Need some major help with my coin door

[sandman235]

Hey guys, long time lurker/first time poster here.

I am building a mame cab for my friends son and I am all done except for the only part I am having trouble with: The Coin Door.

I was not aware of IPac when I was doing this build (This is my first one) so I went with the X-Arcade stick for the ease of USB plugin. He really, REALLY wants a coin door on his machine what works so when his friends come over they can all use tokens. The coin door I bought is a Coin Mechanisms Inc. I also had a spare Madcatz 360 USB controller laying around and read somewhere that I could connect the two and map the buttons to my FE to use as the coin buttons.

Well, as you can see by the pics I have no ideal what I am doing. I could really use some help as his birthday party is very soon. Thanks in advance.

[javeryh]

your soldering looks... off.  I think the points you need to solder to are the little circles on either side of the button (one is NO and the other would be ground).  I've never done something like that before though so hopefully someone else will chime in.

[sandman235]

No, my soldering looks like garbage 

That seems like it makes sense but yea hopefully someone can help. I have no clue what to do.

[Vigo]

No, my soldering looks like garbage  

.

  I have been there....yeah it is garbage, but the garbage soldering gets better with practice.  


I personally have not hacked a gamepad, so I might end up corrected here. Each of the circles you soldiered on is, as javeryh pointed out, two sides of the connection. When you push down on a gamepad button, it puts a conductive material over the both halves of the circle and completes the circuit.

You will need to solder on wire to either side of the connection on the circle. Then each of those wires to either lead on the microswitch. I can't tell if that gamepad has a common ground, so you may need to solder 2 wires for each button, so 4 wires total.


My advice is to first remove all solder from your gamepad...then try soldiering a wire to each of the "mickey mouse ears" on the circle. Be careful to cross over to the other half. (Edit: I mean remove the solder you added, not all solder).

[HaRuMaN]

Yeah, you've shorted both of those buttons you've soldered to.

[sandman235]

Thanks for the reply Vigo

So take one of the two main wires and spilt it between the two small circles on the big circles? How could I find out if it has a common ground? I can take more pics if needed. Like I said, me and wires do not go hand and hand  

Ugh why can't this be easy haha

[HaRuMaN]

Yes, it has a common ground.  Notice how one of the circles has a line going away from it, and the other one doesn't?  The one with the line is the signal, and the other is the ground.

[Vigo]

Yeah, it's never easy. Thinking optimistically, it's always educational. 

So take on of the two main wires and spilt it between the two small circles on the big circles?

I think you got it, but let me just clarify to make sure. So if you take 2 wires, lets just say green and purple for example, solder the green wire to the left mickey mouse ear of a circle, and the purple wire to the right ear of that same circle. Then take the green and purple wires and hook them up to the switch.

I drew on your pictures as a visual:

[sandman235]

Thanks guys that helps so much. I will give it a go tomorrow. Thanks again.

[compute]

It looks like the ground plane on that controller is pretty big.  If you want a bigger target, you could scrape some of the laminate (green stuff that makes the pcb green) around that test point to essentially make the pad larger.  Solderability will be different than on the gold pad, but it should work.  If you do this, make sure you ONLY do it with the GND side, since the signal line has a very thin trace.



After reading this I realize how much jargon is in this post.  If you get it, feel free to try it.  Otherwise just go with what these other guys said  

EDIT:  !#%$^ wife says I'm typing too loud.  Later I'll come back and elaborate.

[sandman235]

 Well I am finally getting around to trying it again and I think I F'ed up again and shorted the gold pieces. Could I use the start and select buttons as well? I need to finish this with in 4 hours  

[HaRuMaN]

Yes, you should be able to map any button...

[Donkbaca]

You can use any button.  I would suggest cleaning off that solder on those shorted buttons because if you plug in the pad, they will be constantly registering.

Soldering to those gold pads is a little tricky.  I would hold the soldering iron to the gold pieces and heat them up first, then tin your wires and then solder gold to tin. 

[sandman235]

You can use any button.  I would suggest cleaning off that solder on those shorted buttons because if you plug in the pad, they will be constantly registering.

Soldering to those gold pads is a little tricky.  I would hold the soldering iron to the gold pieces and heat them up first, then tin your wires and then solder gold to tin. 

So, from what I am gathering the current runs through the solder? So by saying tin my wires does that mean I can wrap the solder around the wire then just connect the solder to the PCB board? I always thought the wire had to be directly touching the board. Excuse my noobness.

[Vigo]

The wire doesn't need to directly touch. Solder is just metal that melts easily, and is conductive.

[HaRuMaN]

Start at step 6

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=64050.msg639896#msg639896

[sandman235]

Well I got it to recognize when the switch is pushed down but now I have another prob: When I push it down with my finger the controller inputs it but when a quarter goes through it does pick it up? Is the 25 cent piece not heavy enough lol?

[javeryh]

There should be a small metal bar that looks like a bent out of shape paperclip coming out of the microswitch that when you move back and forth will register as a button press.  The quarter needs to pass over this wire to register.  You may have to do some bending of that wire since your door looks a little old.

[eds1275]

My advice, had I caught this thread earlier, would have been to connect the coin mech to the coin buttons on the x-arcade. You could wire it up so that either would have worked!

Good luck getting the coin mech going - shouldn't be too hard to get quarters to register.