4 player CP......demensions?

[loraith]

Hello. I have begun building my first arcade cabinet. 
1. yes I have pictures, and I will post them as soon as I get a little farther into the build.
2. Anyone have a good dimension for a 4-player CP? I looked around these fine boards but haven't seen any with the size....except the Starcade conversion one....."Shudder"
The thing is, his CP is close to the size I was thinking of for my CP. 48" x 22" ish. I may add a trackball later, but all I have planned for now is 4 joysticks, 8 buttons for players 1 &2, 4 buttons for players 3&4, admin. buttons and start buttons. I like the spacing for a 48" width as each player has around a foot all to themselves, but I'm a bit unsure on the 24" depth. Any advice or pics with sizes would Rock!!

P.S. The width of my cabinet will be 28" (counting the MDF) but I have to start out using my PC monitor. (19" flat screen) However I will be getting a 27" arcade monitor with next years tax return. (Already pre-approved by my sweet wife^^) So I'm trying to take the size of the screen in account for the size of the CP.

Thanks in advance!
Jimmy
 

[severdhed]

here is the 4 player panel we have at work...(still the prototype, never got around to making it look nice)



It is 54" wide, and 18" deep.  i think the size of it is very comfortable when playing 4 player games.  this is more of a showcase style setup, the panel sits back away from the monitor on a separate stand.  that pic is with the 36" monitor....next to a 19" monitor,  a panel that large may look out of place.  but at least you plan on upgrading next year.

i'd say 24" deep is more than needed.  18" is plenty of room.

[loraith]

Very nice! That's pretty much what I was looking for Thank you!!
I will prob. leave space for a trackball so 18-20 in. should be fine. I plan on starting my project thread tomorrow when (hopefully) I have more done than just the sides of the cab cut.
I would love to see anyone Else's 4 player CP, or more input as well. Until then thank you very much Severdhed.
You, my friend are a gentleman and a scholar.
Jimmy

[severdhed]

good luck with your build..make sure you take lots of pics.  some things we learned building this panel:

the two buttons next to the 4way stick are too close to the trackball, it gets in the way of your hand 
the spinner is not really in a good location, the player 2 joystick gets in the way.

some people will argue that the player 3 and 4 sticks should not be angled.  personally i dont mind it that way, it seems more natural to me.  the disadvantage to angling the sticks means you cannot use them to play dual joystick games like robotron or smash tv.

[loraith]

Thanks for the shout back! I have friends over quite a bit. so I will mainly use this cab as a fighter/ 4 player game cabinet. I am also planning a 2nd cab for all the bells and whistles, trackball, spinner, dedicated 4-way stick. For now though, this will do just fine I think. Thanks for reminding me about Smash TV though.....hmmmm now I have to decide on angling the mount of the other sticks.><
thanks!
Jimmy

[loraith]

Here is a cardboard mock up of my CP. the button layouts for players 3&4 are not going to be the final config. I plan on a diamond pattern.


It is 18" deep and 48" wide. It seems like the spacing will work pretty well too^^

Jimmy

[severdhed]

looks good.  plus you still have plenty of room to add a trackball, spinner and dedicated 4 way stick down the road.

[loraith]

Yeah, I like to have options^^ Thanks again for you're help!

[spOOf]

Do you plan to play pinball at all?  Obviously that will be an issue at this width.  Although I do recall a design that included the ability to play pinball on a wide panel.  Let me know if you're interested and I'll try to find that one.

[drventure]

The two level 4 player CP design works great for pinball, while still leaving plenty of room for 4 players.

Check out my thread or the supercade

http://cosmicjive.net/arcade/super/control_panel.shtml

[spOOf]

While this is a great design, it wasn't the one I was picturing.  The one I remember seeing had the middle front jutting out with pinball on the sides of that.  I'll see if I can find it so he has some options to choose from.   

[spOOf]

I believe I was thinking of Dazz's machine: http://dazz.genmaygamers.com/index.htm

[loraith]

That one is nice^^