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Things you would do differently ?

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opt2not:

--- Quote from: Mickelonis on November 21, 2009, 08:50:24 pm ---1. Went through Jack Thompson to have a four player panel built. I don't care how many people here are fans of his work, I had a horrible experience and would never suggest him to anyone.

--- End quote ---

I'm definitely not a fan of his work, glad he was permanently disbarred by the Florida Supreme Court. tee hee! :lol

clok:
Tried to make it like everybody else wanted it. No offence, but I read to much here and decided my ideas where crap (many where) and I should listen to others. Now I know that sounds bad, its not ment to be. Basicly I'm just saying, if you want something, dont let anybody talk you out of it if you really want it. I didnt use this site for advice, I used it as a manual. I kept reading "franken panel" and i believed it. I regret not adding more controls. I built my machine to play, plain and simple, didnt build it to look perfect, or be a replica, I wanted it play all the games.. Now I want to build a new panel. There is so much info here and great advice, i just got lost in the fact we are all not the of the same opinion. I know many do noty like cluttered panels, and I think Im in the minorty on the "do all" panel love.

basicly just saying really think your designs through, take all advice with a grain of salt. I cant say that almost all of its good, just remeber its "YOUR" machine and your building it for you.

other then that:

Wish i had spent more time on finishing.
Wheels- while i move it maybe 3X every 10 years (wow i thinki have had mine for that long) it would have been nice.
TO BIG- 10 years ago when I built it , was pretty nice, but nowdays with LCD's, etc.. I would have went for a much thinner (Kenevils style) machine with a LCD.. and a franken panel  :)
keyboard tray- wanted to get away from keyboards.. but you just cant if you want a do all machine
Neo-geo 4 style button layout with 7 buttons, went StreetFighter layout (6)and wish i could change it.


Paul Olson:
I chose MDF for my modular panels so I could build them myself. I really wanted metal panels, but the cost was too high...or so I thought. If I count the money I have spent on woodworking tools over the years, I think it might have been cheaper to have metal panels made. The MDF panels have held up pretty well though. I have only dropped one and dinged a corner.

When you are new to this, you read about all of the games that are hard to play in mame because of special controls. That led a lot of us to try to make these games playable. I have ls-30 joysticks that have been sitting in a box for yeas now. I have everything I need to play ikari Warriors, accept for the desire to play it enough to actually make the panels.

Good decisions I made:
I started with a simple 2 player plus trackball and spinner setup, and I am glad I did. I think it is good to find out what you are missing before taking on a huge project like a frankenpanel, modular, ar swappable panel that you may not want. If you design it so it is easy to swap panels, you will be that much ahead of the game if you want to add more later. Get a feel for what changes YOU will need before you follow all of the advise here.

I have a bunch of panels with all kinds of cool controls, and I have the controls to make about 30 more. The best thing is that I am not required to use them all of the time, or even to finish the rest of them. I have choices, and I like that.

95% of the time, My panel has a wico 4-way and 2 buttons installed.  A lot of the games I like can be played with that, and I wouldn't want to play them with an 8-way or even a 4-way in a bad position on the panel.

Knowing that I am about a minute away from playing Tron or Centipede, or Gyruss, or whatever, with the correct controls is really a nice feeling. I only want to play Tron a few times a year. I would hate to have to try to play around that joystick the rest of the year.

Suggestion:
A lot of people worry about designing their cabs so everyone can walk up to it and play it using everything it has to offer. Why? Think of how many hours we have put into this; we still have a hard time taking advantage of everything these cabs can do. Your friends that don't know or care about this stuff will not know what to do with it. You are simply giving them too many options to deal with. They will not actually play the games, they will just demo and move on to the next game. Remember back to when you were working with your complete gamelist - there are just too many choices to settle down and play a game. That is what they will feel every time.

In the years I have had my modular panel, only 2 people have ever wanted to change them. Others may want me to change them, but are not interested enough to learn the easy steps to do it. I think this is probably the reason most of may panels are still in great shape. :)  If there are people over, I will do 1 or 2 changes per night max. Non arcade enthusiasts just don't like these games like we do, and no amount of choices will change that, so I prefer to spend the time playing games. I have the wii and 360 to keep people occupied. At one point I had 14 games, the mame cab, and a pinball machine going. After a couple of  hours, only me and maybe 1 or 2 people are still playing. It would be different if a  group of us got together, but that is rare at best. And if it did happen, the guests would have an idea what to do, or want to learn.


Build it for you and no one else. IF you build it for someone else, they will lose interest. Then you will be stuck with something you don't want. If you build it for you, and family or friends care enough to want something different, help them build their own.



hypernova:
Made players 3&4 angled.

Damn it.  Worst decision ever.  Fixing it would require that I remove ALL the wiring, including the LEDs for all the buttons.  Not a fun task.  I'll either never fix it, or it'll be a complete rebuild of at least the CP.  I don't play enough to warrant spending any more money on it, other than upkeep.

DillonFoulds:
Well, I'm still mid way through my first build...

I broke the "don't make it playable" rule early on, and kind of put off painting the thing until last. I figure if I get it all roughed up and nasty looking while I'm working on it, or I decide to make changes to the cab, it's better to do so before I get it all purrrrdy.

I originally was going to have my modular panels swappable between buttons and encoder, but I'm starting to think i should just mount the encoder in each panel and have less cables to swap. Instead of 2x DB25s and who knows what else I'll use later on, I could probably make-do with a USB cable, and one db9 for the coin door controls.



--- Quote from: hypernova on November 25, 2009, 06:13:24 pm ---Made players 3&4 angled.

Damn it.  Worst decision ever.  Fixing it would require that I remove ALL the wiring, including the LEDs for all the buttons.  Not a fun task.  I'll either never fix it, or it'll be a complete rebuild of at least the CP.  I don't play enough to warrant spending any more money on it, other than upkeep.

--- End quote ---
I'm not sure i understand this one. Why wouldn't you want them angled?

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