Building gearshift box, need advice (mainly wiring but feel free to share other)

[Billkwando]

Hello!

I am a longtime diehard Daytona USA fan who's never had room for a driving cabinet (though I do have a Neo Geo cab) so I've had to settle for console/emu versions with a wheel and racing seat, but I've always been missing that 4 speed shifter feel.

Well, I recently managed to pick up a Happ 4-speed shifter cheap on ebay (the red numbered kind rather than a daytona) and I wanted to build a box for it (suggestions also welcome) but I want to wire it up in a "universal" way, so that it's a hardwired USB PC controller, but also has external jacks for connecting to the console controllers that have been button hacked and external jacks added  (Like this: http://www.briandorey.com/post/External-Button-Connections.aspx )

I've done this sort of thing before, having built my own Virtual On twin stick controller last year: http://www.oratan.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=502

What I'm worried about, and I admit I may not be fully thinking this through cos it's hard for me to wrap my head around, is the ground wires. I'm used to common ground and just jumpering all the switches together like an arcade joystick, but from what I can see with the 360 wheel, this is not how it would work.....I want to have sort of like a phono jack for each gear so I can mix things around if needed and not have a set configuration...but I'm wondering how to wire it to maximize compatibility, including the hacking on of a USB, (preferably without expensive 3rd party specialty items) and without one shorting the other out due to ill planned jumpers.

Thoughts? Does this make any sense?

Thanks!!!


Edit: Spoke to my bud at the hardware store at lunch and am having him cut wood so it's 13" long (up & down, laying on the floor, with the shifter in the middle) 8 inches across where the shifter is (left to right) and slightly over 8 inches tall (accounting for the pieces on the top and bottom of the 2 side slats, and it looks like it's gonna be pine... Let's hope that's not too narrow, short, or wobbly.

[HaRuMaN]

Quoting yourself for any particular reason? 

[Billkwando]

Quoting yourself for any particular reason?  

No idea how that happened, trying to delete. Sorry!

Edit: Thanks to whoever fixed!

Edit 2: dig the Lain graphic. 

[HaRuMaN]

Done 

[Billkwando]

Is there a way to wire a controller to be both common ground and, ahem...."uncommon ground"? What's the 3rd contact on a Cherry switch do?

Just trying to think of a way I can make this thing plug & play without having to open it up again (unless a switch goes bad).

I was thinking about wiring a + and a - to each switch, then hooking them to phono jacks via barrier strip/terminal block, but then having a 5th phono jack that was just a ground....so for non-common ground controllers I'd only wire the other end (the controller) to connect to my +'s and then have the final wire for ground......but...

Doesn't this mean that my common ground jumpering would instantly short out my circuit for controllers that each button uses its own ground?

I'm trying to think a way of building some kind of switch into the works.

Also, wouldn't I need a killswitch for the controller for navigating menus ingame, otherwise it would always think I was holding a button down? Those Happ sticks don't do neutral. LOL




Edit: Got my box built this weekend for the most part, and I just have to figure out what I'm gonna do for a jackplate, then prepare for final assembly. After that I'm gonna round off all the corners and edges and put that carpet they use on subwoofers on it. I also have some black corner protectors I salvaged from an old bass amp I'm prolly gonna slap on there too to make it look extra fancy. And maybe a handle LOL (prolly not). Those shifter boltholes are awfully close to the edges of the cavity....trying to think of a way to reinforce them.

[kahlid74]

Is there a way to wire a controller to be both common ground and, ahem...."uncommon ground"? What's the 3rd contact on a Cherry switch do?

Just trying to think of a way I can make this thing plug & play without having to open it up again (unless a switch goes bad).

I was thinking about wiring a + and a - to each switch, then hooking them to phono jacks via barrier strip/terminal block, but then having a 5th phono jack that was just a ground....so for non-common ground controllers I'd only wire the other end (the controller) to connect to my +'s and then have the final wire for ground......but...

Doesn't this mean that my common ground jumpering would instantly short out my circuit for controllers that each button uses it's own ground?

I'm trying to think a way of building some kind of switch into the works.

Also, wouldn't I need a killswitch for the controller for navigating menus ingame, otherwise it would always think I was holding a button down? Those Happ sticks don't do neutral. LOL




Edit: Got my box built this weekend for the most part, and I just have to figure out what I'm gonna do for a jackplate, then prepare for final assembly. After that I'm gonna round off all the corners and edges and put that carpet they use on subwoofers on it. I also have some black corner protectors I salvaged from an old bass amp I'm prolly gonna slap on there too to make it look extra fancy. And maybe a handle LOL (prolly not). Those shifter boltholes are awfully close to the edges of the cavity....trying to think of a way to reinforce them.

The cherry switches typically have three connections for two different options.  The one way it works as normal arcade buttons by connecting the circuit when you press it.  The other way it works where the circuit is always connected and when you press the button you break the circuit.  You should be able to see on the side of the cherry switch where one contact has a connected line and the other contact as what looks like a draw bridge falling into the moat.

As far as common ground it depends on what you're doing.  When we talk controls lets say we've got a button, and whatever is controlling that buttons contact has to also have it's ground.  So if you had a cherry switch and you grounded it into the PC instead of the controller, the controller would have no way of knowing when the button was actually pressed.  That's my limited understanding of it. 

[Billkwando]

Thanks for the clarification on the Cherry switch. That's what I thought it did.

[Billkwando]

Unless somebody else has a better idea, I'm prolly going to have to wire each of the 4 cherry switches to a speaker terminal plate like this:

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=260-308

That way each cherry switch contact will have its own terminal, and if I wanna do common ground, I'll just wire up a jumper wire, tin all 4 of the ends, and stick one in each of the black terminals, and my 4 button wires in the 4 red ones. It's gonna look a little bit ghetto as hell, but I don't know what else to do.

Anybody?

Edit: A friend much more talented than I suggested wiring each contact to a DB-15, then I could do any jumpering necessary on the plug that I'll be plugging into it.

[Billkwando]

So I finished this but forgot to update the thread.   

I ended up doing the DB15 and just making pins 1-4 gears 1-4, and making the pins directly below the grounds for each (the carpet is a little dusty in the pics).



I ran each of the switches to a terminal block, and then ran 2 wires from each....one to the DB15, and jumpered one to the 1-4 buttons of an old Gravis pad. I screwed the pad to the lid of the box, and secured my wires with hot glue, for extra security.

You can see where it runs from the terminal block to my DB15:







and I covered the box with Polymat speaker carpet:


If anybody needs a speaker carpet application tutorial, I found this one both helpful and amusing:

If anybody's interested in making something similar, I made a video that has a few more details about it:

 

I totally forgot about the corner pieces I was thinking of adding. I'll have to take a look at those and see how that might work.

Oh an for the neutral issue, on my shifter, if I position the stick right in the center between 1st & 2nd or 3rd and 4th, the stick will stay in neutral on its own...though my shifter being a used one could be a factor in that. It helps when setting up buttons in a game.

The shifter works amazing for drifting in Daytona on M2, which is what I made it for....though it would be nice if there were some other 4 speed games outside of M2.

[isamu]

Nice one bro! Good luck with the project. 

[Billkwando]

Nice one bro! Good luck with the project. 

Yeah, I just found and downloaded the Supermodel 0.3 beta with the widescreen hack, plus a front end. I'm not able to get my driving rig out at the moment, so I'm hoping it will accept input from 2 different usb controllers (my wheel and my stick).

I'd never seen Daytona 2 in my life before today. I hope it plays on my setup as well as it looks! I assumed it's another 4 gear game? Man, I hope so.

[isamu]

I'd never seen Daytona 2 in my life before today.

WHAT?!





I'd love to have those virgin eyes from 1998 when I first gazed upon the beauty that is Daytona 2.

[Howard_Casto]

Calm down chief, it ain't that great.  Don't get me wrong Daytona 2 is pretty awesome, but it isn't like he's never seen pacman before, or Mortal Kombat II. 

[isamu]

Calm down chief, it ain't that great.  Don't get me wrong Daytona 2 is pretty awesome, but it isn't like he's never seen pacman before, or Mortal Kombat II. 

What is this..."Pac-man" you speak of?