Control Panel
Parts Used
2 super 8 joysticks with micro switches and actuator
arms (Happs Controls)
12 Ultimate Pushbuttons with micro switches, 6 yellow 6 black (Happs Controls)
1 Player one and 1 Player 2 Start Buttons with micro switches (Happs Controls)
1 Pushbutton wrench, (optional) (Happs Controls)
Wire of different colours for each micro switch and black for ground,
or at least 2 different colours.
Soldering Iron and solder
Needle nose pliers, used for holding stuff when soldering
Drill and 28mm cutting bit.
MDF or other wood for control panel
Lexan sheeting, 3mm for front panel 6mm for overlay.
Various sized bolts and screws
ORIGINAL PANEL DISSASEMBLY
The control panel that came as part of the cabinet was in a bad way. It
had had something spilled on it, probably more than once, and you could
see where this liquid had formed a white crust on the rubber seals of
the joysticks. The buttons where crap-tastic illuminated pushbuttons,
minus the illumination. And they all had fire written on them, even the
start buttons.
The control panel is one of those flip down types, so it disassembles pretty easily. All I had to do was reach through from the back and unclip the latches and the whole thing flipped down. After that I started to take out the micro switches from the buttons, labeling each one as I took it out. Once all the wires were disconnected I took my screwdriver to it and removed the whole panel from the flip down assembly.
Well the buttons all had to go. Getting them out was the hardest part. Most of them came out easily but one of them was glued on. Glued so well that I had to break the damn control panel overlay in half to get it off. It was a crappy overlay with cigarette burns all over it anyway, and didn't cost that much to get a new bit of Lexan to replace it.
Once that had come off the full damage could be assessed. The whole wooden panel was stained where the liquid had been spilled on it, and the holes were all cut wrong and it was just crap, much like the rest of the cabinet was when I got it.
NEW PANEL AND OVERLAY
So it had to be replaced too. If I had the tools, (a router) I would have
done it myself. Unfortunately I did not, and a router was way out of my
budget so I had to get a carpenter to do it for me. And it cost me 25
quid. And that was supplying my own material! I'll admit the work was
quite fiddly, but 25 quid was a bit steep I thought. I mean all he did
was route a few edges and straighten some other edges and cut it at an
angle for me...
I made it so that the top of the joysticks sat flush with the top surface
of wood, rather than the bottom as they were before. This means that the
Lexan sat flush on the wood, and gave more length to the joystick handle
coz it only had to go through the Lexan rather than the wood as well.
So once I got it back I could get started on putting the buttonholes in. These didn't need routing, although it might have made it easier to put the locking nuts on the pushbuttons. I also didn't have a 28mm hole cutting bit at the time, so I left them last. I used a printout that I got from LuSiD's Arcade Flashback. It is an MS-Word drawing file at full size for Happs controls joysticks and pushbuttons, so it was just what I'd been looking for. Most control panels I'd seen had all 6 buttons in 2 rows of 3 just straight across horizontally. I didn't find this particularly ergonomic so I changed my design to have them going at a diagonal of about 45 degrees as shown in the document. It works quite well, but if I was to do it again I think I'd work out another design. For some reason the buttons don't seem close enough for me, but I couldn't get them any closer if I tried. I guess I'm just fussy.
Anyway, after that came time for the overlay. I
used Lexan rather than plexi as I heard it was easier to work with and
wasn't quite as prone to cracking. Which was true, but it does chip, if
your not careful, as my carpenter found out when he chipped off the corner
while cutting it at an angle for me. It didn't matter that much, sort
like a chipped nail in size, but it still pissed me off. I wanted everything
to be perfect, but perfection is hard to achieve, especially when you
have such high standards.
I think there are different levels of quality you can get for Lexan, and
I got a fairly average one by default just because I didn't know exactly
what I was after. The pieces I got were a bit scratched unfortunately,
but not enough to really detract. Just me being picky again.
To make the overlay look black I tried a few different things. I tried applying black vinyl plastic to the underside of the Lexan, but I'm really crap at things like that, and there were air bubbles everywhere and it looked rubbish, so I scrapped that idea. The next idea was to attach the vinyl to a bit of cardboard and then cut holes in that and wedge it between the wood and the Lexan. It looked pretty good, so I stuck with it. I wanted to get the vinyl professionally applied to the back of the Lexan, like I did with the front panel, but I was so short on cash I never got to do it. It would have made it look more uniform, but again it's really a minor thing.
My front panel was another bit of Lexan, but I had vinyl applied to the back of it before I cut any holes. I cut the holes exactly the same positions as the panel it was replacing, but I made the holes 28mm for the start buttons. I used some long bolts to secure it to the front, which connected to some metal tabs at the back with nuts.
I screwed the Lexan overlay to the control panel so that everything would be all lined up, and so I only had to drill once. I then taped on my printouts after ling them up properly.
"Measure twice, cut once". Better than screwing the whole thing up, anyway. But rather than just measuring you should stop and think about what you're doing. Get someone else to think about it too. That way you have less chance of ruining the whole thing by making a stupid mistake. And believe me, I've made many a stupid mistake by rushing through to get a finished product rather than stopping and thinking about what it was that I was trying to accomplish.
Anyway, all the holes were fine, nothing got cracked,
and all the buttons fitted great. Now I just had to drill the holes for
the joystick shaft. You should make these just smaller than the diameter
of the disc that covers it, so that you can move the joystick in all directions
and still not see the edge of the hole. This will give you perfect range
of motion for your stick.
So the holes were drilled then I just put the shafts together and put
them in too. All that was left was to re-attach it to the flip down assembly
and then solder everything together.
One of the micro switches exploded thanks to repeated bashing. (they aren't glued together for some dumbass reason)
SOLDERING
I probably should have used quick release clips to attach the wiring to
the micro switches, as it would have made things a shitload easier for
taking the wiring off, which I had to do later on, thanks to another rushed
mistake. But I didn't, coz I was broke and couldn't afford to, so I soldered
the wires straight on. This was where the labels I had put on earlier
came in handy. I also wrote on each micro switch what it was, e.g. p1,2
for player 1 button 2, and so on.
Buttons 1, 2 and 3 were soldered direct into the loom, but 4, 5 and 6
had to have wires attached to them and then attached to the screw terminals
on the j-Pac. For some reason button 4 for player 2 didn't register on
the j-Pac, I have yet to find out why. No matter as I just moved everything
up one and reprogrammed the button settings in mame.
When looking at the micro switch you will notice
3 tabs. They will be something like N.O (normally open), N.C (Normally
Closed) and the other one is your ground or earth. You want to attach
your wires to the ground and N.O unless you have specific reasons for
doing otherwise, but you ALWAYS need one attached to ground.
Normally Open just means that the switch will not do anything unless it
is pressed down, and Normally Closed means the switch is always on and
won't turn off unless you're holding it down.
J-PAC
So that was all the soldering done, now for more info on the J-Pac.
Make sure you attach it to the jamma connector the right way up, otherwise
you could fry it. My jamma connector has top written on the top, and had
a line where the gap in the board would be, so that made it easy, but
check out this
diagram if your having trouble.
If using DOS MAME then you can't use USB to connect
to your PC otherwise everything will appear very slow, or will not work
at all. USB is not fully supported in dos, and although the J-Pac acts
a bit like a keyboard it is not exactly the same as one. I think the only
reason you can use it at all is because your bios may think it’s
a USB keyboard, which is about the only USB thing you can use in dos without
special drivers. I don't know the exact reason, but just don't bother
trying to get it to work, as even Andy Warne says it's not meant to.
So use PS2 always for dos. It is way better as it is fully supported,
and has lightning fast keystrokes. But you'll have to plug your keyboard
into the back of the J-Pac, and you'll probably want a PS2 extension lead.
For more info on the J-Pac check out its site 
