Ah, the control panel. This was the part that I had the most fun with. So many games that I wanted to play and so many different controls. How many buttons did I need for each player, etc.... I couldn't quite figure out what I wanted, but I knew that it had to be cool. I decided early on that my cabinet would only handle up to two players at a time, and I figured that I would only need 6 buttons. Remember that I am pretty old school so I didn't need more than 6 buttons. To be quite honest I don't think that I have loaded a game yet that needs more than 4, but if there is one thing that I have learned from my job, it is to think ahead and make room for expansion. I settled with 2 joysticks and a trackball that I planned on interfacing my win98 box with and simulate a mouse.
During my research, I remembered visiting Rob Malda's MAME project. He had done something that I think everyone should do before they finalize their control panels.
BUILD A PROTOTYPE!!
My first attempt at a prototype control panel went really well. I figured out how to do a lot of things that I wasn't sure about just by building the control panel out of some cheap plywood. Here is the history of the B-Box control panel.
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My first control panel had used the dimensions from Scott's Unicade. The joystick holes were cut using a 1 1/4" hole saw and the buttons were cut with a 1 1/8" hole saw. I was juiced, once the board was cut out. |
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I then inserted all the buttons that I planned on using, the super joystick and the trackball. You will probably notice that only one joystick is used. That is because Happ's for some reason sent me one joystick that had parts for an ultimate joystick in it. I couldn't even get the shaft to go down into it. Check all your parts when they arrive and make sure they are what you ordered. Also, if for some reason they screw up an order, they are real good about getting you the replacement, but you need to watch closely. What they try to do is credit your account and then bill you for the replacement. Sounds good right? Make sure that they waive the shipping charge. I swear they will sneak it in! You shouldn't have to pay shipping on a replacement part that they screwed up on. |
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The wiring looks pretty simple if you know what is going on. I DIDN'T! Once I figured it out, it was real simple. Basically, You can chain all the grounds together in one big loop with the last
piece going to the ground on your ribbon cable, or as I did, to the ground on the IOX36 breakout board. The IOX36 has four ground stations (I assume a ribbon cable does as well). The ground wire goes on the top of the
micro switch (in this picture, the red wire is ground). The other two switches on thie side are what actually make the switch do something. Here is a good picture of a
micro switch I got from Build Your Own Controls. You will more than likely want "Normally Open" or do something when I press the button and only when I press the button. (Also note in that picture ground is labeled as "Common.") |
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Here is a closer shot of one side of my first control panel. Notice the IOX36 breakout board. I have it set on some motherboard stand-offs to raise it off the panels
surface. I LOVE THAT THING!!!! |
So I had learned a lot of stuff about how to wire my control panel and how all the interfaces worked from the IOX36 breakout into the KE72-T encoder and into the keyboards PS2 port on the computer. I didn't get the trackball hooked up because I forgot to get the trackball cable that hooks into the KE72-T. That was
alright, because I wanted to get another IOX36 breakout board so I could neaten up the control panel wiring. I was going to have a IOX36 for each half of my control panel.
This was great, I was able to play MAME with an arcade joystick and buttons. I spent about a week doing nothing but playing with my new toy. At the time I thought I was screwing off, but it proved to be an important part of my research. It became obvious over the course of a week that some modifications were in order. First and foremost was the fact that I needed some additional buttons on the control panel. I figured that I needed a button for Enter, tab, p (pause), and esc buttons dedicated to those functions. Secondly, I needed a 4-way joystick! Sorry, but Pac-Man and Donkey Kong do not work well with 8-way sticks. You just never know which direction you are going to go. So a friend insisted that if I was going to buy a 4-way stick, it had to be a Galaga style stick. A friend of mine that was going to help me out with the actual cabinet and I couldn't get our schedules to match up for about a month, so I decided to build my second prototype.
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It was also during this time that I decided that Lusid's Arcade Flashback would prove to be a better cabinet all around for my needs. The second panel is much larger than the first control panel and left room for additional
add-ons. |
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As you can see, there are a lot more buttons on the second control panel. Plus the addition of the Galaga 4-way joystick. I decided on this layout after looking on the net and seeing Doughcade's panel. That was what I wanted, so I sent an email to Clay and asked how he liked his control panel layout. Clay gave me some valuable advice. He told me that he was
currently building a second control panel because he didn't like the 4-way above the trackball. Clay said that if you are into games like Golden Tee Golf that requires you to spin the trackball towards the monitor, you end up banging your hands into the 4-way stick. I like Golden Tee golf, so this sounded like a sound call to me. Besides, there was plenty of room for the 4-way and the trackball to be side by side. |
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Here you see the dual IOX36 breakout boards and the ground wire run. |
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After wiring up all the buttons, I went to the track ball. I had ordered the trackball cable from Hagstrom
Electronics and that was pretty self explanatory, but to hook up the buttons for the mouse was another story. The KE72-T encoder came with the mouse wires connected to the mouse button header on the encoder card, but did the ends were just dangling. I had no idea what wire was for which button, but I figured that there was only 4 so I could mix and match if I had to. I ended up buying a terminal block for this (see picture). I connected Y connectors to the end so I could easily move the wires around. I had it working in no time!! |
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Here is a shot with the connectors going into the KE72-T. Not the greatest, but you get the idea. |
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Another shot of the KE72-T wiring setup. |
I had narrowed down all the trial and error stuff and was ready to build my final control panel. Thank God Lusid's drawings utilized all the wood and left room for 2 control panels in case I screwed this up. Some of the lessons I learned from my second prototype was exactly how I wanted to lay out my buttons. Also during this time I decided that I would go ahead and
incorporate a spinner. I just knew that I would kick myself if I didn't go ahead and get it, so I ordered one from Oscar Controls. I went with the model one spinner in the Black Skirted style for that tempest feel. I also decided to move some buttons around. I decided I only needed 2 buttons to interface the computer with instead of three (the buttons right above the trackball). I decided to move the coin up buttons for player 1 and 2 from the top next to the player 1 and 2 button to the sides. I also decided that I would have to have the Ms. Pac-Man Joystick Mounting Plate that I got from Arcadeshop Amusements. There was just know way that the small Ms. Pac-Man style 4-way would work with 3/4" MDF.
I decided to go with a laminate finish. I figured this would be a nice smooth durable finish and would be easy to clean off. I have seen
a lot of finishes on control panels, but I figured plain old black would do. Now, finding black laminate proved to be a little more difficult than I thought. I ended up finding some at Home Depot. The best part about the laminate at Home Depot, is that the one close to my house has laminate in full and smaller sheets. My Lowe's only carried full sheets with a healthy price tag. Home Depot sold me a piece of 24x48" sheet of laminate for $11.30
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The first thing I did was purchase some heavy duty blades for my exacto knife (or box cutters are they are now more popularly known). I then
proceeded to score the laminate from the top. I used Shelby's metal straight edge ruler (this sucker is
like 4' long) as a guide. I ran the cut several times applying moderate pressure. If you press to hard the knife tends to run. Once you have a fairly deep score, you can break the
laminate by folding it away from the score. I did this to get the laminate roughly to the shape of the control panel. |
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Next I applied (its "The Tool" in the picture) a layer of contact cement and let it get tacky. This took about 20 minutes. Once the contact cement was damn near dry, I applied a second coat.
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Right after we attached the laminate to the control panel, we rolled any air bubbles that made have been between the laminate and the control panel with my wife's rolling pin. Just don't tell her!! I let the control panel sit for 24 hours and whipped out my arch-nemesis the router. I purchased a flush trim laminate bit to trim the edges. This time I think I got the better end of the deal because the trimming was easy. After doing the trimming with the router, I figured the scoring of the laminate was a moot point. I then used my mill bastard file (a file with one diagonal row of teeth so as not to chip the laminate) and filed downward at a 45 degree angle to take off the rough edges.
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Next I basically printed out templates from Lusid's site and taped them to the surface of the control panel. I have seen a few
templates on the net, but I don't think they are 100% to scale (or at least I couldn't get them there). |
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With the templates still attached to the control panel, I cut all the holes. I used a 1 1/8" hole saw for the button holes and 1 1/4"$hole saw for the joystick holes. I also used a router bit that is specially made for cutting laminate. The blade cuts on the down stroke instead of the typical up stroke cut with regular blades. I also found that my hole saw blades would get
gummed up from the MDF ( I didn't buy cheap hole saw either). After about a 1/4", I would have to pull the saw out and clean it off. This was a real pain, but if you
don't, it will start smoking. Basically burning its way through the wood. And the SMELL..... |
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Next I worked on the control panel box. I needed to cut a hole in the back to get wiring from the control panel to the computer. I also wanted to add the "coin up" buttons on the control panel box and not the surface of the panel. I plan on making the buttons
black to blend in with the cabinet. |
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Next I put all of the control panel buttons and joysticks in place. Here is a shot from the under side. |
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I ran the T-molding around the control panel. Here is a shot of me cutting the corners in a "V" so that they will bend around the corners nicely. |
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I still need to run the wiring, but here is what the control panel looks like from the top. I need to clean up the
Formica, but you get the picture. |
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I have finally gotten around to wiring the whole thing up. It is a lot neater than I thought with all the wiring. |
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Here is a picture of the control panel after I installed it to the cabinet with a piano hinge. I also put a strip of
Velcro on the top to help secure it to the cabinet. I placed the KE72T at the bottom of the control panel box with the wires to the computer and lights going out a hole I cut in the back of the CP box. |
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The control panel is very durable, it has to be to survive my 7 year old! |
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