AWE YEAH!
I love me some retro.
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Ultimarc parts and a Mister FPGA?!- that is a top shelf setup! Looks like you’ve done your homework. Post your progress if you remember to!
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Valkyrie needs food, badly!
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Just found my Holiday 2023 project!
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Oh yeah, 4 sticks… AND cupholders! Valkyrie and wizard have the hook up!
I’m envious of the Tron sub-layout. If I made a full size standup I’d want to have modular control panels with storage underneath for a few different layouts. Like a standard USA streetfighter, a trackball with LH and RH buttons, a tron layout with analog and spinner, a 4-stick with sparse buttons, a steering wheel spinner with 2speed stick shifter (with pedals down below). Make them all store away in a rack below the coin slot area, and use a quick release mount on top with a single tool-less fastener/latch, and a universal plug (parallel port or similar with lots of pins). All of this would be to have the cake and eat it too, without ending up like:
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Finding a compromise layout is tricky.
I am looking at doing a bartop machine next, but I think I need at least 2 setups.
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4 player basic setup. Players 1 and 2 get standard CAPCOM 6 button setup, players 3 and 4 (on the edges) get maybe a 3 button setup. Maybe center mount trackball. Usage scenario: most arcade classic games, plus Gauntlet, Simpsons, etc 4 player games.
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Flight yoke/steering wheel. I really want the Thunderstick GRS Flight Yoke because the Star Wars arcade games ate an awful lot of my quarters in their day, but I also will want gas and brake pedals (might settle for yoke Y axis for a bartop machine, but it would be a compromise.) And a gear shift. Another favourite game being Spy Hunter, it would be nice to be able to play that one again. Actually when I think on it more, the flight yoke might just end up being a separate machine, as those are all single player games by nature, so less need to be portable.
The game left out in the cold is Karate Champ, which needs 2 joysticks per player, no buttons (except player start). This is also most fun pvp…
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Heh, somethingawful.com. Man, brings back memories! Haven’t checked that site out in a couple decades.
I have a fold down section for my spinner steering wheels. It’s folds to stow under the main panel.
That’s the problem with arcades there’s is way to many that are so much fun. I say make something that can play them all.
Transformer arcade haha wouldn’t be hard like you said.
Just have them either unplug or stow. There is a huge amount of space in a cab.
Take a look at this article for some inspiration for modular, swappable controls. Doc's Modular MAME Concept - modular control panels
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That is cool thanks for sharing.
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Interesting link. Does make sense having it a bit modular. I opted to chuck everything on the one control panel. But even then am missing some sexy stuff.
Yeah I’d love to have a steering wheel in the mix. But I think I am maxed out on space used so will be a next time haha. 
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I punted on building a cabinet at home and glued up one of these instead.
You can put a monitor on the shelf above the wheel, but I’m just going to use it on the floor in front of our big family room tv. Already have retropie on a 3B+.
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hehe looks super cool! 
Im assuming the pipes dont make all plastic rubbing noises when you are on it? Awesome man
So as an update on the cabinet I have been slowing cutting out sections of the cabinet inbetween the gaps of life that allow for it to happen. I’m roughly half way through the cuts now with the main controller top the next on the list to cut - probably a few hours in the one cut.
In the meantime I have been finalising the artwork and after a big push last night I feel like I am getting closer to where I want to be.
For the front section (where your feet are), Im thinking I’ll go through and have a mosaic of comic covers and then black and white them so they are subtle, but cool. Yet to work on this however. Ineed to get moving though as I’ll need the art for the controller board section on in order to start doing electronics…
And some shots applied onto Fusion 360. Non-printed areas will be painted a Satin Black.
For printing, I have decided on an Aussie supplier Noodle Shirt (http://www.noodleshirt.com/). Carson, the owner, has been extremely responsive and helpful with his experience with arcade rebuilds etc - so glad to have him in my Roledex. 
… roll-out.
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It’s going to be so nice man, definitely jelly over here.
I like the black and white idea. I wonder if you could convert the comic book converse to like art like a dxf, then if you had some acrylic you could paint it satin black and engrave the line art in and either edge light it or back led light.
Just brain seeding
I had all these great plans for my control board added end glow fiber optics and I resin printed a whole bunch of video game figurines made these clips for the led strip that I uv cured in place spent hours setting it up. And poured the resin and added way too much metal flake so in the end all my light ideas got hidden and it was a epic fail :(.
Well maybe I can use my Cnc and face the panel to uncover the resin.
Are you open to silly ideas like this ? Or am I just being a bother?
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Impressive!
Tom,
I want to make one of these “cockpit” setups. Do you have plans or some basic drawings you can share?
I fly a Soaring Simulator, Condor, that would be wonderful if I could better replicate a real cockpit.
Mike
I have a feeling that you might know a thing or two about an instrument panel. 
For a driving game rig I did up several years ago, i grabbed a spare driver’s seat from a parts car, and then rigged the steering wheel and pedals to be in the right place. Now with a CNC I could probably do much better.
Thst PVC pipe rig looks familiar, it has been around for a while. For a glider, I would probably want to emulate the typical narrow cockpit, and low seat geometry. (Last time I was in a glider, I think was 1982, so I’m probably out of date. I remember the turn and bank coordinator was a piece of red yarn taped to the front of the canopy.) Airspeed, altitude, and VSI on the panel.
You know more about the cockpit physical configuration than we do… I’d emulate that, with room for control emulation.
For my rig, I used actual car parts where I could. The seat and shifter were spare parts. I’d have swapped a real steering wheel if I could. It might work to take drawings of actual glider cockpits (I’m sure home built plans exist) and single out details from the seating area. The CNC makes some pretty cool things possible there.
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Dan,
You’re right, I think I remember a sim cockpit that used a tabbed Plywood structure, that could be easily broken down for storage. I’ll have to go looking for it.
Mike
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