All right so this is my first arcade project. I spent months making this. Mostly because of lack of time, parts and the required tools. I made this for my mom, hence the name, "Mother CP." Yeah, I call my mom, "mother."
Being my first project, things didn't really come out like how I wanted but they didn't come out bad either. This project was originally meant for myself but later decided to make a CP for my mom. She told me her favorite color was pink so I made it pink. Of course the pink color reminded me of javeryh's famous Bella's Arcade so I looked to him for some simple advice. I also needed pink T-molding and instead of buying it he let me have his left over scrap. So this CP has remnants of Bella's arcade. I guess you could say this is the little sister of Bella. Although I named it "Mother's CP."
Thanks for the t-molding javeryh.
I designed this after being influenced by the Fighting Minions arcade stick as you can see in the picture below.
But unlike their design, my panel angles down at 15 degrees. Some told me that was too steep of an angle when taking aesthetics into consideration but after hours and hours of extensive use, I found it very comfortable. Either on a table top or on my lap.
Here are some of the pics, I'll walk you through them...
This is the top of the CP. Pink in color and plastic sheeting. Even bought a pink Sanwa JLW joystick to compliment the body of the CP. Although it's a little brighter than the paint job. No big deal.
Side view; as you can see the joystick is top mounted. My original intention was to add CP art to cover the joystick bracket but then thought, "it's supposed to be pink only." Plus my mom won't really care for any art anyways so I left that all out and simply painted the bracket pink as well.
Back side of the CP. The ugly part. The hinges are clearly visible as is the ends of the t-molding. For the wire, I drilled a hole with one of those bits that also sets the groove for a flat head screw. This gives the wire leeway so it wont damage as easily when being moved around. The whole top of the CP is set on hinges and opens up like a coffin.
Bottom of the CP;
I wanted to add something that will withstand movement but also be gentle on a table top. I went with rubber feet held by bolts. I thought of getting simple stick on but figured they would easily fall off so I went with a more permanent hold. These are pretty strong and do not bother at all while resting it on my lap.
Clear view of javeryh's pink t-molding from Bella's Arcade. Really nice of him to let me have his left over piece. Thanks again.
It was a perfect fit and the shade of pink is almost the same as the paint. Blends in rather nicely. I used glue paint to reinforce the t-molding. Most people say that glue is not neccessary. I think thats true but over all, it has a way better hold with the glue. Especially on the sharp turns. It would previously leave a noticeable gap between the wood and the molding. Not so anymore.
The labels I had printed out at my local printing shop. I made the art in photoshop and had them print it on various types of paper including transparent plastic sheets. That became my final choice. I had originally intented to make the black outlines of the words in white but the print shop said there was no such thing as white ink so I had to go with black. I then used an X-acto knife to cut out the words and used a spray on adhesive to stick them to the underside of the plastic sheeting.
I made this control panel by hacking a Logitech Dual Action PC controller I simply soldered the connections together. This controller used more than one ground which is why I have so many cables. I tied the cable that goes out of the case into a knot to prevent it from being pulled out. You can also see the bolts used to hold the rubber feet.
I used solid Cat 5e cable to connect all the parts. I originally had the wire in longer lenghts and used the sticky backs to hold the wire. But apparently there was crosstalk between the wires which caused certain buttons to register while pressing other buttons. I fixed this by shortening the cables. This is why you'll see unused sticky backs. I should have left the twist on the cables and connected their proper ground to each twisted cable to prevent the cross talk. Too late now. I also used a latching system. It holds pretty nicely and requires a bit of force to open it so it won't accidentally open during some wild gameplay.
The top of the CP was painted with many layers of paint and sanded down with various shades of sand paper. I even did water sanding with fine grades of sand paper. Finally polished it with turtle wax. It came out pretty nice. I could even see my reflection. Too bad that adding the laminate basically hides this. Now that awesome high gloss luster can't be appreciated.
As you can somewhat see, I didn't lose any fingers using my table saw.
Well this is my first CP. Tell me what you think, and what improvements you'd like to see for my next project which is already under way.
This was good practice on learning the ups and downs of working with wood. Learned a lot working on this. Eventually I'll start on my real cab and hopefully know how to get around all those little hitches I got from creating something as simple as this, which by the way was not simple at all.
Anyways, thanks and happy arcade making!