They all need a trackball to play! Guess what I found on eBay?
Authentic arcade trackballs usually go for around US$40-80 (plus shipping) on eBay, but I waited and watched enough auctions to find TWO 3″ Imperial trackballs for US$25 shipped! They even came with a free “Golden Tee 3D Golf” marquee. One had a couple of cracks in the housing, but Super Glue fixed them very nicely.
These are going to work very well with my Hydrogen controller. I found a compatible connector at Radio Shack, so I won’t have to solder the trackball directly to the controller.
Since I plan to use 3/4″ Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) to build my cabinet, including the control panel, the thickness becomes a problem. I found this post where the author solves this same problem with the exact same trackball (about half-way down). His whole project is very innovative!.
Here’s the plan for my control panel:
So, it should look something like this:
And, the cabinet mock-up (e-mail me and I’ll send full plans in .jpg or MS Visio format if you like: Doc@[this domain without the “blog.”):
