Cab modifiers - weigh in with your ideas!

modessitt

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At work, we have a client who wants a 19-in-1 MultiWilliams. We are doing this in a restored (by me) Joust cabinet. The guy is a bit of a Defender/Stargate fanatic, and wants a control panel that will play those two games perfectly (2-way joystick). But he also wants to be able to play Joust, Robotron, SMB, Ghosts-n-Goblins, etc.

So, we've talked to him, explained the problems of the MW control panel from AS when paired with the 19-in-1 (which has no button mapping feature), and have decided to make TWO control panels. One will be a dedicated Stargate control panel with original 2-way Stargate joystick, new CPO, and buttons. This will allow him to play Defender/Stargate perfectly. The other control panel will be a Joust control panel with Joust CPO, but with 8-ways where the Joust 2-ways go (I'm not going to find pale yellow and pale blue round-top 8-ways so will most likely use black or red), with two yellow buttons on the left and two blue buttons on the right - which will allow him to play the other 17 games with no problems, including the 2-player simultaneous games like Joust and Mario Bros.

So, I'm going to wire the cabinet with two control panel plugs - one for the Stargate and one for the Joust - so that I can route controls properly and he won't have to go into the menu to switch between Upright 1 Joystick and Upright 2 Joysticks. What I'm looking for are ideas as to a quicker and easier way to swap the control panels than to remove the bolts, remove the control panel, swap, then but the bolts back in. Perhaps use some type of hook that the bottom part of the control panel sets into/onto, then the snaps are put down and it's on firm? I need it to look original from the outside.

Maybe I'll just reverse the bolts so that the nuts are on the control panel side of the cab, then put wingnuts on to make them easy to remove without a wrench/socket. It shouldn't be that difficult to undo two snaps, lower, unplug one connector, remove three (four?) wingnuts, remove, install, put on the wingnuts, connect the connector, raise, and latch. What- 5 minutes once you get the hang of it?

Any other brilliant ideas that would be fairly easy to do and not cost a lot?
 
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I had looked into something similar for a JAMMA cabinet so I could easily swap a two player CP with a 1 player. What I came up with was going to require some welding, so I ditched the idea. I was going to take some channel iron (the square kind) that was the same height as the hinges and wide enough to slide over the plywood in the front. Then mount the same kind of cam latches on the inside to latch the CP down to the cabinet. So it still looks like the hinge from the front (because it is), but it just unlatches and slides up and off.

Sorry for the really sucky picture, but all I have here at work is MSPaint.

attachment.php


Hopefully, it is good enough for you to see what I was going for.

To swap, you just reach through the coin door and unsnap the two latches, just like normal. Then open the panel and unsnap the two latches on the inside of the front panel and lift the control panel off.

To put the new one one, you just reverse it. Slide the control panel onto the front with the channel iron, snap the two inside latches to secure the CP. Rotate the CP up into position and snap the two latches inside the CP. Done.

Oh, and don't forget to unplug and plug the control wires.

ken
 

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Yeah, I thought about snaps on the hinge, too, but I'd have to think about it some more....
 
Maybe not what you are looking for, but this is how i'm handling a similar situation.

I'm creating a swappable panel that looks like this from the side.
sideviewofswaparea.png


Then i'm going to use at least 5 clips like these to hold it in.
hsrbp-94.jpg


They hold secure enough that they won't pull out unintentionally. Now the cool part. They are all metal. So when the control panel is in place they make good continuity. This allows me to hook wires from the controller to one side, and wires from the board to the underside of the control panel. So i will have to do to change controls, is pull the old one out, and swap the new one in, and the wires are hooked up automatically.
 
The other control panel will be a Joust control panel with Joust CPO, but with 8-ways where the Joust 2-ways go (I'm not going to find pale yellow and pale blue round-top 8-ways so will most likely use black or red)

Check out this place for some custom 8 way ball tops. He has blue and yellow, just not pale colors, but it would probably look better than red and black:

http://www.tornadoterrys.com/surplus.htm

As for swapping the panels, I think just a couple of wing nuts on the hinge and using the latches would work fine. It would be really slick if you could design a spring loaded connector that would allow all the all the connections to be made without having to phyically plug them in. Something similar to these things that some of the custom hot rod guys use to hide the wiring in car doors.
 
Maybe make it like the Nintendo control panels with a latch on the left and right sides under th cp. Unlatch those and the whole panel is removed in less than a minute. Then find a way for the hinge part of the Williams cp to rest in a slot so it doesn't have room to move/slide.
 
i've considered cutting the top off a williams control panel and support it so it can still latch hinged up like normal (but without the cp part, the top) and then have a defender style flat panel that mounted over that... easy to make flat panels, and easy to store (unclip the four clips holding the panel down, it would fit inside the cabinet thru that opening)

but you lose the rounded front corner of the panel which looks so good on williams cabs


now i'm considering a couple pins for the hinge mount (leave the hinge there for appearance, but not connected, then the bottom edge of the control panel has pins or slots that mate with the cabinet...

so when the two factory clips are undone, the panel doesn't hinge down but instead removed but pulling up and away, pulling the pins out of their "sleeves"... when slid in and clipped, the pins would stay rigid in all directions except pulling out at that angle, but the clips would prevent that


good luck
 
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