Power button, where to place

[opcode]

I just finished a homebuilt cabinet and have everything up and going.  I'm trying to decide where to place the power button for the cabinet, its a standard upright cabinet, w/ a keyboard drawer under the control panel.  

I'm thinking it would be easier to place at the back of the cabinet, while somewhere on the front might be more convenient.  Where have other people placed switches on homebuilt cabinets?  I should mention the button is the power switch for the computer which when powered up kicks on a relay for the other stuff in the cabinet.

[Sasquatch!]

Top of the cabinet using a controlpanel pushbutton seems to be the most popular choice.

See here:
http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=7624;prev_next=prev

[1UP]

Top of the cabinet using a controlpanel pushbutton seems to be the most popular choice.

See here:
http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=7624;prev_next=prev

This is the best place IMO.  Out of sight, yet close and convenient.  I do suggest using a heavier spring in the pushbutton if possible, as I had my cab go down twice accidentally (one time I barely touched the button while resting my hand up there, another time my cat stepped on it...   )  You can probably find something suitable in the fasteners section or gate hardware area at Home Depot.

[papaschtroumpf]

Is there an advantage to have the power switch control the computer and the computer power everything else?
Why not simply wire a switch to a power strip and power everything from there?

[BobA]

The advantage is a proper orderly shutdown of your computer.  The switch brings the computer on and relays bring on the other equipment.  To turn off you can use a front end that powers down the op sys and computer for orderly shutdown.  An AC power switch cannot do this.

BobA

[opcode]

Thanks everyone, for some reason the putting the button on top never crossed my mind, although it seems very logical now that you mention it.

Oh and about the relay that is triggered by the PC's +12v, I got the idea from here off of arcadecontrols wiring section: http://home.bendcable.com/werstlein/.  Like BobA said I could just wire a switch to bring everything down including the computer but I don't trust bringing a computer down while its running I've seen too many screwed OSs from doing just that, anything being written to disk or cached when the power goes off is gone.

[Wade]

Does anyone else still use DOS?  It doesn't require a shutdown and starts up quickly.  I use it and love it.  I hope they continue to support it for a long time to come.

I wonder what the percentages are now?  Not that it indicates which is better (more popular is not always better), but I think it's probably about 10:1 windows:dos on this board, and lower win:dos on converted real cabinets with real arcade monitors found elsewhere.

Wade

[ErikRuud]

Wade,

Both of the cabs I have built run DOS.

That is mainly because they are slower PC's.

Finding out abou the CuteMouse driver solved my problems with having two mouse devices in DOS, so now I don't need windows.

[papaschtroumpf]

The advantage is a proper orderly shutdown of your computer.  The switch brings the computer on and relays bring on the other equipment.  To turn off you can use a front end that powers down the op sys and computer for orderly shutdown.  An AC power switch cannot do this.

BobA

I didn't think about the shutdown part, just the startup. You're right, only one button to press.
Abother solution is to use a UPS that will tell the computer to shutdown (properly) when power is lost and put all other elements (marquee light, speakers, ...) on the non-backed up outlet (300W APC UPSes are available free after rebate once in a while)

[grafixmonkey]

I didn't think about the shutdown part, just the startup. You're right, only one button to press.
Abother solution is to use a UPS that will tell the computer to shutdown (properly) when power is lost and put all other elements (marquee light, speakers, ...) on the non-backed up outlet (300W APC UPSes are available free after rebate once in a while)

Yeah, that would work well as long as you have an OS running that can detect and use the UPS.  (but if you don't, you probably don't need an orderly shutdown anyway.   )  My UPS is good about shutting down the computer in a configurable way (can wait x number of seconds, you can specify).  But if you had the UPS unplugged for a long amount of time it might lose its charge.  I don't know if a completely uncharged UPS requires warm-up charge time before it lets the computer turn back on.  They might shunt line power to the PC when it is available and charge the battery separately, or they might continuously charge the battery while using the battery to power the PC.  

I still think switching a relay off of the 12v line in the PC is the way to go.  Now that I have some components other than the PC to power up/down with my machine, I'll be doing that soon.

[papaschtroumpf]

UPS has worked fine for me, but I see nothing wrong with the relay idea either. Just didn't think of it.