noob questions on first time build.

[herbal]

So I found the site a few weeks back and have been reading and briefing over most of the threads pertaining to control panels and artwork. I am pretty overwhelmed at some of the end results most people are achieving and I plan to build a 2 person cab with light guns and a 3 inch track ball.

I went to the happ website at first but found their catalogue a little overwhelming for my basic knowledge in the subject then after reading some reviews I decided to order the majority of the goods from ultimarc aside the purchase of the two light guns on ebay.

So far so good.. here is my material list this far

Ipac II
2 E-sticks (however I am second guessing myself here and think I should of got the ultrastick 360)
20 or so classic pushbuttons
U-trac 3 inch track ball
2 ems topguns
3-4x8 sheets of 3/4 inch mdf
old 27inch tv
old pc i got laying around

Ok getting down to business i got the material and I am basing the design of the cabinet loosely on the ultimate arcade 2 classic by mameroom.com. The cabinet will differ however as i am using just single side pieces and am leaving out the spinner and possibly the dedicated 4 way joystick. Which brings me to my questions.

Is a dedicated 4 way necessary to play games like pac man or will the 8 way stick work? What is the benefit of a dedicated 4 way anyhow?

As far as the marquis goes are there certain dimensions I should stick to?

The bezel, the problem here is having the ems topgun and the led's. I am wondering if there is some kind of material that will work and still allow the led's to operate. I saw another thread with the same topic but there was no real definate answers.

I think that covers it for now. Thanks again for any help in advance.

[mytymaus007]

why did you decide on e-sticks just curious

[mytymaus007]

If you love pacman youll need a dedicated 4 way otherwise youll be all over the place while playing otherwise if you dont like classic games dont worry i personally have a dedicated original pacman stick and a dedicated original donkey kong stick. Also if your going through the trouble of builbing your own control panel might as well put in a spinner usefaul for driving games not just classic spin games

[iscariot]

Does the PC you have output to the TV?  This is something that you might want to look at.

I agree with mytymaus007.  Why are you going with the e-sticks?  I actually use the older leaf controllers or the cheap 4 switch used controllers I have a bucket of.

[herbal]

as far as the pc side of things I have that beat I am using an older pentium 4D i had kicking around and I had an old 512MB ati radeon x1650 agp card that has both dvi, vga and svideo outputs accompanied with a decent older m/b, 2 gigs of ram, 250gig pata drive and a 550 watt ps. Also i was going to run a dumbed down version of 32bit windows xp to leave lots processing power for mame. The only downfall i found with this is the inability to run 64 bit applications or utilize more than 2.5 gigs of ram so im not to concerned about that. the construction only has me worried.

now for the esticks i kinda jumped the gun with these i suppose, has anyone heard bad things about them?

I guess i liked the easy install look, no screws no mess ...... i guess. After they arrived I was kinda hesitant about using them. If i go with another controller type will i have to route out the underside or recess any of the 3/4 inch mdf i planned on using for the CP? what disadvantages do the esticks give me?

I won't be using a spinner as if i need more controllers or wish to play driving games im going with the xbox controller wifi adapter so if need be i can still play 4 player games by adding 2 wireless controllers from my 360 or driving games by adding the wireless racing wheel. Which all work great on the pc and with other emulators i have used them with.

The 4 way i have decided is not needed nor do i have the means to hook it up with out getting a different controller board than the ipac 2, im only 24 so the older classics never really hit home with me.

ok so the 4way questions are now answered and thank you very much for your input as this is my first build and hope to do it right.

Now what do you all believe to be decent joysticks there are so many posts here that both show benefits and flaws of many analog sticks, am i better off with going with a decent 8 way or is analog the way to go? I saw the 49 way sticks and kinda liked the sound of those but the price was off the charts.

thanks again, the help is greatly appreciated and i hope to one day help out on the forum as well but so far my lack of experience has me at a disadvantage.

i'd really like to know about the marquis though as this is what is hindering me from actually building the cabinet and hopefully i can post some pictures of the progress to help out some others doing their first build.

[iscariot]

I used to build/repair cabinets all the way through hs and college.  I might draw some fire for this but the JAMMA standard was wired for microswitch sticks with U/L/D/R on each.  If we were going for an older machine I used leaf sticks, if not I used the standard micro switches.  The happ sticks where you can change from 4 to 8 way are great.  At one point I had 2 milk crates of sticks, one of leaf and one of microswitch sticks.  Game got whatever I had going at the time.  Just my position, but whatever was cheapest was what went into most games, or at least that's what I saw.  Far as the e-sticks....most of what I did was conversion so the holes were already there for the carriage bolts.  Not like it was a big deal to drill out 4 holes.  I think I might still have my drill jig siting around here somewhere.  Those older 4 point mounting sticks are designed to take a lot of punishment.  I don't really know much about the e-sticks.  The fact that you're using the e sticks though means you need to cut the panel a little bit. 

[herbal]

im gonna go ahead with the e sticks for now, im gonna make a practice cp with some plywood laying around. the install is pretty seemless just drill a 1 and 1/8 inch hole just like the pushbuttons and insert it and tighten the nut from the bottom to the underside of the cp. easy enough i suppose. i was a little concerned with the durability of the e stick however worst case scenario i build a new cp.

[severdhed]

the u360 sticks are by far the way to go if you dont want to have a dedicated 4 way.  they work amazingly well as 4 and 8 way sticks.  if you decide to go the cheaper route, i can tell you that the J-Stick makes a very nice 4 way stick.