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StuDaBaker:

Alrighty, after years of drooling at these beautiful mame cabinets I've finally decided to go for it.  It was all prompted after I saw a working Devastators cabinet on ebay that was local to me, starting for $0.99. I max bid it at $25.01 and lost the auction by $1.00 after dreaming for a week what I was going to do when I got the cabinet. By the end of the week I was feeling guilty after reading teh article about "mutilators" and was somewhat relieved that I lost the auction this past weekend and decided to build the cabinet myself. I have some woodworking experience, and I've pretty much decided to model mine after Scott's Unicade. At this point, the temptation to start buying up stuff is pretty high, and I am very anxious to get started, but I'm really trying to reign myself back because I'd like to keep from having to:

1. Order the wrong stuff.
2. Having to try to figure controls and wiring while working around a big cabinet.
3. Bite off more than I can chew.

So, I've decided that I am going to first get the pc going with mame and front end and hook up a control panel with it. I've been searching and reading a lot, but haven't really seen a cp set the way I envision it. Here's the rough idea:

Two player control panel
2 eight way joysticks per player (ala Smash TV)
6 buttons per player
1 four way joystick with fire button
1 Spinner
1 trackball w/2 mouse buttons
1 & 2 player start and 1 & 2 player coin
2 flipper buttons (1 each side) (plunger button?)
4 admin buttons

So that's a total of 24 -25 buttons not including joys, spinner and trackball. I was orginally looking at using a minipac, but I'm afraid there may not be enough inputs. Would an Ipac and optipac be a better way to go? I'm sure someone else must have a 2 player dual joystick cp but I have yet to see it. Maybe I've just not stumbled across it yet. Anyway, I want to start buying these controls, but was wondering if this plan is realistic or do I have to compromise something? Thanks for reading and for any advice that can be offered to a mame cab noob like myself.

protokatie:


--- Quote ---Would an Ipac and optipac be a better way to go?
--- End quote ---

Ipac4 and optipac would be a good route. An IPAC2 wouldnt have enough inputs to handle the buttons, plus the 2 joysticks per player (4 buttons each * 4)

Edit: As long as you are making a franken-panel, maybe you should do the 7 buttons per player thing, for those neogeo games (IE 3 buttons on top, and 4 on bottom, which will allow for the 6 button setup for SF2 type games, and the 4-in-a-row for neogeo)

javeryh:

Welcome! 

The CP you described sounds exactly like the standard ones most people build to me.  Knievel builds some great looking ones:



pcb:

You can combine some inputs.  For example, I know of no games that use 2 joysticks each player and 6 buttons, so you can use the last 2 buttons safely also as two of the 2nd joystick directionals, like the attached pic.

You also don't need the admin buttons if you use a I-pac, just hold down P1 start and use the Joystick for the additional shifted inputs.  But, the admin buttons are available as separate inputs on the VE version, if you need/want them.

You can always use a TurboTwist 2 Spinner from GroovyGame gear and attach your standard Arcade Trackball directly to that interface board.

Best,

 - Mike -

protokatie:


--- Quote ---You also don't need the admin buttons if you use a I-pac, just hold down P1 start and use the Joystick for the additional shifted inputs.
--- End quote ---

Not that I am an expert or anything (I am not): But I would recommend having the shift button be a different button than P1 start. The setup I am working on has one "admin" button (IE the shift) with several buttons near it that are wired to other controls. This way, it is clear from looking at the panel that admin stuff is separate from gaming controls. The IPAC will allow you to double up, but the way I see it, having shift as its own button makes more sense than having it as Player 1 start.

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