control panel

With my newest control panel, things slide on and off when you need custom controls for certain games without having to change the entire panel. Read on to see how different things can be switched or removed all together in a few seconds and how many buttons you can eliminate from your panel.

	This is the picture I sent in to Zakk over at Massive MAME, he gave me an award for arcade building excellence called the "mamey". He bases these awards on originality, looks, layout, and playability. I was pretty sure I had all the bases covered when I designed this panel.
	This is the "mamey" icon, it's all in good fun. Thank you for the regocnition of all the hard work I put into the design and engineering of this machine. It was worth every penny and all the time I put into it.

Above is my control panel version 4.0, you can change the left joystick to a trigger stick w/2 fire buttons in seconds. All you have to do is give it a tug and it slides right out of the Happ Super 8 way stick (Like a socket is held in place with a small spring loaded ball bearing on the socket wrench), then slide the trigger stick in until it clicks, and then plug in a small headphone jack that comes out of the trigger stick.

I built it myself after I bought a Raider Pro Blue flight stick from Best Buy for 10 bucks and took a trip to Radio Shack for a headphone cord extender which has a male and female end. You can also change the spinner to a miniature steering wheel in seconds too. This way I didnt have to clutter up the panel trying to squeeze all of that together.

You will notice there are only four buttons on top for coin insert A and B, and player one and two start. The encoder I bought eliminates having to put buttons on for escape, tab, tilde, pause, and enter. The player 1 start button acts as a shift key when held down so you can hold player 1 start and then go left on the joystick for enter ect... Escape is easier just hold down player 1, then player 2 start to exit a game.

Here she is, added some chrome T-moulding, 2 new sticks, purple and blue neon, and a new Power Card system for joysick assignments. Quite a difference from the first panel with the SNES sticks. You can see some of the earlier shots on the cabinet page.

The panel may look crowded with all those sticks but you can easily play with the 8 way sticks even with the others in place. I made them removable anyways. The spinner/whell can come off all together if you need some more room to use the trackball. Instead of having the shaft stick up out of the table, the spinner and wheel have a shaft that goes into the table.

Lets see now..... I have a trackball, a spinner that also becomes a mini steering wheel (all you do is slide the spinner off and slip the wheel in place) two eight-way sticks, a removable four-way stick, and a removable two way stick, a two button trigger stick that slides into the left eight-way joystick port when you slide out the regular joystick, six fire buttons per side, a pair of pinball style buttons on the sides of the panel, p1 and p2 start, plus coin A and B buttons. The nice part is there is plenty of room on the panel even with the two new sticks in place. (The red stick is the 4 way and the yellow is the 2 way)

The only time you need to remove them is when you play a dual eight way joystick game. Otherwise you can go straight from the eight-way to the four or two way and not even bump the other stick with your hand. I planned this every detail and even built a mock-up of the new panel to be sure the new sticks wouldnt be in the way whether inserted or not.

I also have a slot for a credit card in the front skirt of the panel that changes the joystick and button assignments to the encoder so player 1 and player 2's controls can be identical or unique. Plus a cool neon light that lets you know what "mode" the table is in.

Here is a quick list of buttons I didnt have to put on the control panel. The I-PAC really saves a lot of control panel space by integrating button assignments. 5 less buttons to buy and drill holes for.

You can even eliminate coin A button by holding P1 start, then P1 button 1 (left ctrl), but I wanted both buttons on the panel

The trackball is for navigating Windows and of course playing trackball games, so I designed it so only the ball and the ring come through the top of the panel, the little black buttons were soldered on the the left and right click terminals on the trackball, they are small so the dont get in the way.

The joysticks are screwed in from the bottom to keep the panel nice and clean and are mirror imaged to each other. Here was the hard part, the spinner had to be designed so it hung down no further than 3/4" under the panel so the botton cover that hides all the exposed switches could go on as shallow as possible. Dont laugh, the mini steering wheel is from a LEGO Technic set and it has a real rubber tire so you get some good grip, the shaft that holds the spinner/steering wheel is from a LEGO set too. Since I was in a LEGO mood I fiured why not use all those gears and pieces to change the spinner shaft 90 degrees into the mouse board under the panel. The end result is so smooth you can spin it once and it will go for three or four seconds and is totally silent and super low profile under the panel. The gear ratio is 1:1.5.

The spinner and steering wheel slide on and off pretty easily and fit on to a shaft this not round but cross shaped but the edges are rounded so it spins beutifully. I didnt stop there with the innovations, go on to the unique features section to see whats next.

	free hosting image hosting hosting reseller online album e-shop famous people