Author Topic: Mark's Multipanel Project (Read 21330 times)

markrvp · « **on:** April 26, 2005, 11:14:27 pm »

I found BYOAC in January and got hooked.

markrvp · « **Reply #1 on:** April 26, 2005, 11:16:26 pm »

Unfortunately, I didn't stop buying parts once the cabinet was complete. Here is what I have left over THAT DIDN'T FIT ON THE FRANKENPANEL.

markrvp · « **Reply #2 on:** April 26, 2005, 11:30:44 pm »

At first, I came up with a couple of add-on options that allowed me to set the Star Wars Yoke on top of the panel and also attach an Analog flighstick to the front of the panel, but both required more effort than it was worth and made the rest of the panel unplayable until they were removed.

markrvp · « **Reply #3 on:** April 26, 2005, 11:36:13 pm »

So now what to do? My solution is to use multiple interchangeable control panels, prompting the creation of this thread. From here on out I would like to share my thoughts on what panels to build, how they are layed out, and how best to wire and connect them. I will also share my thoughts on artwork and for people who are new to woodworking, try to give detailed instructions for setting-up and using tools (as I get lots of e-mails on how I do these things).

I want to encourage everyone who is nice enough to follow along on this project to give me your feedback, and point out where I can do things better.

markrvp · « **Reply #4 on:** April 26, 2005, 11:46:24 pm »

Here are my thoughts as of today on what panels I need to build.

markrvp · « **Reply #5 on:** April 26, 2005, 11:55:03 pm »

I looked at several arcade cabinets for inspiration for the new CP design. The panel would need to support changing CP tops easily and also mesh with the existing cabinet. I quickly decided that the Mortal Kombat II CP box would be just right.

The measurements for the CP tops will be 27-3/8" wide by 14" tall. That should be plenty of room for controls to support 2 players.

markrvp · « **Reply #6 on:** April 27, 2005, 12:17:08 am »

Here is the diagram of the CP box.

markrvp · « **Reply #7 on:** April 27, 2005, 12:46:48 am »

The first CP panel I will build is dubbed the "LAZY" panel as I will probably be too lazy to take this panel off very often.

The LAZY panel is an Alternating Player multipanel which will be great for single & dual player games like Pacman, Donkeykong, and many of the other classics. I have layed the controls out generically enough to play games like Missile Command, Robotron, and anything else that doesn't require a rotational joystick or something extra special.

The primary joystick is a Happ's 49-way using a Groovy Game Gear GP-Wiz 49 encoder. The other joystick will be a WICO 8-way leafswitch joy. My thinking on this is that the 49-way can be used 4 way, 8 way and for Qbert style diagonals. The Wico is there because that joystick works very well for shooting in Robotron and Smash TV. I am also a big fan of Crazy Climber which is well suited to this panel.

The trackball can be used for Centipede, World Class Bowling, Shuuz, and Golden Tee Golf.

I have 7 buttons which should cover most any game, plus I really like having the mouse left and right buttons for this reason: WC Bowling and Golden Tee Golf both had one button on either side of the trackball for turning left & right (or adding hook to the bowling ball).

I realize most enthusiasts here are diametrically opposed to having admin buttons on the control panel and I agree for all the other panels I will build. HOWEVER, I plan to use this panel to play test all new games and a lot of times I like to TAB into the config menus and custom set game controls. So, to make it easy on myself, I added ADMIN buttons for TAB, ENTER, ESC, F2 (advance), F3 (reset), and PAUSE. This panel will also eventually end up on my computer at home as a desktop controller.

This panel will be easy to swap between computers as the GP-Wiz 49 encoder is USB Hot-Swappable and the trackball uses a USB MOUSE HACK.

markrvp · « **Reply #8 on:** April 27, 2005, 01:44:06 am »

One of my favorite cabinets is Frostillicus (Thomas Van Horn) rotating panel cabinet. One of his panels has two LS-30 mechanical rotational joysticks and two topfire joysticks. I want to build a similar panel, but instead of the Happ topfire joysticks I am going to use two TRON style joysticks for playing tank games like ASSAULT & BATTLEZONE.

Here is Frostillicus' cabinet & the panel I am talking about.

markrvp · « **Reply #9 on:** April 27, 2005, 01:50:33 am »

I love this panel and think the artwork is topnotch.

markrvp · « **Reply #10 on:** April 27, 2005, 02:47:48 am »

The fighter panel is pretty straight forward. I like Frostillicus' artwork here again, and I found where he had graciously donated the character art to the arcade art library at http://www.localarcade.com/4images/.

There will be two 8 way joysticks with 7 buttons each. I have some major decisions to make on this panel. One of which can't be decided until I figure out if I want to add 2 more joysticks to this panel so it can also be used for Robotron & Smash TV. Please help me figure this one out.

Concern 1: What joysticks to use? I don't think there is any need to put 49-ways the GP-Wiz 49 way adapters here as the joys only need to be 8-way. I have HAPP Competitions on my current 4 player panel, but I don't really like those. I hate the 8 way on the X-arcade controller I have, so I think I probably wouldn't be too crazy about HAPP Supers either. I absolutely do not like T-Sticks. That narrows it down to: Perfect 360s (expensive), Wico 8-ways, or Sanwa 8 ways. The Sanwas may be a good fit here as their square restrictor may make hitting diagonals easier. But what about FIREBALL moves which require a half circle. The Wicos might really be better for that, and they are certainly the first choice for the second joystick in Robotron. Would Robotron feel really weird if you had different joysticks in each hand? Do they both need to be identical?

Perfect 360s are about $45 each. Right now I can get 49-ways for $24.95 each and two GP-Wiz 49way Eco encoders for $20 each. That makes the price of working 49ways the same as a working Perfect 360. And the GP-Wiz 49 would also serve as the encoder for the buttons. Hmmmm. I guess I really need to play test the 49way in Fighter games to see how well they work compared to the Sanwa and Wico. Does anybody have any experience with both the Perfect 360 and the 49-way to compare?

Concern 2: How should I layout the buttons? I have already ordered the Sanwa style buttons that should fire faster than Happ Horizontals. Pixelhugger has a unique layout for buttons on his control panel that looks like your forearms come into the panel at 45 degrees and makes the buttons be right next to the joystick. That would probably be good if I add the 2nd joysticks for Robotron. Or, do I stay with a more traditional layout?

Here are the layout considerations below:

markrvp · « **Reply #11 on:** April 27, 2005, 02:49:16 am »

And the Fighter Panel Mockup with artwork copied heavily from Frostillicus.

ferrarimanf355 · « **Reply #12 on:** April 27, 2005, 11:14:34 am »

I actually like the 4-player panel. I probably would remove a few buttons and move a few more, and get rid of the 4-way stick and probably the Tron stick, but I think it's good. Can I have the plans?

Flinkly · « **Reply #13 on:** April 27, 2005, 12:10:04 pm »

awesome...i hope to create a thread like this some day.

Dire Radiant · « **Reply #14 on:** April 27, 2005, 01:49:41 pm »

Sweet! I'll be interested to see how you pull off the positional gun panel.

mhermann · « **Reply #15 on:** April 27, 2005, 05:13:35 pm »

Wow, information overload in this thread. I like your idea of swapping out CP's. I am also trying to think of ways to have my cake and eat it too.

How do you like the 49 ways? I am thinking of building a 4 player with these. My thinking is that I will get 4, 8 and 49 all in one. Everything I have read says that it personal preference so I will most likely just have to try it myself.

Keep up the good work. I am interested in seeing what you decide.

Buddabing · « **Reply #16 on:** April 27, 2005, 07:02:45 pm »

Think about a simple panel for classics. I've put a lot of thought into my three panels:

Panel 1: One joystick, three buttons and a trackball, arranged thus:

JS B B B TB

This will let you play a huge number of games, plus it is simple so that your guests will understand it and you have correct button placement for Missile Command. (important to me)

Panel 2: 2 player 7-button fighter, a la HotRod SE.

JS B B B JS B B B
B B B B B B
B B

Don't put the joysticks too far apart as this will be the panel you'll play Robotron on.

Panel 3: This is interesting. 6 buttons in a cross between Defender and Star Trek. This is important since I love those two classics. One 2-way Defender joystick, a spinner, a flight stick (Tron=important).

JS SP B B FS
B B
B B

This will save you some wiring. These three panels use a lot fewer controls than Frosty's and can play more games with correct control spacing.

But I would keep the frankenpanel, it looks fine.

markrvp · « **Reply #17 on:** April 28, 2005, 01:13:05 am »

Buddabing - I like your thinking alot. Well thought out.

Everyone who has commented so far - thanks for the feedback. If nobody chimed in, I would feel like I was talking to myself (I'm so tired of the voices, THE VOICES!!!)

I spent tonight building my single player config panel. I have decided to start another thread that is STEP BY STEP CONSTRUCTION AND INSTRUCTION. The old-timers can skip that thread, but for anyone who wants to know how to build this stuff, it will be all the information you could ever ask for (I hope).

I want to keep this thread ideas and theory; the other thread will be how I did it.

jfunk · « **Reply #18 on:** April 29, 2005, 12:40:28 am »

OK, so now for the main question in my mind.. How are you going to 'easily' swap the panels? This is where I'm stuck..

I'd thought about having bolts through the hinges on the cp box, but that takes a while..? I've thought about dowel (sp?) rods and velcro.. But nothing seems 'right'...

Looking forward to what you come up with

markrvp · « **Reply #19 on:** April 29, 2005, 01:08:04 am »

That's the $64,000 question. I am starting out with a dowel rod system. We'll see how it works. I could really use some input here.

I've got 120 images documenting construction so far. I hope by Monday to have the other thread up with the first box and panel complete.

markrvp · « **Reply #20 on:** April 29, 2005, 01:26:04 am »

This is really a test of remote image hosting. I'll delete this post when the new thread goes up.

A few examples of my construction pics:

PoDunkMoFo · « **Reply #21 on:** April 29, 2005, 01:40:03 am »

Hello,

This is my plan for easy swap.

I was thinking of using the swapable IDE hard drive bays (2) like this;

http://www.amamax.com/amamax/hdspecialimoblerack.html

One would be mounted so that the wiring on the controls were on one
side and the encoder would be on the other (inside the cabinet)

The other would house an actual hard drive so that the computer would boot
to a FE shell with MAME and only the games that the control panel was designed
for.

I plan on making the control panels with some kind of alignment built in so that the
plugs would line up every time.

I plan to build two cabs - Horizontal (Joust Style) & Vertical (Midway - Pacman Style)

Sounds pretty pie in the sky but that's my plan.

markrvp · « **Reply #22 on:** April 29, 2005, 02:10:15 am »

Quote

The other would house an actual hard drive so that the computer would boot
to a FE shell with MAME and only the games that the control panel was designed
for.

Sounds neat. Would each control panel, then, have it's own hard drive with the OS, FE Shell, and Specific Romset?

PoDunkMoFo · « **Reply #23 on:** April 29, 2005, 11:07:01 am »

Yes,

That is the exact plan. I figure i've got a bunch of smaller 20 gig or so (LMAO
hearing me say 20 gigs is small). Each panel would get it's own hard drive
mounted on the panel

The only thing Im' not sure of is if I use the control panel in two different cabs
how to show different games for that particular cab. Maybe the cab has a hard drive with the OS and on boot is directed to autorun the FE from the panel hard drive. That way the Horizontal cab can point do a different directory or partition on the panel hard drive than the Vertical cab does.

Should be interesting trying to work it all out.

Flinkly · « **Reply #24 on:** April 29, 2005, 12:58:21 pm »

too complicated. i'm just using the same things regular cabs did, panel clamps. i figure i'll need two or four per panel to hold it down tight. bad thing is that most people sell them for 10 bucks.

markrvp · « **Reply #25 on:** April 29, 2005, 02:26:59 pm »

I am using panel clamps to hold the CP BOX to the cab. Are you using a second set of clamps to hold the panel top to the box? Is your CP box open on the bottom on just the part hidden by the cabinet base? The reason I ask is because my original design called for a completetly enclosed box except for the hole that the cables come out to go to the computer. I have diagrammed what I understand you are saying below.

Here the CP box is open on the bottom where the white X's are. There is one set of clamps to hold the box to the cabinet and another set holding the interchangeable panel top to the box.

Is this right?

namedos · « **Reply #26 on:** April 29, 2005, 04:06:23 pm »

Mark,

I am going with a similar setup. On the control panel I used a piano hinge on the front side and friction hinges on the sides to hold it open. This gives me accessability if I need it and it doesn't move around at all. The bottom of my control panel is solid. I have two clamps purchased but not installed as I haven't quite figured out how to install the clamps.

My IPAC is mounted inside of my control panel. The IPAC connection, spinner connection and trackball connection are all USB. I have perfect 360's which need power. So, when it comes time to swap out a panel I will unplug all four items and put the new control panel on. It could be done easier but I don't think I will be switching panels that often.

Your thread is very good and I also like the work you've done. For myself I've been working on setting up my own website. I plan to heavily document it to hopefully help some folks out. I have a lot of it written but I haven't been able to upload it to my ISP's weblink yet.

Good luck and keep going with the thread as it is nice to hear the thought process behind some of the design decisions.

You've done some very nice work so far

Flinkly · « **Reply #27 on:** April 29, 2005, 10:08:35 pm »

yeah, i just have panel's that i switch out and put back in. on the back of the cab, i've got a door towards the bottom that flips open from the bottom, and little wooden guides where i slide the panels in for safe keeping. i store them two deep. so yeah, i use clamps on the panel itself, since i don't have a box on my cab like everyone else. i just reach in from the coin door and flip the clamps, and off the panel comes. under it i've got a vertical panel towards the back where i've drilled out holes and stuck female ends of molex connectors for all the appropriate interfaces. i'm trying to think of a way to keep them seperate, and i think colors might just be the only way. maybe fingernail polish.

back when i was a kid, my mom would stick fingernail polish on the bottoms of all my micromachines, and another color under my brothers. then we wouldn't fight as much about it. mom's are so smart. till you grow up i guess...but they still have their moments.

Dire Radiant · « **Reply #28 on:** April 30, 2005, 12:08:50 am »

heat shrink would look better

markrvp · « **Reply #29 on:** May 03, 2005, 04:02:36 am »

Okay, this isn't wired up yet, but I've been working on documenting this build for the construction thread for 3 days (over 200 how-to pics) and I couldn't wait to share it.

I'll have better pics tomorrow (it's 3am right now).

monkeyButt · « **Reply #30 on:** May 03, 2005, 07:52:44 am »

swappable control panels - here's what i did. i used anchors and socket head screws. by countersinking the screws, they be level with the control panel surface (and visible), but i like the look and feel of it. i think that with dark artwork, it'd look pretty good.

pic of a screw in the anchor - no control panel

the finished product - 3 across the top, 3 across the bottom, and some smudges to boot.

Pixelhugger · « **Reply #31 on:** May 04, 2005, 12:18:03 am »

That looks fantastic Mark. Nice clean design, and I love the blue and black buttons. Very cool.

markrvp · « **Reply #32 on:** May 04, 2005, 01:41:38 am »

Looks good, MonkeyButt.

Quote from: Pixelhugger on May 04, 2005, 12:18:03 am

That looks fantastic Mark. Nice clean design, and I love the blue and black buttons. Very cool.

Thanks PH. The Black & Blue buttons was inspired completely by your project. I liked the look of your black buttons on the blue graphics. My background is so busy, I thought the black might get lost, so I did the black outline to set off the blue buttons.

Joystick Jerk · « **Reply #33 on:** May 04, 2005, 03:43:42 am »

Quote from: markrvp on April 26, 2005, 11:14:27 pm

What's that mame front-end your cab is using in the pic?

markrvp · « **Reply #34 on:** May 04, 2005, 04:53:48 am »

It's called Ultrastyle:

http://www.mameworld.net/ultrastyle/

Knievel · « **Reply #35 on:** May 04, 2005, 07:29:57 pm »

First one looks good Mark, how many more to go?

mhermann · « **Reply #36 on:** May 04, 2005, 08:41:13 pm »

Hey Mark, what is the size of your 4-playe CP? length and width?

Thanks

JonnyBoy · « **Reply #37 on:** May 04, 2005, 09:06:43 pm »

Quote from: markrvp on May 03, 2005, 04:02:36 am

Okay, this isn't wired up yet, but I've been working on documenting this build for the construction thread for 3 days (over 200 how-to pics) and I couldn't wait to share it.

I'll have better pics tomorrow (it's 3am right now). The box works well and I think this looks just terrific

Hey man, that is a sweet control panel overlay? Do you know where I could get that? Preferably in red? Thanks a bunch. I've seen that one before but I never could find where people got it.

I'd like to get it sans directional arrows and stuff, just straight-up background.

markrvp · « **Reply #38 on:** May 04, 2005, 10:35:34 pm »

Quote from: Knievel on May 04, 2005, 07:29:57 pm

First one looks good Mark, how many more to go?

Six to Eight depending on my stamina. I think I've eliminated one by combining controls. I need to play test the 49-way some more to see if I want to commit to those on everything, or if I want to stay conventional.

Quote from: mhermann on May 04, 2005, 08:41:13 pm

Hey Mark, what is the size of your 4-playe CP? length and width?

38.5" Wide by 16" Tall

Quote from: JonnyBoy on May 04, 2005, 09:06:43 pm

Quote from: markrvp on May 03, 2005, 04:02:36 am
Okay, this isn't wired up yet, but I've been working on documenting this build for the construction thread for 3 days (over 200 how-to pics) and I couldn't wait to share it.

I'll have better pics tomorrow (it's 3am right now). The box works well and I think this looks just terrific

Hey man, that is a sweet control panel overlay? Do you know where I could get that? Preferably in red? Thanks a bunch. I've seen that one before but I never could find where people got it.

I'd like to get it sans directional arrows and stuff, just straight-up background.

Another BYOAC'er (a really talented one) shared the source with me. Since it wasn't my idea and he was nice enough to share, I'll not post that info here. He is watching this thread and he may put that info up if he wants.

JonnyBoy · « **Reply #39 on:** May 05, 2005, 07:11:23 am »

Okay, I understand. If he is willing to accept payment or anything I'd be willing to pay, I really like that graphic. Thanks.


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