Panel Preview/Review

[KapnKerfuffle]

Greetings BYO!
I’m honored and humbled to be here.  I’ve finally jumped with both feet into the wonderful world of arcade cabinet building.  My dad and I are building the basic cabinet found in John St. Clair’s book, with some very slight modifications.  Just trying to keep it simple.  Nothing too fancy.  MDF has been cut so I’m committed now.  In the coming weeks I’ll probably be asking a noobie question or two.  I thought I would submit my control panel design for your scrutiny.



The box is a basic 13” x 33” box with.  I lengthened the original box design by 3”.

So:
About the trackball - I’ve heard it repeated that a person should have the ball as low as possible to prevent slamming your fingers on the screen.  I suppose I could widen the box a bit and lower it some more.  I’m not a huge golf game fan, so it’s not that critical to me.  What about the mouse button placement?  What say you?

I definitely want to be able to play Ikari Warriors, Victory Road, etc.  I’ve read the post about mechanical vs. optical.  I believe the general consensus was that some games did better than mechanical with optical if calibrated right, but optical was better as an overall rotary than mechanical.  Do rotary work well as general purpose joysticks?  Opinions welcome.

I have an old hard drive and mouse and would like to try my hand at a spinner hack.  Would I be able to incorporate a hacked spinner into an official control board like a miniPac?  (I think that’s what it’s called, pardon my ignorance if that’s wrong).  Any opinions on spinner hacks?

I do have some space on the upper right for another stick.  Would a 4-way go good there?
Thanks in advance.