Standalone CP Progress

[JeSo]

Just thought I'd throw a thread on here with where I'm upto on my little standalone control panel.
Currently, it works, for the most part, the top-left 3 buttons have yet to be wired up, but aside from that it's all good  
Excuse the quality of the pic, as my monitor's gone dodgy all of a sudden, I'll get a better pic when my monitor let's me see properly.
Behold, heh.

And yes, that is a shoe box.  I haven't gotten to building a proper case for it yet, but I couldn't wait to throw it together in *something* and play with it.  

[CthulhuLuke]

lol, well you gotta make sure your layout and everything works somehow!  Glad to see you got it working though, sometimes that can be the hardest part.  Just a suggestion for when you start on the real box, make sure you build the top piece so its at an angle going downhill towards you.  This will make it so your hands will naturally rest on the box much much easier than if the whole thing was a flat box.  If you make it skinny enough too, you can rest the box in your lap when playing so you dont need to clear out a big section out your desk just to play your favorite arcade games.  Btw, if you want to see some plans of a joystick that has a decent design, although itd definitely be wise to improve on, heres Razoola's, http://cps2shock.retrogames.com/jamma/joystick.html  I wouldn't make the side borders so close though or else you'd never be able to mash the buttons rapidly.
         -Chu

[Apollo]

Excellent first "trashcade" and now "trashCP" where will it end? LOL.

[JeSo]

Thanks. Yeah, the main reason I did it this way, was because I had limited funds, and it was a choice of buy controls first, or buy/build a box first. Also, I wanted to test out different layouts, like whether I liked the straight 2x6, or some curved craziness, turns out I like it just fine. One of these days I'll stop playing games with it long enough to build a proper case... maybe.

[CitznFish]

just duct tape the box solid and leave it as-is.

[JeSo]

I actually thought about painting/contact papering the box, for a semi-permanent solution. The main problem is the top of the box, it is only cardboard, so it's not the most solid surface. It has held up to frantic games of Galaga though, although mainly around the 2x6 buttons, it's kinda not too solid.

[Lumpy]

Jeso,

I know how it is.....  This is the firt two control panels I built 3 months ago.  I'm still playing with cardboard.  

Sorry about re-uping the picture, but I didn't know how to link to my old thread.

[CthulhuLuke]

Yeah, you would not believe how long my joystick was in this form, although I was SOOOOO happy when I finally moved it over to a real wooden box.  It's so worth the move, but you totally need to figure out exactly how you want your control panel layout, I actually did my cabinet layout with cardboard too and wired it up without solder and tape, lol.  I should have taken a picture of it, but oh well.
          -Chu