Control Top

The control top is one of the most important pieces of the system. If your control top isn't done properly it will drive you nuts. If you have serious Street Fighter friends like I do, a half assed sheng-long uppercut isn't good enough. Here's how I did it.

First off I learned that Happ Controls is one of the best and professional arcade shopping mall around. I got hooked up with them and was not disappointed. These guys delivered promptly and didn't mess up my order, much...
Once I got all the parts in the mail I went and got the MDF board that was cut out from the plans and started to put it together.

Base - The base was one of the more complicated carpentry jobs I had to deal with but I did it without any real problems. It's basically a box without the top. Yet. It has 8 sides with two for the back closest to the monitor. I left an inch or two of space so that the wires could exit and go down to the computer. I used wood glue on every connecting side and clamped them down for at least one hour. Since I only have three large clamps I had to do it all over time. But you can go ahead and start on the cop of the control top seeing as there is a bunch of work there in itself.
Don't worry about rough edges at this point, you can sand all that down later. After the glue is snug, use some little L brackets to screw into the wood for extra support. Sand it all down nice and smooth until you are happy with the end result. I don't have a miter saw so I had to use my skill saw to cut the angles in the wood. I did ok but I ended up sanding more than I should have.
Now paint the sucker.

Top - The top will take more time to create than any other part of the arcade. Well, the computer configuration can take years but that's in another area. The reason why it takes so long is because the top takes a ton of abuse and has to look and feel good while taking a beating. You also have to match up the plexi, graphic print and the wood holes together seamlessly.
The first thing to do after you have cut it out is map out your holes. Buttons, joysticks and trackball if any will all have to be planned out ahead of time so the graphics can match the holes. Also when cutting the plexi to match the shape of the wood use a router with a flush trim bit so you can use the wood as a guide. A router puts plexi perfectly without spidering or cracks.

Now heed my warning! Do not make the graphics too specific on where the controls are to go. The larger the control top the harder it is to line up the holes in the plexi and the wood to the graphics. If you look at mine the areas where the controls are to be placed is quite forgiving. Believe me, getting it perfect is almost impossible. My trackball hole is 1/4" off from the graphic and it bugs me always.

Holes - When I was lucky this time around because I already had a mask for my control top. A big slab of wood with all the holes already in it. So what I did was place it overtop of the new control top and the plexi and clamped it all together. Now i used a drill press for the first control top but this time around I just tried a hand drill and it worked awesome. Sure it takes some time to get through plexi, but with the mask sandwiching it it had no place to go. If you have no experience cutting plexiglas be careful. Do some practice runs first to get the hang of it. If you press too hard it will crack and that shit's expensive!

Buttons - I have six buttons per player and five admin buttons at the top. These include SELECT - EXIT - PAUSE - VOLUME - and SHUTDOWN. After I made it and had it printed I would have liked to renamed Shutdown to Power instead. I routed the power switch from the front of the PC to this button and when you hit it it goes into standby mode. This essentially turns off the computer but keeps the last state you were in. So if you do it right, you never have to see windows again! Yah right....

All the buttons are wired to a little device called the IPAC from Ultimarc. It is really just takes the button presses them and makes them into a keyboard stroke. So really it's just a keyboard interrupt. Very cool.

LED's - Each button is lit by an individual LED and follows a number of different patterns that is very pleasing to the eyeball. This is done with a little gizmo called the LEDWiz from Groovy Game Gear and really adds to the bling of the whole thing. I also connected the coin door lights and the beer holders so there is blinking madness! The admin buttons and beer lights are RGB LED's and the rest are blue and white singles.

Track Ball - The worst part of putting in the trackball is cutting the shape in the wood. I also had to sink in part of the trackball so that there is some part of the wood holding it down. It's hard to explain but you will get it once you have the trackball in your hand. It has a very strange shape. I then grabbed a long metal brace and bent it to the shape of the bottom and screwed it into the wood.

Plexi Glass - The glass has to be the exact dimensions and shape as the wood otherwise your T-molding will not match properly. So to be sure I did this right I clamped the hell out of the two to make sure there would be no shifting when I was making the cuts. Oh yah, keep that protective covering on the glass until everything is done because it will get dirty and scratched. Don't worry, your friends will scratch it for you. I took a router and a flush bit, flipped the top upside down and used the wood as a guide. Once I got the graphic for the control top I made rough cuts to the vinyl and then re clamped it sandwiched between the wood and the glass and took an x-acto knife to the vinyl until I was happy.

Wisdom - Always, always pre drill screw holes. I forgot once and had the wood push through and make a "Wood Zit" that I had to pick off and touch up with paint. Wood Zits will make you mad.