help with hacking some pedals

[zaktallica]

So I have a final lap cabinet and I was going to make it into a racing cab with two universal madcatz wheels..Can someone please tell me a easy way to hack the pedals soI can use the original mounted metal pedals instead of the crappy plastic ones? Thanks

[allroy1975]

I don't know anything about your game.  To start with though:

what is inside your arcade pedals?  is it a POT based thing?  is it just a button that gets mashed down (like..you're either going or not, not going half speed by holding the pedal half way down)  or is it optical?

I don't think there's a 3rd option.  after you know that, you need to know what's in your Mad Catz controllers. 

I just went through interfacing an optical interface (Steering Wheel) and a POT (pedal) in a dedicated Road Blasters I mamed.

maybe someone else wants to look up what you've got, or already knows.  but i'm pretty lazy.

[zaktallica]

im not sure I guess ill hafta take out the pedal and see im sure padcatz is pot based..I mean lets say there both pot based what would teh process be?

[allroy1975]

I did it by hacking the pots on an old xbox controller I had laying around.  Made it usb, loaded the drivers and did it up.  if both are pot's you can probably just wire up the arcade one to the madcatz controller. 
I might have just got lucky, but I think all I did is ran 2 wires from the outside (+5v and ground) connectors on the XBOX pot to the 2 outside on the Road Blasters pedal pot and then the middle (variable resistor or "signal" wire) from the xbox controller to the to the middle on the Road Blaster Pedal pot.

+5 is what my game pedal took according to my schematics:
http://www.crazykong.com/manuals/RoadBlasters.man.pdf (page 43 of the PDF)

+5 is easy to find in a USB device.  so is ground.

[zaktallica]

Well hacking aside ill decide if I wanna do later..Im having a hard time deciding how I want to mount this thing..Im going to post my set up and you guys let me know if you have any suggestions..Also if anyone has taken apart a madcatz wheel can you tell me if theirs a easy way to just disconnect the wheel without messing up to much stuff? Because I was thinking of just laying the wheel assembly behind the hole and attaching the wheel head/neck form the front.. Im also thinking of maybe trying to mount the madcatz shifter where the old shifter was..Please give me some ideas..

[bkenobi]

I would use as much of the original arcade hardware as you can.  It's designed to take MUCH more abuse than an XBox controller (metal vs plastic).  I would try to wire up the pots from the pedals to the XBox (as allroy said).  I'd attempt the same with the shifter if they are both 2 position (meaning one switch probably).

I don't know about the wheel though.  There are some examples here of how people mounted wheels in their cabs though.  Check the build threads to find some inspiration!

[zaktallica]

Im not sure if I can use the shifter because the madcatz one clicks up or down the goes back in the middle..The arcade one stays in place..Does anyone kn ow how to take teh damn wheel portion off the body?

[bkenobi]

That means the Madcatz shifter has 2 switches that are used to toggle the gear up and down in software.  The arcade stick is designed with 1 switch to indicate hi/lo gear.  The only way to make the Madcatz shifter work with that one would be to somehow modify it to work similar to the Madcatz unit OR to use a button instead (don't use the xbox shifter essentially).  You might be able to use both, but that would be a bit gaudy IMO.

There are other arcade shifters that work like your xbox unit and there's a chance they would bolt into your current CP.  Check HAPPS to see what's available (don't buy from them though).


Yeah, yeah!  So, you have this one:
http://www.happcontrols.com/driving/50801800.htm

and you want to use this one instead:
http://www.happcontrols.com/driving/50811000.htm

I'm not sure how MAME handles momentary versus constant button presses for shifting in different games.  That would be worth checking into before getting too much further.

[zaktallica]

I was actually just going to mount the madcatz shifter in that area..Either way if I cant get this thing apart without breaking it things are on hold

[bkenobi]

I understand what you were originally thinking, which is why I suggested searching existing projects.  I remember at least one cabinet that had a 4 player driving setup (along with 4 player joystick and a ton of buttons).  I thought it might help generate mounting concepts.

As for what I posted, I was just saying that you might consider using as much original arcade hardware as possible since it's designed to be robust.  PC and console components are designed to work, but not to take abuse.