Astro City Control Panel Question

OK, so I bought an Astro City control panel from a member on this board, and I'm going to turn it into a very nice custom controller. The problem I have is that I can't figure out what to mount it in. I could use laminate, but it doesn't seem right to mount a Japanese control panel in wood. I have a Blaze Twin Shock that I could gut, but I hate to do that...

My question is...does anyone have any suggestions on what to use?

I was expecting you to use my old CP in a cab lol.
Maybe you could do some crazy woodwork and make a wood version of the Astro CP holder?
Still I reckon it would look pretty cool to have a candy CP in wood.

Well what I would do is build a box for it but route out the area for the panel to sit in. It will be a little hard if you're not adept with a router. But if you ARE good with one, it should be fairly easy. The only holes you need to make through the top panel are for the buttons and the area for the base of the joystick.

As an example see some of the stuff I do with my custom sticks. It's obviously not exactly what you would do but it's the basic concept:
http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a...urrent=949037d2.jpg&refPage=&imgAnch=imgAnch4

As you look at the joystick you will see the mounting plate sits below the surface of the stick. Also the stick base goes completely through the top panel. If you look at the following picture you will see that there is the routed area for the mounting plate and a hole for the base of the stick to fit through:
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a141/Paik4Life/Cap Hustler/6809c572.jpg

You could cut a complete hole around the area where the buttons go into the case. It can be as large or as small as you'd like. You can make it a rectangle or you could make it follow the outline of the buttons like you see here on the Namco joystick:
http://arkadesticks.com/boxunder.jpg

Ideally you want a plunge router for this for obvious reasons. It wouldn't be that are of a project. If you want to keep costs low use 3/4" MDF. Good luck.

~Paik

The idea I have is to use it similarly to the Blast City Superguns. They put the entire panel on the top of a metal box. Really, all I need is the under box part, and a metal or plastic panel on top. I want it to look and feel as much like a candy cab as possible. The problem is that I can't find a suitable box to cut up. I've also thought about mounting it on top of an altered Blaze Pro Shock.

Remember, I dion't have to remount the sticks and buttons, so I don't need to route out a panel.

When I refer to "top panel" I'm not talking about the CP, I'm talking about the top layer of the box. You wouldn't make any alterations to the CP. But if you didn't understand my instructions, they are probably too advanced for you do perform.

The basic gist is that if you are putting it on top of any box (wood or otherwise) you need to make a hole in the top so that the joysticks base and buttons can be accessed from the bottom. Obviously if there are no holes you can't put the CP on top. Hence from the inside you will see the buttons and stick kind of like this:

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a...urrent=47f99232.jpg&refPage=&imgAnch=imgAnch9

~Paik

Sounds like a Tech question to me...

J. Max said:

OK, so I bought an Astro City control panel from a member on this board, and I'm going to turn it into a very nice custom controller. The problem I have is that I can't figure out what to mount it in. I could use laminate, but it doesn't seem right to mount a Japanese control panel in wood. I have a Blaze Twin Shock that I could gut, but I hate to do that...

My question is...does anyone have any suggestions on what to use?

Click to expand...

The blaze blows anyway

I'd suggest tracking down a Virtua Stick Pro 2.

taitai said:

The blaze blows anyway

I'd suggest tracking down a Virtua Stick Pro 2.

Click to expand...

Heh. Working on it...

Paik4Life said:

When I refer to "top panel" I'm not talking about the CP, I'm talking about the top layer of the box. You wouldn't make any alterations to the CP. But if you didn't understand my instructions, they are probably too advanced for you do perform.

The basic gist is that if you are putting it on top of any box (wood or otherwise) you need to make a hole in the top so that the joysticks base and buttons can be accessed from the bottom. Obviously if there are no holes you can't put the CP on top. Hence from the inside you will see the buttons and stick kind of like this:

http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a...urrent=47f99232.jpg&refPage=&imgAnch=imgAnch9

~Paik

Click to expand...

No, I understood it...I just didn't read the whole post. Sorry about that...I thought you were talking about routing out a solid block of wood, which would be silly.

This is kind of what I did with my Ultrastick 360, except that I used an old control panel from some crappy gambling game.

I just got a Virtua Stick Pro : ) It will be here from Japan soon. Yay!

~Paik