After an aborted start (or
learning experience as I'd prefer to call it - at least it provided alot of scrap wood to test ideas on.

) on a cabinet last year, I've found the time to dive into 2 projects now.
Both are in the planning/ordering stage, but that's pretty much done and the first cuts into wood should be made either Wednesday or Thursday.
No actual pics yet (as there hasn't been much
real work done) but I do have a coupla 3D renderings that I whipped up to check proportions and such. They're both rough, with some differences than the final project. The modular control panel on my cabinet is going to be slightly different than what is shown (it's gonna actually have P1 & P2 start buttons.

) I've come up with some good ideas after seeing the many modular examples here. Also, the CP top and box on Dennis' cabinet will be rounded and not hard edged like in the render.
My cab will be a classic inspired original design with a modular control panel allowing for a fairly authentic replication of most games control layout. See the discussion
here.

Dennis wants something that can be enjoyed by up to 4 of his nieces and nephews at once, as well as being able to play a handful of his very favorite games. The CP demands on this one are a little vexxing. He wants 2 trackballs as well as 2 rotaries on a 4 player panel. Fitting this all into a CP that's aesthetically pleasing and not monsterous has been an adventure. We've done some foamboard mockups of the current layout and it seems like it'll work acceptably. It's a little cramped, yes, but should be playable. It is going to require some reprogramming of the inputs in games (to allow trackball games to use the P3 & P4 buttons instead of P1 & 2, for instance), but seems like it should be a decent compromise. The cabinet itself is also an original design that takes some cues from a few sources that he came across while researching on the net. As I said above, the CP itself will be a much nicer curved shape than what's depicted, so as to work with the whole "swoopy" feel. The 3D pic makes it look a little squat, but the overall height is 6' 8" and the CP is at 36".

Hopefully, I'll have a web page up and documenting the actual build on both machines within a coupla days.
Doug
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If you can't be a good example at least try to be a horrible reminder.