Spinning Control Panels

[REBIRTH]

I finally stopped playing my new cab long enough to take some pictures of my spinning control panels.  I thought I'd post them here and get some feedback.  I started this thing back in December (if you look at my web page the first few pictures show about a foot of snow on the ground  ), then had a 4 month delay with family/job things.  Anyway, the cab is about 95% done.  I just need to finish some painting, add a marquee and bezel and it's done.  These panels work great, things spins like a top and once locked down (2 eye bolts on the side which quickly spin in/out) it is as sturdy as if the thing was completely bolted together.  Having 3 sets of panels hooked up to 1 I-Pac creates a lot of wire spaghetti in the guts of the machine!  The monitor spins as well.  I'm now searching for a good front end that I can filter the games based on controls and monitor orientation.  The three panels I have are:

1 player panel with an 8 way J, a 4 way J (for pac-man, etc) and 6 buttons.

2 player panel with 2 8 way's each with 6 buttons, and a trackball

defender/asteroids panel with an Oscar spinner.  Defender  is my favorite game and I wanted one panel to be the exact layout of that.  Asteroids is another favorite, and since the layout is exactly like Defender with 1 extra button I added that so it also doubles as an Asteroids panel.  

Here is a picture of the 3 panels.   I loved the picture I came up with for the panels when I made it, but after printing and installing I'm not completely thrilled.  Some day I'll re-do the pictures, maybe have a different picture on each panel....

[Hoagie_one]

you have any pictures from away a bit to get the whole feel of it?  How do they lock in place?

[1UP]

So you finally got it finished!  It's cool that you got it to work without having to open the coin door.  I really do like having the trigger sticks on mine though...  

I was also thinking of a Defender/Asteroids panel, but I only had room for 3 panels, and a lot of controls I wanted to use, so I just labeled two of the P1 buttons on my street fighter panel for LEFT and RIGHT, and 4 buttons on the P2 buttons for thrust, fire, hyperspace and smart bomb.  The buttons are all in pretty mush the same places, except for the hyperspace in defender, which is in the right hand side instead of in the middle of the panel...

Anyone interested in this idea should check out the other rotating control panel cabs:

Xiaou2's cab, the first known rotating design EVER: http://www.homestead.com/xiaou2/arcade.html

TazMan's cool Mametrix cab: http://www.the-mametrix.com/

And of course, my own , which was the first self-contained rotating design!   http://www.1uparcade.com

[RetroBorg]

Your rotating control panels look fantastic but I'd really like to see a front on picture of your cab.

[Lilwolf]

As an asteroid panel... I did this... had a classic panel

a 4 way, then 5 buttons layed out like asteroids, then a 4way mounted for qbert!

So in one panel I've taken care aof a ton of games..  And using leaf switchs for all the buttons (I think I like microswitchs better... but I guess it's closer to the originals).

I don't know if you could fit a defender joystick and reverse button before the 4 way, and use the other buttons from asteroids probably pretty easily... but I don't have a defender joysticks, and it only cost me about 5 bucks to make a new CP... so I'm not limited.

[Brax]

Don't forget about Frosty's!

http://arcade.tomvanhorn.com/

[REBIRTH]

Your rotating control panels look fantastic but I'd really like to see a front on picture of your cab.

Yeah, sorry - I have to stop playing the thing to take more pictures!  I'll take more pictures tonight and post them.

[1UP]

Don't forget about Frosty's!

http://arcade.tomvanhorn.com/

Yeah, I didn't realize he'd finished already!  Cool, I've added his cab to my links page too...

Heheh, I've created a monster!  

[RetroBorg]

Hey Rebirth,

Have you stopped playing with that thing long enough to take some more photo's?

[Frostillicus]

Man that is sweet - very very nice Rebirth  Rotating monitor and panels - that's the stuff.  It's just so convenient to have all those layouts there all the time, isn't it?  Good details on your website, too, BTW.

[hyiu]

wow.... very nice....  another rotating design !!!....
people here is amazing.....
well done !!....
but could use a few more pics of the cab....
Thx...