Cool site. Wish I had come here a lot sooner.
As a child of the 70's and 80's and spent many a quarter in the arcades in my youth.
Always liked the early 80's games. They had simple themes, lots of fun, entertaining and some were quite challenging.
I wanted to share those memories with my kids, unfortunately arcades around here are a thing of the past.
I purchased an old Cocktail Ms. Pacman machine and restored it and the kids loved it.
I wanted more games but space was a huge issue so I had to look for another solution.
A year or two ago I purchased a Raspberry Pi to play MAME games using RetroPie.
At first it was neat in its little box running with a PS3 controller.
It was fine at first but I soon found its limitations with games like Tempest that required a spinner to be played properly.
I started looking around on the internet and saw a video on a cool dedicated Donkey Kong control panel that plugged into a TV.
Eureka! That's what I needed! something big enough to give the arcade control feel but small enough to be put away or transported to another location.
I started sketching things out and started with the top panel controls.
Most of the older games were set up as one player at a time ideas so that's what I went with.
Things I wanted:
4/8 way selectable Joystick
Dedicated 4 way Joystick for Q-Bert
Spinner
Trackball
Firestick (for Robotron 2084)
Enough fire buttons for anything
LED directional lights for the joysticks
I have a friend that works in a Die shop and they have a CNC Router to cut the boards.
I could also layer them as needed to get the cuts I needed.
This is what I came up with
It may look a little confusing but let me explain.
I needed the top panel to be 3/4 so I am using 2 pcs of 5/16" and a Piece of 1/8" glued together to achieve the correct thickness
Top Layer:
This was cut from 5/16" Russian Birch. This layout gave me everything I wanted down to the directional LED's
Middle Layer:
This was cut form 1/8" Russian Birch Plywood. This panel allows me to run my LED wires without getting pinched by the mounts.
Bottom Layer (Flopped):
On this one (Also 5/16 Russian Birch) I had from the bottom to make the different depths for the various controls.
Top Layer Cut Out:
Middle Layer Cut Out:
Don't Have a picture of just the Bottom Layer cut out but You'll see a shot of it later with the LED Lights
More to come.