I usually stick with playing one game for a long time. True to my goals I went back to a simple design. They needed more hardware, more machining and more time. I had lots of ideas but they all complicated the design. After looking at Doc’s modular design I wanted to come up with something clever and innovative or use his method. ![]() Once the basic concept was in place I needed to work on how the panels would attach to the control panel. I’m trying to catch up on posting things before the madness of the start of school so here’s my next update. The downside of that is the cost of the multiple controls but don’t count them out yet. I definitely thought about using swappable panels. I would use a frame that could fit 3 - 7” x 7” panels in it. The panel would have to be 7” x 7” so the height of each panel would have to be 7”. ![]() I started off with a Happ 3” trackball but moved to an Ultimarc one. The size of the panels was dictated by the largest controller I needed to use. A review of what others have built and some time with SketchUp and I had a preliminary design. A large number of games have a joystick/spinner/trackball in the center of the panel and a bank of buttons on the left and the right. I analyzed the control panels of the games on my list and saw that I could replicate most of them using a modular control panel that was divided into 3 panels. This would keep down the number of vertical seams which I find distracting. I didn’t want to have to use a lot of modules/panels for a game. I knew I couldn’t get everything in the right spot but if things were close enough most people wouldn’t notice or care. Make it the same dimensions as the existing Midway control panel on my cabinet. Minimize the number of modules used at any one time. Other games I will have to come back to later.Įmulate the layout of the original control panels as closely as possible. This included Defender but luckily I have two original Defender cabinets. Games with control panels that were unique or complicated were removed. I also decided that I wouldn’t try to have 3 and 4 player controls. I went through the list of MAME games and came up with less than 65 games that I would play regularly. With the need to do everything out of the way I was able to concentrate on getting 75% of the games right. Save these for later.Īnalyze the layouts of the control panels. Remove any games with complicated layouts / specialized controls. Identify the games that I wanted to play and have on the machine. Realize that I wasn’t trying to emulate every arcade control panel I still wouldn’t be able to play every game but I could get closer to a lot more. Instead of the “one panel will play them all” approach I decided to go modular and make a control panel that would allow me to emulate the control layout of the original games better. It also became clear that the panel was too big and confusing. Buttons and other things needed for the games never lined up quite right and the cost of trackball mounting plates was adding up. That idea worked and allowed me to swap in different joysticks, spinners and other controls. With a Happ trackball mounted in the center I had the brilliant idea that I could pull it out and put other controls in its place. Functional, but ugly and no one really likes it. ![]() ![]() My first control panel was an experiment and a big collection of buttons and other controls.I could play a large number of games but it was a FrankenPanel. I’ve got a thread going for my MAME cabinet build but thought I’d start a separate one for the modular control panel.Īfter lots of planning, building and mistakes I have working panel. My MAME cabinet project was on hold for a long time but I'm now at the point of creating the control panel for it.
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