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Narrow Arcade Cabinet (Cramped Control Panel Design) Need Help...
emb:
Does anyone have any tips for making an efficient control panel design when you have a narrow arcade cabinet (or at least to allow more elbow room)? My goal is to make it as tight, comfortable, and efficient as possible.
I recently received an arcade cabinet. It is 23.75" wide. It is somewhat narrow. I want to play fighter games on it, but when I have drawn it out to scale there is not enough elbow room, (only about 5 inches from player 1 buttons to the player 2 joystick.
On the panel I will have:
P1, P2 = (start buttons)
J4 = 4-directional joystick
J8 = 8-directional joystick x 2
B = button
-----------------22.25"----------------
P1 P2
J4
J8 B B B ------5"----J8 B B B
B B B B B B B B
----------------------------------------
I was thinking about making the control panel wider than the cabinet, but I do not want it too wide so you have trouble viewing the 19" arcade monitor.
I was also thinking about angling the joystick and buttons, but I am having troubles determining an efficient angle.
Any tips or pointers are greatly appreciated.
Aurich:
My advice? Drop the 4-way joystick. You will never be happy with all that, no matter what you do. I have a 23" CP (that's the standard Galaga cab width) with two sticks and 3 buttons per player (you could fit 6 per, it'd be a little more crowded, but not substantially) and it's not ideal for 2 people, just livable. Stick another joystick in the middle and it would suck.
leapinlew:
My first cabinet had a 22.5" cp on it. There is just no way to put a fighter layout on it and be comfortable. We couldn't even play Joust/Mario Bros on it for very long. I eventually gave up trying to make it work and converted it to a vertical 4 way arcade.
Minimum for a 2 player cabinet is 24". And even then, you'll want skinny friends.
johnperkins21:
Get rid of the 8th button and use the top row plus the first button on the bottom row for the 4th button in Neo Geo games. It's not ideal, but it will give you ~4" more space to work with.
I don't really agree that you have to get rid of the 4-way, but it will be cramped. Set up a test panel using some strong cardboard or a scrap piece of wood, and give it a go. Try playing for 30 minutes next to a buddy and see how it is. If you don't like it, and need the two player fighting setup, just extend your control panel by 6" or so to either side, you'll still be able to see the monitor just fine but you'll have more room.
Good luck,
John
steveh:
make the cp wider... thats my plan for my unit.