Swappable Control Panel Idea - Why won't this work?

[Necro]

I have an idea since the cab I'm going to 'develop' will have a limited size control panel (6 inch depth), making it difficult to have a trackball, buttons, etc., all on one panel.  I'm thinking of a trackball/spinner, street fighter, and one or two 'classic' control panels.  That's not what I need some input on - this is...

I just though of what I think is an ingenious way to swap the panels.  I take two sets of metal rails that fit inside one another.  There will be a wider set attached to where the control panels will be seated.  Each CP has a set of the smaller ones.  The CP will simply slide the poles into the holes as it were, and that will hold it in place.  If that won't hold it solid enough on it's own, it would be possible to add one of the ball/notch type mechanisms or a retainer clip that could be added/removed (one on each side) from outside the cab.

I can do a doodle and post it if that doesn't make sense...looking for ideas on why this won't work or why it's a horrendously bad idea.

[TheShanMan]

If you're interested, I could take some pics of my metal swappable panels to illustrate how I solved it. You can also get a small sense of it from my pics in the Control Panel thread (see my sig). I'm mostly very happy with it. The inserts are nice and flush, and it uses 3 very small acorn nuts or whatever they're called near the top of the CP so they are unobtrusive. The only dissatisfaction I have is that it gets kinda old having to unscrew and rescrew the nuts for each panel change, though I can just do it by hand. I would love an instant on/instant off type of solution that is very secure and unobtrusive at the same time - this is just the best I've come up with so far.

[DeLuSioNal29]

I was toying with the idea of having swappable panels myself.  As for the interface (keyboard encoder).  Instead of messing around with making special connectors to plug and unplug when I swap them, I think I'm going to simply hack a USB controller instead.  I can run a USB extension cord from the PC to the panel.  That way when I swap it, it will be easy to access the cord to plug the modded joy into.  The same plug can be used to plug in the trackball panel.

[Necro]

If you're interested, I could take some pics of my metal swappable panels to illustrate how I solved it. You can also get a small sense of it from my pics in the Control Panel thread (see my sig). I'm mostly very happy with it. The inserts are nice and flush, and it uses 3 very small acorn nuts or whatever they're called near the top of the CP so they are unobtrusive. The only dissatisfaction I have is that it gets kinda old having to unscrew and rescrew the nuts for each panel change, though I can just do it by hand. I would love an instant on/instant off type of solution that is very secure and unobtrusive at the same time - this is just the best I've come up with so far.

I would definitely like to see the 'guts' of what you did, should help.  I'm also interested in how you did the 'extension' of the panel and are all of your panels like that is that extension built in?  I'm thinking of having extended and non-extended panels.

Also, are those atari buttons?  There's a TON of them...

And regarding the encoder, prob. going to get one of the more popular ones and make a plug.  just seems the easiest/cheapest way.

[TheShanMan]

Sorry for the delay. Kinda forgot about this until yesterday. Here are some pics.

• Pic 1: Not quite sure what you'd call it, but you can see the extra strip of metal on the underside that holds the panel in along the bottom edge.
• Pic 2: Here you can see that same strip of metal from the underside. You can see the weld spots all along there (no need for a continuous weld all the way across - this is more than strong enough).
• Pic 3: This one shows the "fixed" part of the panel, and you can see around the opening that there are strips of metal that the panel sits on, and since the strips are welded to the underside, the panel ends up being nice and flush. You can also see the 3 screws that stick up that go through the panel when you install it.
• Pic 4: Here you can see a closeup of a corner of the fixed part of the panel, including one of the screws.
• Pic 5: This is a closeup of the bottom edge of the fixed part of the panel. You can see that there is a gap, allowing the strip from the removable panels to slip in there and hold securely. This was done by welding a strip on top of a strip, in sort of a staircase fashion. I had trouble getting a picture that could illustrate this, but if you want more detail on this I could draw up a picture or something.
• Pic 6: The installed panel, showing the 3 acorn nuts at the top. Panel is nice and flush, and while you can see the gap between the fixed part and the removable part, it is fairly insignificant and I'm very happy with the result.

Again, the only negative for this approach is the 3 nuts are a bit more effort than I'd like. Not THAT much effort, but enough that it sometimes discourages me from switching panels. Just wish it was more of an "instant on" and "instant off" kind of fastener.