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In my opinion this was toughest and the most fun I had on the entire project. I had the choice of what hardware I wanted and where I wanted them. I did a lot of research on what others had done and basically merged a bunch of ideas into my own design. I used Microsoft Visio 2000 to put together a schematic for the buttons. You may download a copy in the Resources/Links section. The CP is constructed with 3/4" MDF and has black/grey speckled Formica glued to the top. The idea was to let the colors of the buttons stand out and not the surface itself. I mounted the CP with hinges in the front so I could open it up. This serves 3 purposed for me.... 1) I am able to do any maintenance on the CP. 2) I am able to operate the Glass Removal Mechanism (GRM). 3) I am able to use the volume knob for the speakers.

Joysticks
I decided to use Happ Ultimate Joysticks for this part of the project. I know that most people use Happ Super Joysticks, but I also heard positive feedback about the ultimates. I may switch these out at a later date if I can get my hands on a Super to check out. I decided on 2 8-ways and 1 4-way. This was a VERY GOOD move. I have noticed how difficult it is to play 4-way games on an 8-way joystick.

Trackball
I purchased a Happ 3" Trackball with a black ball. I may switch out the ball to a translucent red later on. I believe it will add some more color to the control panel. I'm not sure what other options for quality trackballs there are, but this seemed to be the best choice. This is interfaced through the trackball port on the Haggstrom KE-72T.

Spinner
I purchased an OSCAR Model 1 from Oscar Controls. This was a good solution in my opinion because of good feedback from others, the great help I got from Oscar email support, and the fact that it was USB. The USB interface allows me to use this seamlessly with my trackball which acts as a PS2 mouse. I had only 1 minor problem that was resolved in the mame.net message boards. I couldn't get it to work with normal MAME. It would work in MAME32 just fine. This was because I didn't have Legacy USB support enabled in my motherboard's BIOS. After I turned that on, everything worked dandy.

Buttons
I used Happ Horizontal Microswitch buttons on my control panel. They are cheap and they last a long time. I ordered about 5 extras just in case I wanted to add more later or one goes bad. I drilled them into holes created with a 1 1/8" paddle bit. No problems.

Construction
This went really well, and really bad. With the plans that we used there were 2 identical control panels cut out. One for practice and one for real. I used the practice one as a template. I printed out my Visio CP plans in pieces and then taped them to the surface of the "template" CP. I then drilled small holes for each button, joystick, trackball and spinner. Once I was happy with the location and size of all the holes I put the template CP on the "live" CP and c-clamped them together. I then drilled my holes through the template right into the "live" CP. This ensured precise locations and left very little room for error.

I also wanted the stick part of the joysticks to come up a little higher. Since they are mounted from the bottom this required me to route out the bottom of the CP so that the joysticks would sit up into the CP. Not a huge difference, but it helped.

...WHOOPS!...

When placing the printed out Visio diagrams on my template CP I decided the trackball needed to be moved towards the front about 1". So I moved it without considering that the space it would be occupying is the front piece of wood for the control panel. Of course, I didn't find this out until I had to place the top of the CP on the box. What I did was cut out a big notch (see photos) in the front of the control panel. I later covered this notch with a piece of black felt. This works out kind of nice because I have the black felt stapled to the wood and then velcro'ed at the top so I can still access the notch. So, no big deal...lesson learned.

For wiring information please go the the Interface section....