Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum

Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: RayB on February 10, 2006, 11:36:22 am

Title: Cheap start to making a control box...
Post by: RayB on February 10, 2006, 11:36:22 am
Check out the "keyboarder" and "modular desktop" boxes on this page: http://www.action-electronics.com/lmb.htm

They seem ideal for desktop control panels.
Title: Re: Cheap start to making a control box...
Post by: DarkBubble on February 10, 2006, 12:38:41 pm
I was just flipping through an Allied Electronics catalog yesterday and came across the same style of box and thought the same thing.  Seems like it'd be a bit light, noisy, and possibly flimsy though.  Would 16-guage aluminum stand up well?
Title: Re: Cheap start to making a control box...
Post by: mahuti on February 10, 2006, 01:34:38 pm
They have a deluxe nibbling tool.

*snicker*
Title: Re: Cheap start to making a control box...
Post by: MikeDeuce on February 10, 2006, 01:35:01 pm
I've played with these at Fry's a few times... good for something to press buttons on like a keypad, but would need a ton of reinforcement inside to withstand actual abuse, IMHO.

Maybe if ya filled em with expanding polyurethan foam... heh.
Title: Re: Cheap start to making a control box...
Post by: DarkBubble on February 10, 2006, 04:12:19 pm
Maybe if ya filled em with expanding polyurethan foam... heh.

I was thinking about using expanding foam to tone down the noise of the microswitches a little.  Once it's dry, it'd be easy to carve out the spots for the parts...anyone actually try it?

The thing about those boxes, in combination with an iPac and various controls, you can create custom controls for practically anything that you can use a keyboard with.  I've got friends who have home studios, and it'd be great to build them a custom control panel that's easily mappable to the keyboard commands of the software that they're most used to.
Title: Re: Cheap start to making a control box...
Post by: ahofle on February 10, 2006, 05:44:55 pm
How can all you guys hear your micro switches clicking?  Unless you play the games with no sound?  I can't hear a thing except the game sounds and my cussing.  :P
Title: Re: Cheap start to making a control box...
Post by: Kremmit on February 10, 2006, 10:46:41 pm
The 20" models are 50 & 60 bucks, unpainted metal.  That's cheap?

That said, it's also not outrageously expensive, and it's certainly a lot of work saved, especially for a metal panel.  Just add holes!
Title: Re: Cheap start to making a control box...
Post by: RayB on February 11, 2006, 02:05:08 am
How can all you guys hear your micro switches clicking?  Unless you play the games with no sound?  I can't hear a thing except the game sounds and my cussing.  :P

If i keep the volume at a "normal--people are sleeping on the floor above me" level, I hear clicky clicky
Title: Re: Cheap start to making a control box...
Post by: DarkBubble on February 13, 2006, 02:37:53 pm
How can all you guys hear your micro switches clicking?  Unless you play the games with no sound?  I can't hear a thing except the game sounds and my cussing.  :P

If i keep the volume at a "normal--people are sleeping on the floor above me" level, I hear clicky clicky

And when you slap a dozen microswitches into a plastic and/or metal box, even cranking the volume doesn't do much.  My dislike for the feel of the stick (and the fact that it locks up) in my official Dreamcast arcade stick aside, that thing is one noisy *****.