Anyone got any tips on making a CP after holes drilled?

[anthonylitz]

Hay guys.  I have a 4 player CP that I put the joysticks and 6 buttons each, with 1-4 start.  I do want to ad a few more buttons and -maybe- a trackball.  I might save the trackball till my next cab.  Anyway, I want to create a overlay for the cp and am woundering where do I start?  Is there going to be a way to line up the buttons and everything so I can put designs/lettering around them?  Or should I have designed the overlay first and I am stuck with using a plain design overlay?  I am imaginging alot of measuring and CAD of some sort is the way to go, and if so I have a friend  
Thanks for the tips!!!

Anthony

[wrxh8r]

That is kinda backwards but with a bit of patience you could just use a ruler and grids in a paint program to line up where the buttons would be on the art, using hopefully accurate measurements off your allready drilled cp.And if you were really lazy you could take a photo from directly above the panel,blow it up to the size you want in paint program then just use that as a reference.Making sure you scale it to the right dimensions.

[anthonylitz]

Yeah I can imagine that using that idea of taking a photo as a guide would work.  But you made me relize I kinda need to save a cp overlay for my next cp.  

The young grasshopper has just learned patience in the art of cab'in

Anthony

[mahuti]

I did my CPs after I had already cut the wood TWICE. Took some measuring... that didn't work good enough. I ended up tracing the holes on a paper overlay, scanning and then designing around the positions on that scan. I meaured later just to be on the safe side before I got it printed.

[etoasty]

If it's not alot of trouble (and if you have a scanner), i'd take the buttons and joystick out for one of the players, tape a sheet of white paper over the now empty holes, then take an exacto knife and cut out the holes where the buttons and joystick were. Then pull the paper off, put a sheet of black paper behind it, and scan it into the computer. That way you'd have a copy of the layout in the computer without quite so much measuring. And, unless the layouts were different, you could reuse your scanned layout for the other 3 players.

You'd still have to measure to get the scanned image into place of course. If the controls are close enough to the edges of your CP though, you could use line the edge of the paper up with the edge of the CP. At least that way you'd have the vertical or horizontal position of the controls.

Definitely make sure to print a test layout to make sure it lines up.

I was about to do the same thing, except with just 2 players, 7 buttons each, but i decided on adding a 3" trackball, which lacks fitting between the player 1 and 2 controls by 3/8". Rather than shave plastic off of the controls around it to make it fit, and then measure the positions of all my buttons, to me it seemed easier to just make a new CP. But good luck in your endeavor!  

[etoasty]

Just realized today ... rather than taping the paper down, cutting holes in it, then scanning it with a piece of black paper behind it ... it'd probably be a lot quicker to just tape the piece of paper down and just trace the outlines of the holes from the underside.

I always make things harder than they have to be