Think I know what the wife is getting me for Christmas...

[Purple Tophat]

So I have a feeling that the wife is getting me the "Ultimate Cocktail 2" kit from North Coast Customs for Christmas. I love my wife!!

Here: http://www.mameroom.com/Products_Cocktail2_Kit.asp

I'm getting an 1PAC4 for my 4-player upright project, but what should I get for the cocktail? It'll have the 2 joysticks, 22 buttons total, and I'm going to add 2 Ultimarc spinners. What would you use? Is that an IPAC2 situation, or should I get an Opti-PAC because of the spinners? What the heck is an A-PAC? Thanks!

[BobA]

You need the ipac for buttons and the optipac for spinners.  The apac is for analog controls afaik.  You can also us an optiwiz for spinners ( I think it is a bit cheaper)  and of course there is the is the keywiz instead of the ipac.   Your choice.

[Purple Tophat]

Hey thanks!

I'm going to stick to the Ultimarc stuff for this. So just to be clear, I'll need an IPAC2 and an Opti-PAC? The opti-PAC can't handle buttons and joysticks as well? Just spinners?

[BobA]

Optipac handles only trackballs and spinners.  No buttons or joys.

[PL1]

If the 13" switch wires are long enough to reach, a Mini-Pac Opti. with harness runs $69 compared to $78 for the $39 IPac2 and $39 Opti-Pac which don't come with the plug and play wiring harness for buttons and spinners.

If the wires are too short, you can either splice in extensions or Ultimarc has an "Extension Harness Pack" 10 wires for $13


Scott

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Good to hear that there are also people out there that have a supportive spouse. I keep hearing about wives who are averse to the gaming habits of their husbands on these boards.

[cmoses]

What joysticks are you planning to use for the cocktail?

If you are going to use U360's then you can bypass the ipac and use the harness for the U360's that Ultimarc sells. It would allow you to connect up to 8 buttons to each U360.  The U360's connect through a USB. This is what I am planning to do in my current cocktail build.

How do you plan to have your control panels?  Where will you be putting the spinners?  I have considered adding spinners to my cocktail build but not sure how I would lay out the control panel.

[vidmouse]

ROFL if after all this his wife gets him a sweater...

[jennifer]

  snicker, chuckle.... How about it dude, need a purple sweater?

[iserian]

where do you Plan to put the spinners, as I have built several of these and am curious.

So I have a feeling that the wife is getting me the "Ultimate Cocktail 2" kit from North Coast Customs for Christmas. I love my wife!!

Here: http://www.mameroom.com/Products_Cocktail2_Kit.asp

I'm getting an 1PAC4 for my 4-player upright project, but what should I get for the cocktail? It'll have the 2 joysticks, 22 buttons total, and I'm going to add 2 Ultimarc spinners. What would you use? Is that an IPAC2 situation, or should I get an Opti-PAC because of the spinners? What the heck is an A-PAC? Thanks!

[ShankyMcStabber]

I used one of the Ultimarc USB spinners in my current upright and they work great, so tally up another vote for them.

Good to hear that there are also people out there that have a supportive spouse. I keep hearing about wives who are averse to the gaming habits of their husbands on these boards.

Amen to that!  I made sure to marry a Gamer Chic just to make sure I don't get grief for my odd gaming habits.  My wife is getting me some top-fire joysticks plus some replacement sticks for the 2 of mine I don't like.

[Purple Tophat]

Sorry for the slow reply! This is my crazy time of year!

If the 13" switch wires are long enough to reach, a Mini-Pac Opti. with harness runs $69 compared to $78 for the $39 IPac2 and $39 Opti-Pac which don't come with the plug and play wiring harness for buttons and spinners.

If the wires are too short, you can either splice in extensions or Ultimarc has an "Extension Harness Pack" 10 wires for $13


Scott

Thanks! You got me to start thinking in the right direction, but the minipac will not have enough inputs for all of the buttons! Now it's becoming clear what I need to do. More on that below.

Good to hear that there are also people out there that have a supportive spouse. I keep hearing about wives who are averse to the gaming habits of their husbands on these boards.

Yeah seriously. I'm so damn lucky it's borderline crazy! My wife is amazing. She really loves this stuff. Truthfully, this cocktail cabinet is even more for her than it is for me, but that's just fine by me!! It's sort of like the 4-player upright is "mine", and the cocktail is "hers"...haha! I want it too though, so I said it would make the perfect gift! The pinball machine (when we can afford it) will be both of ours. It's a good system!

What joysticks are you planning to use for the cocktail?

If you are going to use U360's then you can bypass the ipac and use the harness for the U360's that Ultimarc sells. It would allow you to connect up to 8 buttons to each U360.  The U360's connect through a USB. This is what I am planning to do in my current cocktail build.

How do you plan to have your control panels?  Where will you be putting the spinners?  I have considered adding spinners to my cocktail build but not sure how I would lay out the control panel.

Ok...now back into how to lay this out. Well first off, I'm going with the standard factory layout from mameroom.com for the control panels. I know 6 button is overkill, but who knows? Maybe I'll use it for something someday. Plus there are 3 buttons on the face panel below. Then I'm going to add my own 2 pinball buttons on the sides of each control panel for virtual pinball. I think that'll be a cool touch. So, that's 22 buttons total! Add that to the 8 contacts needed for the 2 joysticks, and that's 30 total. Too much for the minipac or the u360. The IPAC2 provides 32, so that'll work perfectly. Then I'll just need an opti-pac for the spinners.

As for where to put the spinners, Bear in mind my primary concern is twofold: Firstly, we'll want to be able to play Super Breakout from the normal seated position at the cabinet. Secondly, we'll want to be able to play pong head-to-head by sitting across from each other looking at the monitor in horizontal position. That being said, I'll make my final determination when I have the cabinet in front of me to play with it and see what feels the most natural for both scenarios, but right now I'm leaning towards putting them on the left side panel of each control panel just below and behind the pinball buttons. That way if you want to play something like Super Breakout, you can use the spinner with your left hand, and if you want to go head to head for some pong, each player can move their chair around to the side of the cabinet and still use the spinner with their right hand.

If that feels wrong or awkward, hell the opti-pac supports 4 spinners, so I may end up putting one on each side of the cabinet for pong, and one on each control panel for breakout type games. I'll need it in front of me to really make that call.

ROFL if after all this his wife gets him a sweater...

Haha! Naw, no sweaters for me, thank you very much! The good thing is that we've talked about it enough that even if I don't open it on Christmas morning, I'll get no grief from her when I order one immediately following the new year! Woot!

Anyways, that's the plan! Feel free to comment if you think my spinner idea sucks. I don't mind, but right now I'm leaning toward that'll be really cool!

[PL1]

I'm going with the standard factory layout from mameroom.com for the control panels. I know 6 button is overkill, but who knows? Maybe I'll use it for something someday. Plus there are 3 buttons on the face panel below. Then I'm going to add my own 2 pinball buttons on the sides of each control panel for virtual pinball. I think that'll be a cool touch. So, that's 22 buttons total! Add that to the 8 contacts needed for the 2 joysticks, and that's 30 total. Too much for the minipac or the u360. The IPAC2 provides 32, so that'll work perfectly.

Wait, how does this add up, again?

Inputs - Used for
12 - 6 player buttons / player panel
8 - 4 joystick contacts / player panel
6 - 3 face panel buttons / player panel ***Functions? Coin, Start, ___?
----
26 inputs

So far, so good. . . . then you get to 2 pinball flipper buttons / player panel

First - Not sure if anyone has a way to swap the table end-for-end for alternating play, so putting them on both P1 and P2 may be a huge waste.

If you insist on flippers for both players, wire the P1/P2 flippers in parallel with each other, since simultaneous head-to-head tables are pretty much unheard of.

Out of multiple thousands of tables, I've only seen one simultaneous head-to-head table -- a mutant home-brew 3-player table. (someone posted the video here a while back.)

Second - Left flipper is left shift, same as P1, Button 4.

Don't forget a ball launcher. (enter)

You also could add upper flippers (A, ') and Magnasaves (L-ctrl, R-ctrl)

Since no tables have both, you can wire upper flipper and Magnasave in parallel. (1 flipper for left, 1 for right)

Left upper flipper is A, same as P2, Button 1 -- requires adding a diode if upper flippers and Magnasave are wired in parallel.

Left Magnasave is left control, same as P1, Button 1 -- requires adding a diode if upper flippers and Magnasave are wired in parallel.

Nudge buttons L/R/Up (Z, /, space)
- Left nudge (Z) is the same as P1, Button 5
- Up nudge (space) is the same as P1, Button 3

So that gives us:
26 inputs - Buttons/joys/face panels
1 input - Right flipper (left is wired in parallel with P1B4)
1 input? - Ball launcher (assuming that none of the face panel inputs is "enter")
1 input - Right upper flipper (left is wired in parallel with P2B1)
1 input - Right Magnasave (left is wired in parallel with P1B1)
1 input - Right nudge (left is wired in parallel with P1B5, up is wired in parallel with P1B3)
----
30-31 inputs if you use ALL of these options.

By my count, the Mini-Pac has 32 programmable button inputs, 2 mouse button inputs, and trackball/spinner inputs -- no problem.   


Scott

[Purple Tophat]

Thank you. You just did a lot of thinking for me!!! Hahaha!!!

I have a weird OCD about symmetry, so I'll add flipper buttons to both sides just so they look even. Thanks for putting your noodle to this for me. I'm actually placing an order for a ton of this stuff tonight, so this helps.

[ahofle]

I have the three sided version of that cocktail (with a minipac) and I love it.  Drop your wife a hint that you want the 3 sided version! 

Also, I recommend NOT letting northcoast drill your button holes -- get the blank panels and do it yourself.