Making final choices for my cabinet, now just one last question to ask

[ArcadeSeeker962]

I decided that I'm going to be using an IL Euro Stick and IL Convex pushbuttons for my bartop arcade cabinet. My cabinet's going to be exclusive to fighting games(yes, the cabinet's going to have a major turn-around in what it's going to be like). Which control interface would work best with the IL Euro Stick and IL Convex push buttons, the Mini-Pac or the Lono 2?

[PL1]

I decided that I'm going to be using an IL Euro Stick and IL Convex pushbuttons for my bartop arcade cabinet. My cabinet's going to be exclusive to fighting games(yes, the cabinet's going to have a major turn-around in what it's going to be like). Which control interface would work best with the IL Euro Stick and IL Convex push buttons, the Mini-Pac or the Lono 2?

Just to clarify, you're looking at something like the following controls list, right?
- 2 joysticks
- 12 player buttons (6 per player)
- ?#? admin buttons
- No trackball, no spinner, nothing else

Almost any encoder out there will handle that--UHID/minipac/ipac/keywiz/gpwiz/2P Xin-Mo/Vigo's ZD encoder/Degenetron's AVR encoder. 

The questions to ask are:
1. Do I want/need a pre-made wiring harness?  UHID*/minipac*/keywiz*/gpwiz*/2P Xin-Mo/Vigo's ZD encoder (*=harness optional)

2.  What front end and emulators do you want to use, and do they require keyboard type inputs? (Joy2Key software can bypass this potential stumbling block)
keyboard type=UHID/minipac/ipac/keywiz/Degenetron's AVR encoder**
joystick type=gpwiz/2P Xin-Mo/Vigo's ZD encoder
(**It's not a problem if you choose the right front end software.  See this post for potential concerns with his brand new 2P-6Btn map that's not quite finalized yet.)

3. How much do I want to spend? -- Some are very versatile, but also very expensive compared to Vigo's and Degenetron's encoders.


Scott

Edit: Fixed the link to reflect Vigo's Rematch (2 player) encoder.

[ArcadeSeeker962]

Yeah, I'll be using just two joysticks, 12 pushbuttons and 6 admin buttons. As for what emulators I'll be using, I'll be using the official MAME emulator and the MaLa front end.

1). I do need a Mini-Pac, due to the fact that I'm not very skilled yet with cutting and crimping wires.
2). Both MAME and MaLa require keyboard type inputs.
3). I don't mind how much I spend, any price is fine as as long as it's the wiring harness type and works like it's supposed to.

[PL1]

Sounds like the "Mini-PAC Standard. With harness" is exactly right for this project.
Enjoy the build and let us know how it turns goes.


Scott

[ArcadeSeeker962]

Thank you very much, PL1. I'll post pictures in its development process. I'm not sure when the project will begin, but it's all starting to come together now. I'm going to talk to my father again today about the project, so I'll be putting together all the pieces to my plan. 

[armi0024]

I would have suggested the Lono but I'm a little biased

The Lono comes with color coded premade harnesses and is very easy to install.  Plus you can get the IL products and Lono in one package

[DeLuSioNal29]

I would have suggested the Lono but I'm a little biased

The Lono comes with color coded premade harnesses and is very easy to install.  Plus you can get the IL products and Lono in one package

Is it programmable?

[Nephasth]

I would have suggested the Lono but I'm a little biased

The Lono comes with color coded premade harnesses and is very easy to install.  Plus you can get the IL products and Lono in one package

Is it programmable?

It's a gamepad device (well 4 gamepads, 1 board), not a keyboard encoder. What would you need to program? You've got up, down, left, right, and buttons 1-14 for each of the 4 headers (and each header has a shift function for 13 more shifted inputs per header). 72 physical inputs and 52 more shifted inputs... 124 inputs on one board!

[armi0024]

No but it has 4 different ways the board can function depending on whether you want shift functions.

We went back and forth on making these programmable but Mame and the other emulators have the capability of doing all these settings so it didn't make sense to duplicate the effort.