Mini Pac or IPAC 2??

[badgerjohn]

Hi all,

Still lots of noob questions, sorry! Looking to purchase my control interface and not sure whether to get an IPAC 2 or a Mini Pac, whats the pro's and cons for each?

I'm looking to run a 2 player control panel with 6 action buttons each

Might be able to answer another question too... Do you need (or often use as common practice) a Coin 1 and a Coin 2 button? Or can you just have a "Coin" button? Is this regulated in different ROMs?

Thanks in advance!

[BobA]

Ipac2 is easier to wire if you are doing your own wiring.   If you want your wires done for you the minipac offers a premade harness.   The wiring for the minipac is quite difficult to do yourself.  The minipac offers trackball and spinner interfaces built in.   

Overall if you just want sticks and buttons the ipac2 is the better choice.

[zerojosh]

I'm a super-noob and I had no problem setting up my mini-pac and I could not be more pleased with it!  I highly recommend the harness and just zip-tie all the spares.

[BobA]

My comment was meant to say that the harness is ok if you want to buy one but it is difficult to split a hard drive cable and build your own harness if you do not choose to buy it premade.

[smalltownguy]

My comment was meant to say that the harness is ok if you want to buy one but it is difficult to split a hard drive cable and build your own harness if you do not choose to buy it premade.

One caveat about the wiring harness though: it really does create a mess under your CP. With your own wiring, sure it's more work, but all of your wire runs will be the proper length without any slack, etc.

If you're planning on assembling the panel and never opening it up again to make changes or service it, then the harness will save you time. But since I've had my CP apart several times to tinker with it, the rats next gets to be a real headache. There's just nowhere to go with all the extra wire.

[Ginsu Victim]

I wish I'd gone with an Ipac2 instead of the minipac. I have a mess under my CP, just like smalltownguy said.

[badgerjohn]

Thanks, I think iPac 2 is the way to go then as it's not going to be me doing the wiring!

Any joy on my other question re Coin buttons?
 

[smalltownguy]

If your question speaks to whether or not MAME depends on some games seeing coin input in either coin1 or coin2, the answer is yes, but only for a few games. I can't remember off the top of my head, but there are a few games that require you to put a coin in the proper slot to play that player (think: Turtles or Xmen, for example) But I think you can get around this by remapping all coin inputs to the same button. Not sure if that would cause any issues or not.

For my setup, since my start buttons are genuine LED Atari cone buttons, I have separate inputs because for some games (I THINK, anyway) my Minipac flashes the correct LED's for atari games depending on how many credits are inserted -- player one start flashes when coin 1 is inserted, and player 2 start flashes when coin 2 is inserted.

For most Atari games, it just flashes player 1 start for 1 credit, and both players 1 and 2 for two or more credits.

The vast majority of games should work just fine with only one coin input though. If you're pressed for space, you could always 'shift' your coin button, and then you could have coin2 ability.

[Ginsu Victim]

I can't remember off the top of my head, but there are a few games that require you to put a coin in the proper slot to play that player (think: Turtles or Xmen, for example) But I think you can get around this by remapping all coin inputs to the same button. Not sure if that would cause any issues or not.

All of the 4-6 player Konami games have two player variant boards. I prefer those as they allow you to select your character (still have individual coin inputs, though).

[Ophelius]

But I think you can get around this by remapping all coin inputs to the same button. Not sure if that would cause any issues or not.

That would give you n credits by pressing it, where n is the amount of coin inputs. It would be like someone inserting 1 coin in each slot every time you press it. So this might not be a good idea.