NEW PROJECT: Black and Blue: Lap/Desk top controller

[juggle50]

Well, this little guy may not look like much but it almost took as much time to design and build as my full mame cab.  The only thing really unique about it is that all the lights are battery operated so I can display it proudly on my shelf in my living room, lights on without the aide of a computer power supply.

Reason for building it (bear with me):   About 4 years ago I found an abandoned, gutted cocktail table that I restored and mamed.  Since I wanted it to look exactly like the original (except for the cp 4way/8way/6 buttons) I didn

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Lighting:  I decided to power the lights with a 4.8 volt 1500mah rechargeable RC battery.  I found a cool little switch for toy trains at a hobby shop that, when switched on, would complete a circuit and power the lights, but when switched off would kill that circuit but complete the one to the battery charger should it be plugged in.  The actual switch was dinky so I cut it off and soldered on a DPDT rocker switch from radio shack.  I mounted the battery on the inside with heavy duty Velcro and mounted the switch and battery charger port to the back.  Here are some pictures of the mounted battery on the inside and back of the box with the charger port and rocker switch.

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For lighting, I used three lights per button one mounted from the bottom (with a kickass little fixture) and two mounted to a semi transparent washer built from a cutting board to make the button bezel grow.  Here is the link for more details regarding that style of lighting:  http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=51390.0

I lit the Tron Joystick with glowire which I think works well.

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Well that is about it.  Obviously there aren

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Here is some more pics in darker lighting.

[MameMaster!]

I like it.

Great job..and nice wood finish. 

[liquid8]

like it... it has everything you'd want. What are the dimensions with all that in there?

liquid8

[theCoder]

Nice job.  How are you lighting the trackball?  Is it a Happ with the stock light bulb or led's?

[juggle50]

Thanks guys,

The box is roughly 16" x 7.5" So there isn't any wiggle room in side.  The CP panel has about a .75" lip all the way around except the back which is almost flush.

In terms of depth, the front measures about about 3.5" high and rakes up to 5" which is pretty tall for a desktop but you need that heigth with the tron joystick.

I mounted the track ball with a little fixture (seen below) that you use to mount your wire ties.  I drilled 3 holes in it and mounted in 3 leds and stuck it to the trackball with the adhesive backing that the fixture has on the bottom. 

A lot of people experience "spot light effect" with trackball leds and I don't have any problem with that whatsoever due to the fact that I use leds with a low beam angle, I sand the leds and use a lens covering for them that is mentioned in the thread above regarding lighting.

Thanks again for the feedback guys