Noobie builder looking for starter advice.

[gbp91]

I have been wanting to build my own arcade now for awhile I just havnt had the time. I now have a ton of free time on my hands and im ready to get started. I am just looking for some advice from the verteran builders. I am not even going to mess with building my own cabinet ( I was terrible in wood shop class in high school) so I am going to buy the ultimate arcade II cabinet from North East Custom Arcade.

I also want this to be a 4 player cabinet so I am also buying the 4 player control panel, just the box no buttons.

I have been doing a little research on all the parts I need to get it wired up and ready to go, but I feel as if I dont completley understand what all I need to get it wired up and ready to go, which brings me here. I am looking to see if anyone can put me in the right direction and give me a list of parts other then the empty cabinet/control. If anyone could make a list on here like type of wire/ which I-pac for a 4 player/ best monitor for this cabinet/ I am also wanting to use the led joysticks/buttons. Any help would be much appreciated, Thanks.

[Gatt]

What you need at a minimum...

IPac 4 (Or equivalent,  such as the GP-Wiz40)
LEDWiz (For the LED buttons)
Wiring and Wire stripper
LEDBlinky

Monitor is a dangerous question,  some people swear by CRT,  some consider LCD good enough.  If you want LCD,  get a TN panel,  like the ASUS VW246H.

For art,  I recommend Game On Grafix. 

I also strongly recommend CPWizard,  it's ability to show you exactly what buttons do is invalueable.

[gbp91]

Awesome thanks for the reply, I just have a couple more questions about wiring. Now I understand how to hook the buttons up just not the LED's, do I just hook up the led wires to the LED wiz then the led wiz to the usb? and does that mean they just stay lit everytime the cab is on? How would I wire them if I wanted to control when they light up?

[BobA]

You have to use a program such as LEDBlinky to control the LEDs as noted by Gatt

[gbp91]

sweet, thanks for the reply. I have one more noob question I am completely new to all of this. would anyone be able to tell me if I could use this for my wiring http://www.paradisearcadeshop.com/en/electrical/28-jamma-harness.html I have no idea really what jamma means I am using the 4 player control panel from north coast customs the control pannel has a total of 51 buttons/joysticks/spinner/trackball. That harness says it is for 2 players but I am wondering if I could just get 2 of the harness's to hook up the other 2 player controls.

[BobA]

You do not need a jamma harness unless you want to connect a jamma standard arcade board into your panel.  You are better off using wires and connectors to connnect to your interface.  This will be neater and you will not have alot of wires that you do not need.  Look at examples of control panel wiring in the forum and you will get an idea of how it is done.

[Rando]

I am not even going to mess with building my own cabinet ( I was terrible in wood shop class in high school) so I am going to buy the ultimate arcade II cabinet from North East Custom Arcade.

I used the UAII cab as well, and although it's great, you just need to be aware that's it's big.  Wider and deeper than traditional arcade cabs, so keep that in mind when doing your space planning.  It's also constructed in two major sections, so you'll want a second person to help at some point get the two sections together.  You also want to make sure that you have a good sized Monitor to use so you don't have a vast amount of empty bezel space.

Keyboard drawer can also be a little wonky.

I was in a similar position as you, still learning but have made progress, can checkout my thread here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=107741.msg1142843#msg1142843 and just scroll past the issues with my basement to get to the cab building and what I learned about wiring on the fly.

Luck & Welcome!

[gbp91]

So everything is finally at my house. Have my cabinet fully assembled and now i'm on the wiring (the part I was dreading). I have never really had to wire anything in my life, I did some research and understand how to wire the joysticks/buttons (I think), but I have LED buttons and joysticks and have no idea where to even start on wiring the LEDs. I have a PACled64 I purchased from ultramarc, but just dont understand how to wire it. I was wondering if anyone can give me a quick wiring 101 tutorial on wiring LED's and also my trackball I have no idea which wire goes where.

The trackball I have it Electric Ice trackball from GGG. Here are the pics of the stuff I have no idea what to do with.


http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/959/picture006rq.jpg  -- For the LED it isn't labled + or - not sure if that even matters when wiring it?

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/5482/picture005jz.jpg -- LED for the trackball, again I have no idea where to even connect it to.

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/4573/picture004fzz.jpg  -- This wire is connected to the Trackball.

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/9807/picture003kum.jpg -- I assume this is the X and Y axis for the trackball and it plugs into the interface that came with the trackball?

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/8943/picture002ga.jpg

[opt2not]

gbp91, your name confuses my firefox add-on for currency conversion. You are 142 CAD. Hahaha

[gbp91]

only worth 142 ouch  lol

[drventure]

Well, I can't help with the trackball, but as to the LED.

First, LED stands for Light emitting Diode, which you probably already knew. But...  A diode will only allow current through it in one direction. This means if you wire it up backward, it won't light at all (but as far as I know, you won't blow it out either, it just won't work).

For most cabinet type LEDs, a quick and easy check is to take a little button cell 3 v battery (like a CR2032) and connect it to the LED, if you connect it right, the LED will light.

Those little batteries don't put out enough current to blow the LED so you don't normally even need to bother with resistors when testing like this.

The PACLED64 is a constant current supply, which is great. It means that you dont' need to bother with resistors when connecting the LEDS.

Just make sure that that the NEGATIVE pin on the LED is connected to whicheven pin is applicable on the PACLED and that the positive LED pin is connected to one of the + pins on the pacled.

See here
http://www.ultimarc.com/pacled64.html

And finally, you can daisy chain the POSITIVE led pins together so you don't have to run a seperate wire from each to the PACLED.

You CANNOT daisychain the NEGATIVE pins though.

[gbp91]

Awesome, thanks for the reply Drventure, Im gonna go pickup a battery and test it out.

[Le Chuck]

only worth 142 ouch  lol

Global economy is in the shitter man, what do you expect?  Sheesh.