Player 2 Control Panel!!

OK, a little more progress has been made. I've successfully completed the last two control panels so I am almost ready to wire everything up and test out my cabinet for real! Below are pictures of the completed player 2 control panel. The player 1 control panel details are coming soon!



The first picture shows the control panel in all its glory. The layout and design is about as simple as possible and should be able to play most vertical games without any problems. The joystick is from Ultimarc (www.ultimarc.com) and it is both a 4-way joystick (can only move up, down, left and right) and an 8-way joystick (can move up, down, left and right as well as on all of the diagonals). It is called a T-Stik Plus on their website (but may have been replaced by the new Mag-Stik Plus). Different games require different controls and this joystick accomodates most of them. The reason an 8-way won't work for game requiring a 4-way input (like Donkey Kong, for example) is because if the joystick is pressed diagonally the character game will not know which direction to move and will actually not move at all. This is extremely frustrating and it makes these games virtually unplayable. The T-Stik Plus is switchable between 4-way and 8-way mode by pulling up on the joystick and twisting it until it locks into place. What actually happens underneath the control panel is that a restrictor plate is rotated preventing (or allowing) the joystick from moving on the diagonals. It's a great design and it means I won't have to install two different joysticks on each control panel to accomodate different games.



The next picture shows the underneath of the contol panel. It is not wired up yet but the connectors are all in place on the microswitches. I bought a pack of 100 from Home Depot for about $6. They make connecting the wires really easy. All you have to do is snap them in place, insert the stripped end of the wire and crimp down on the end of the connector and it will make a very tight connection.



This last shot just shows the control panel in place (but not yet installed). Everything is coming together nicely. I hope to post about the Player 1 control panel soon - it is virtually identical except I installed a spinner in between the buttons and joystick and it was a bit tricky to do.