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KISS CP planning questions.

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Tumerboy:
Thanks Markronz, that's still good info.  I realized about the admin buttons (the little ones) after I posted.  I figured I would hit them when playing with the Trackball.  I do like the idea of having dedicated admin buttons (but can't decide on exactly how many/which), over using the shift functions like many people do.  I had originally planned to put the admin buttons below the monitor bezel, similar to Kneivel's woody (and probably others):



I may still do that, but would probably group them all to one side.  In that case, the area above the trackball opens up.  Is the spinner still too close? Or is it really only a problem if it's directly over the TB?

I don't expect to run anything other than Mame on this, so the double-use mouse buttons sounds fine.  I'm still a little confused on how you'd assign button's P1 5 & 6 to double as mouse buttons?  Would I run 2 sets of wires to P5 and P6? Or is it simple software setup I'm unaware of?

ETA: on an only partially related note, I know a lot of people use European style Cabinet hinges to attach their CP to the box.  I like the idea of that too.  If my box has a 5 or 10 degree slant on top, do the Euro hinges bend that way?  I know they'll hinge out, but in the closed position will they 'overclose' by a few degrees? or do you guys make little 5 degree wedges to angle them off the back side of the box?  Thanks

markronz:
Hard to say about the location of the spinner.   It seems like with the spinner, you'd want to be able to rest your wrist down in front of it.  Hard to tell from your picture, but it seems like you might not have a good place to set your wrist down.  The best piece of advice is to make a test control panel first, even if it's made out of cardboard.   A lot of the spacing stuff is personal opinion. 

About the mouse buttons.  They wouldn't really be dual use.   They would be dedicated mouse buttons, all the time.   But MAME allows mouse clicks to be assigned as buttons.   So the same way you set a normal keyboard letter press to a button in MAME, you would do for the mouse.  So, just an average MAME key setting, but you press the mouse button instead.

Regarding the hinges.   I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, or what you mean by "overclose".  Are you putting the hinges on the BACK of the control panel?  Or the front?   Most seem to put them on the front of the box.  I don't know the degree of the angle of my CP box, but in the picture below, you can see that it does have an angle to it.   I didn't do anything special to the hinges to account for this.   They close up until the CP rests on the box.   Pretty sure the hinges never fully lock all the way closed, due to the angle, but that doesn't really matter.   They hold it in place, and it opens and closes super easy, so that's all that matters.

Donkbaca:
Food for thought:

1) You don't need to worry about mouse buttons.  You set up your front end and then you never mess with it.  In the even that you do need to, you pull a keyboard and mouse out of the front door.  That being said.  I personally don't see why so many people have trackballs, unless you are a big golden tee/crystal castles/marble madness fan.  Centipede uses the trackball, and so does missile command.  I can't play any of those games for more than 5 minutes, so I don't have a trackball

2) same for the spinner, unless you absolutely love tempest.  Yeah you can play driving games with a spinner, but I personally think its a waste.

3)  No need for a dedicated 4 way with a U360, unless you are a diehard classics fan and need to have the restricted feel.  Even if that is the case Andy just came out with top mounted restrictors for the U360.

4) The only admin button you need is exit.  The only other one that is really handy is pause.  No reason to have any other buttons.

5) If you are planning on building a slim style LCD panel, an admin panel on top of the CP is a good idea, if for no other reason than it eats up real estate that would otherwise be taken up by the bezel, it helps keep the screen in proportion.

6) Just use a piano hinge to hinge the CP, cheaper, easier to mount.

Tumerboy:
Thanks for the replies.

Markronz, on the hinges, I was thinking they were mounted at the back edge of the box, and then attached to the top.  That back edge closes to say 80 or 85 degrees in the closed position.  Most cabinets (and I assume cabinet hinges) close to where the door (CP in this case) is perpendicular (90 degrees) to the face frame that the hinge attaches to.  So, if the hinge is designed to be at a 90 degree angle in the closed position, my question is if they will go past that, to say 80 or 85 degrees.  Mounting the hinges on the other side means that when fully closed, the hinge is only at 95-100 degrees, so it wouldn't be an issue. 

I'll give the front mount some thought.  Just seemed like it might be harder to get at everything with the CP opened toward you.

Donkbaca, thanks for the replies.  I know the mouse wouldn't need to be used often (Markronz, I understand what you meant now about P5 & P6), but it seems like it would be useful.  No, I'm not a huge Centipede/Missile Command fiend, but I do like to play them on occasion.  Mostly, I figure for my first panel it's probably better to err on the side of too many options than to build it all and find out I'm annoyed that I can't play X.  As I stated above, I'm sure I'll be building more in the future, and by that time, will probably have figured out more what I actually want to play regularly.

You're probably right on the admin buttons, I'll have to ponder that for a bit.  Maybe putting them above the P1 joystick would work well enough.

Thanks again guys.

Donkbaca:
You want the CP to open toward you so the sticks don't bang against your monitor glass.

A mouse really isn't needed at all, unless you want to navigate your FE with it.  No need for it other than to play games.  I got a trackball, decided not to put it on my CP after playing with MAME and realizing it wasn't worth it to add them

7 buttons is more useful then a spinner and a trackball IMHO, it lets you play 4 in a row for neo geo games, and you can use the 7th button for run on UMK3


I say build the thing for what you actually want to play, and make it good for playing the games you like, instead of mediocre to play a bunch of games you don't.

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