:

[GoddTodd]

Here's some picks of the Tron themed control panel that I've been working on.
The case is an Arcade X two person controller (I now wish I bought the tank stick). I swapped out the joysticks with some ones I got from an old Street Fighter c.p. I found. The play was a little loose for my taste so I again swapped them out for some new Happ Competition Controllers. As soon as they get in stock I'm going to pick up some translucent blue Versa Ball shafts for them. The Tron art was done my me in Illustrator. There are no decent templates out there so I used a photograph of my own controller to build one. At some point I'll upload the .ai file so that people can start decorating their own X-Arcade controllers.

I've added a Turbo Twist spinner at the top. I actually had to take the dremel to the power button in back to get it to fit. Overall I like this position because when playing D.O.T. I can shoot with my thumb while turning the nob.

I just put in the order on Thursday for some Novagem LED buttons and an LED Wiz. I think I'm becoming Randy at Groove Game Gear's new best friend ;-)

GoddTodd

[Ummon]

I've added a Turbo Twist spinner at the top. I actually had to take the dremel to the power button in back to get it to fit. Overall I like this position because when playing D.O.T. I can shoot with my thumb while turning the nob.



GoddTodd

Pretty groovy, man!  Alternatively, you could shoot with your right hand pinky, as I do.

[mayhem]

nothing new

[gonzo90017]

Is that a touch screen monitor?

[mayhem]

Yup !

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQDHs-wy6cI[/youtube]

[drventure]

That is awesome! I love the mini touch screen. Are they both hooked up as regular video displays (ie via dual monitor support) or is the small one some special connection?

The lighting is just too much

Seeing that is giving me all sorts of ideas. I'm wondering what the effect would look like if you took a normal opaque pushbutton, mounted an LED in the bottom, and the drilled 4 holes on the sides of the button plunger, just below the top.
The idea would be to let light spill out in 4 beams from the  sides of the button so it would'n't be near as bright, but might make for an interesting effect.

one other question, are the led blinks synced to the music or just set to blink in patterns?

Anyway, very nice!

[Ummon]

Are those bottle openers on the front side corners?

[Ond]

what the effect would look like if you took a normal opaque pushbutton, mounted an LED in the bottom, and the drilled 4 holes on the sides of the button plunger, just below the top.
The idea would be to let light spill out in 4 beams from the  sides of the button so it would'n't be near as bright, but might make for an interesting effect.

Nice idea!  Excellent Idea! I like it  ..gonna have to go play with some LEDS and buttons now.  Mick's cab looks awsome with glowing buttons, but I like the idea of buttons with light spilling out around the edges.  drventure, you are an ideas man!  (I'm surprised this hasn't been thought of before.   

[drventure]

Definitely post some pics if you come up with anything.

My prob is I've already disassembled and refinished all my buttons at this point. Not sure I want to go back and do em all again for the effect.

But... Oh hell, who am i kidding, if it turns out nice, I'll probably do it <sigh>. What's another 2 years on this cab

Dang that's a LOT of extra wiring though.

[thecheat]

On the subject of lighting opaque buttons; how about etching a ring around the bottom of a button hole on a plexiglass sheet and shining a LED into that through the wood panel?

I think I'm going to mock something on that. I couldn't justify spending the $60+ on translucent buttons but would like to make some LED indicators on buttons.

[thecheat]

Nope, looks like crap. I was hoping to illuminate a ring around the button's bezel but it just showed a single intense point of light and not much else.

I don't know how drilling the sides of the button would work since there isn't anything to reflect the light towards the side.

I don't have any buttons on hand but despite them being opaque, shouldn't they light up if given a bright enough LED? I'll give that a shot when my buttons show up.

[drventure]

Well, the light colored (yellow, white) opaque buttons might be somewhat translucent, but I just tried with a purple and got zero glow, nothing at all, not even in a darkened room, so that's probably out.

As far as the button side holes, it might take spraying the inside of the button with some of that chrome paint (or maybe just white) to get a decent effect.

I don't have an extra button to experiment on right now, though.

[Ond]

I have a good idea how to make this idea really work, but its going to have to wait, I spent most of the weekend working away at my cabinet.  I should have a mock-up of with nice glowing ring around opaque button.  So here is a description of what I intend..... Remove button and spring from outer shell, slice top of button off, insert semi opaque 'ring' in slice (making sure overall button length is exactly the same as before.   Glue button top back on.  Drill hole to accept Led through base of button.  Mount LED on riser so that it sits just below button..and clears it even when depressed.  before re- assembly of button stick black card to fit inside button, stick foil or refelective material on reverse side.  In a quick experiment I did the LED I was using shone right through the button I was using (red)  and glowed dully. (we don't wont this)  Black card will prevent this, reflective side will increase "glowing ring effect".  Does  this all sound like a lot of work?   Yes.  Is  it worth it?  we'll see.

[thecheat]

So you're removing a section of the button under the top and replacing it with a clear section? Wow, that's dedication

I can see this working but it would take a huge amount of effort and there would be a ton of finishing involved. Someone should just sell clear retrofit button inserts.

[drventure]

Yeah, these kinds of mods aren't really the type of things you'd bother with if you're just putting together a cab to play games.

Mine's turned into more of a multi-year interactive art project than a mame cab. So I can +sort of+ justify spending almost 3 hours a button to modify 10 of the buttons for the cab I'm working on.

Now, I'm scratching my head to justify another few hours a button to make these light mods

But, it's the journey that's fun, not necessarily the destination 

[mayhem]

Sorry guys 4 late replay. I still haven't finished work on the cp.

To answer though . the Touch screen is duel monitor through second port on GFX card and is in extended desktop mode. I use Macros to move images and videos over to it when there played so they show the music playing and player on the bottom screen so you can run any jukebox software on it and then any advance  lyrics or fancy videos will be played on the main screen.

All so it shows what game you are playing and how many times it been played and hi scores and any relevant info like that. All so it turns into a keyboard when going on the net and various other things. This save's pulling out the keyboard for simple browsing.

As for the light i am all ready working on some thing that i have posted in another forum but not ready to show on here just yet until its complete but i think you may like it.

The "Bottle tops" on either side of the cab lol well they are USB ports for extra guns or extra controllers so that you can play 4 player games or add a light gun or guitar, ipod ect ect ..

Built inside the CP is Blue tooth, xbox 360 wireless adapter, Duel band wireless and some other things as well. if you check out my project logs you'll see most of what's inside and why its inside.

Like i say how ever im still working on the CP and the etching is not over yet as i have to put in a logo that OND has created for me and more lighting wich i am not going to show just yet. All so the buttons are working off a spectrum analyser software but its still not complete just yet as the new leds i have to fit have some thing to do with its upgrade im working on..

There is so much going on in the back ground but if you follow my logs youll see all the advances on it im working on and maybe some new ideas you guys may fancy doing your self.

Here is my wiring diagram though just to keep you on your feet lol




All so take a look at OND's work it will blow you mind .. it does to mine ....

@ thecheat were not just making cab's were pushing the boundary and testing our own knowledge and learning new things ever day ... why make  cab like ever one else when you can create some thing truly different ......

[1UP]

Wow, there's a lot of good inspiration here!  Keeping a few of these as reference for the re-do of my cabinet.