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Vewlix Sub Panels - 2022

FrancoB

FrancoB

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After looking and failing to buy some Vewlix sub panels I'm looking to get some made. I've been talking to Olly @ ArcadeArtShop and he's happy to work on them with me, we just need to decide what features/controls are needed. It's probably going to be subjective what's required but it would be nice if we could come up with a design or two that would cater for most peoples needs.

I'm pretty new to the Vewlix and using multiple consoles on them, especially PS3/PS4/XB1 one which I don't have so I could do with some input.

I'm thinking....

Volume control: Most solutions seem to use a A/B50K pot so a 7mm hole should suffice. Room on the panel for a ~30mm knob.

Headphone jack: Personal preference this one, I want a headphone jack which cuts the cab audio when the headphones are inserted. I've hacked something together and tested this using a 1/4" DPDT jack and it works well so far. I'm just waiting on the pots to arrive to wire up and test the remaining parts.

Rocker switches: I'm using Brook UFBs in mine so I'm thinking of using rocker switches to cut power to the Brooks when changing systems, a'la [this] video. I'm planning on using some nicer round blue/black/white switches for mine. Is there a better solution for this?

USB ports: I've seen 2x USB ports in some panels. Are these necessary? What do people use them for, additional controllers? I can't see why you would use them for cab management. Do people use these at all? I can't see myself using them personally but they could be added to a panel type if there was demand.

Buttons: Now, this is the big one. Most panels I have seen have SHARE | HOME | TOUCHPAD for both players. Are all of these strictly necessary for both players?

From my understanding:

SHARE - Looks to be Select/Back for most systems - and 'Share' for PS4
HOME - Home for all systems.
TOUCHPAD - From what I've read this has limited use for PS4 and is some times used for Pause/Back in a few games.

Personally, I would be happy with 'SHARE' and 'HOME' but I would be happy to add 'TOUCHPAD' too if its useful. Do they really need to be duplicated for both players though?

Any other thoughts on what you might want, or not want on a sub panel?

I've got the panel drawn up in NX, I'll add some pictures etc as development continues...
 
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A lot of arcade ports on PS4 map the touchpad button to start, and the options button goes to the pause menu, so I definitely recommend a button for touchpad.
 
@Kavas I'm completely out.
The language barrier is holding up the process.
 
Mirkvid said:
A lot of arcade ports on PS4 map the touchpad button to start, and the options button goes to the pause menu, so I definitely recommend a button for touchpad.
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Noted. This is just the kind of information I was looking for, thank you.

Kavas said:
Are the panels from @jermz1 no longer available? They are great!
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jermz1 said:
@Kavas I'm completely out.
The language barrier is holding up the process.
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They do look great. jermz1 was the first person I contacted when I started looking for some but unfortunately he's been out of stock for a while.
 
USB is useful if it can be connected to any system - keyboard and mouse on PC/Type X or for game specific console controllers. Handy if you are using a 1P panel too as if a friend visits its easy to plug in a separate stick?
 
I use the usb ports the same way the USB port on the Official SFV Champion Edition Vewlix CP is set up...to allow the use of fightsticks or controllers instead of the cabinet controls. My CP controls are wired up in parallel with undamned decoders to brook ufb boards and this seems to work pretty well.

Would be nice to have an actual PCB to connect both to (just using both sets of connections on the UFB right now), but that's a whole other subject.

On my existing aux panel I have PS (or Xbox or Steam Big picture), Start/Options, and Touchpad wired up for each player. With PS4 or PC I didn't see the need for the share/back/select button since most in-game navigation uses one of the action buttons for going back in menus.
 
borked said:
I use the usb ports the same way the USB port on the Official SFV Champion Edition Vewlix CP is set up...to allow the use of fightsticks or controllers instead of the cabinet controls. My CP controls are wired up in parallel with undamned decoders to brook ufb boards and this seems to work pretty well.
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Huh. I'm working on an aux panel to allow people to plug in their hitboxes or whatever into my Vewlixes and I was going to use a USB switcher, but that means pressing something to swap between them. It didn't occur to me there was a way to wire them up in parallel. Are you using the terminal block version of the UD decoders?
 
borked said:
I use the usb ports the same way the USB port on the Official SFV Champion Edition Vewlix CP is set up...to allow the use of fightsticks or controllers instead of the cabinet controls. My CP controls are wired up in parallel with undamned decoders to brook ufb boards and this seems to work pretty well.

Would be nice to have an actual PCB to connect both to (just using both sets of connections on the UFB right now), but that's a whole other subject.

On my existing aux panel I have PS (or Xbox or Steam Big picture), Start/Options, and Touchpad wired up for each player. With PS4 or PC I didn't see the need for the share/back/select button since most in-game navigation uses one of the action buttons for going back in menus.
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Thanks matey. Do you have a link to the parts? (I have the sub panel)
 
Very good info here! Can't wait to see progress.
 
Aurich said:
Huh. I'm working on an aux panel to allow people to plug in their hitboxes or whatever into my Vewlixes and I was going to use a USB switcher, but that means pressing something to swap between them. It didn't occur to me there was a way to wire them up in parallel. Are you using the terminal block version of the UD decoders?
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Yes, using the terminal block version of the UD decoder. Just connected terminal block to terminal block. Used the 20-pin on the UFB to connect my control panel harness to. Potato quality image of my little setup. You can kind of see the UD decoder down at the bottom there.

ud_ufb_wire.png
 
borked said:
Yes, using the terminal block version of the UD decoder. Just connected terminal block to terminal block. Used the 20-pin on the UFB to connect my control panel harness to. Potato quality image of my little setup. You can kind of see the UD decoder down at the bottom there.
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That's what I figured, sweet, smart thinking. I have my control panels wired up to the 20-pin too, so I could definitely do the terminal to terminal approach.

Hmm, Paradise closed, can't even check if stock for the terminal UD adapters is a thing or not. I only have the DB15 versions.

Thanks!
 
There’s a guy on Ali Express who sells them. He goes under the title Vintage Japanese Arcade Accessories. They look familiar. Be your own judge.
 
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I'd be up for a couple of these in the UK, would you consider a run that are for Cabinets that aren't console based, so the 3/4 buttons would either have n label or would be labelled something more appropriate for a MAME/Arcade PC setup ? Something like ESC / START / COIN 1 / COIN 2 ?
 
Sorry for the late reply guys, so much stuff going on at the moment....

Part of the delay has been deciding what controls I need on the panel and to do that I need to play games on various systems etc and try out functionality of the Brooks UFB and I've really struggled time wise.

Ziggy Cheetos Dust said:
And for what it’s worth @FrancoB, although not a with a sub panel, I fully loaded my Lindbergh panel (actually a replica Noir panel) to accommodate all the features of a Brook UFB. I also added a volume, headphone and USB ports. Have a look at my resto thread. There’s quite a lot of buttons to add if you go down that path, but it’s very cool to have I’ve found.

https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/sega-lindbergh-universal-cabinet-restoration.11656/
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Thanks for posting a link to this. There's some really nice work and detail in there, I really appreciate it. I like how you rear mounted the Neutrik USB ports, I think that looks really clean and much better than the fugly black ones that stick out. In fact, I've stolen your idea as you'll see below :thumbup:

anx10us said:
I'd be up for a couple of these in the UK, would you consider a run that are for Cabinets that aren't console based, so the 3/4 buttons would either have n label or would be labelled something more appropriate for a MAME/Arcade PC setup ? Something like ESC / START / COIN 1 / COIN 2 ?
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Controls required on the panel are subjective enough at this point and then labels for them only adds another layer. I'm going to sort the controls out first and then look at the labelling later. To be honest I quite like the versions I've seen without labels, especially if you're using multiple systems. We can take a look at this later though. One thing though, I don't think you'll need a start button/label as that will be on the CP?

This is where I am currently. Note, everything I have setup here is WIP and mostly to cater for my needs at this moment. Hopefully it might draw out some discussion on variations. I'm not expecting to make a 'one size fits' all panel as that's never going to happen. I can see me making some panels for myself and then one or two variations depending on what people want....if they want them at all.

i-3n6KPpC-XL.png


So, top left and top right are two sets of 12mm illuminated buttons, similar to [these].

One of them (for each player) would be the latching type and used for switching the Brook UFBs on and off when changing systems as you need to hold different CP buttons whilst power cycling them. Secondly, the PCs I'm running are external to the cabs and I have USB power set to always on. I don't want to keep the Brooks powered when not in use so this would allow me to switch them off also. The LED ring would indicate when they are on/off.

The other 12mm button for each player would be a momentary type for the Turbo key and LED from the Brook. This is something I only just tested last night. It works fairly well, the only thing to improve it would be if you could adjust the auto fire frequency. Still a worthy addition though. Once again the LED ring would indicate if any button has turbo applied.

All the white buttons are 24mm, I don't feel the need to use 30mm. The two in the center would be for P1 'Share' (Select/Back) and the other would be P1 'Home'. One of the main questions I have is: I see P2 'Share' and P2 'Home' on other panels. Do these really need additional buttons along with the P1 'Share' and 'Home'?

The single 24mm buttons on each side of the panel would then be the 'Touchpad' buttons. I'm not running PS4/5 myself but I would use these as credit buttons for MAME etc.

There are two rear mounted Neutrik USB ports (thanks @Ziggy Cheetos Dust !) in the middle of the panel. Ideally I would like these towards the outer edge but they would foul the mount I have my Brook UFBs on, so for my panel they would need to be somewhere around there.

Then there is the volume control and a 1/4" jack. I'm using a DPDT stereo jack along with a headphone amp, a B50K pot and a few other sockets etc:

i-PvPtnzs-XL.jpg


With no headphones inserted the voume pot controls the line level audio before it goes to the Taito amp and cab speakers. With the headphones inserted, the audio is cut to the cab speakers. The (sub panel volume pot controlled) line level audio then goes to the headphone amp and then to the audio jack/headphones. It works really well, it's just a bit more 'wirey' than I would like. If I get some more time in the future (lol) it would be nice to consolidate more of it onto a PCB or two.

Once again, it's not something I'm expecting others to want/need, it's just what I using on my panels.

Ignore the sub panel itself, I've just been 3D printing a few things whilst prototyping.

The only other thing to mention at this point is that I was planning on getting them made from ~5mm acrylic but for a couple of reasons I'm thinking of going with 2-3mm stainless. This will make it easier to mount some of the components and allow me to use flush clinch studs to keep the top as clean as possible.

I'm hoping I can get some more traction on these now I've got a few things sorted, otherwise it looks like they're slipping into 2023 :D

Any thoughts or feedback would be more than welcome.
 
Ziggy Cheetos Dust said:
Nice @FrancoB. Glad you liked the rear mounted USB. The model I used was this one:
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Thanks for the info. I assumed you had used a Neutrik one, [this] one. We can compare dimensions but I imagine they'll be the same as they're intended to fit patch panels. Luckily there was a step model on the Neutrik site so I grabbed that.

Ziggy Cheetos Dust said:
They will dictate the panel thickness anyway if you want to flush mount from the rear. I had to tap little threads in the panel to screw them in.
But even top mounted they look more premium than the plastic ones.
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Measuring the model, the height between the end face and the flange face is 3mm and so would suit a 3mm thick panel. This may be a little too thick. If a thinner panel was used then washers or a 3D printed spacer/gasket could be used to keep both parts flush. ~2mm may be a more suitable thickness. I'm thinking of using M3 self clinch studs to mount them as they'll be easier to install from a production point of view. For a 'one off' I would have tapped them like you have. :thumbup:
 
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