Swappable Panels???

[tripppsk]

Hi all.  I am currently getting ready to start my second cab and wanted to use swappable panels.  I will be using an I-Pac but my question is, what do I need to make it swappable?  I am guessing that I will need some sort of male-female quck connects between the I-Pac and panel.  Can anyone please give me suggestions on how they have done this?  Any help is appreciated.  Thanx.

[chrisindfw]

I have a two player control panel. I cut a printer cable in half and used the wires. Then just them together. One half to the ipac and one to the cp. I ended up using a smaller connector also for the admin buttons. But its pretty simple.

[JamesS]

I did the same thing, and used a 25 pin cable to do my panel, you can see a pic at this thread here.

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=10;action=display;threadid=15169

Now granted the wiring looks bad for now, but this weekend, it will get straightened out.  Plus I took out one of the Joy's after wiring it, so it is missing, but the wiring is still there.

I am going to put the admin buttons on a small panel over the CP.  But on the board, I have two 8 way joys, one 4 way, 6 buttons per player, a Player 1 and 2 button as well as 2 coin buttons.  Worked perfect with the 25 pin cable.  One of the cables is the ground.

[unclet]

Yep, I used parallel and serial cables on my 6-panel driving cabinet so each panel could be removed for maintenance easily.

[jerryjanis]

I wanted to be able to make my panel support LOTS of arcade devices cheaply and easily.  I wanted to have a solution that would support 4 trackballs, 8 spinners, 4 joysticks, analog joysticks, and pretty much anything else I wanted to throw at it.  Also, I wanted to make it out of something really cheap that I could always get more of.  The way I ended up wiring everything is via 4-prong power supply extension cables (splitters, actually).  They work great because I bought a pack of 50 of the splitters (100 male ends and 200 female ends) for $25.00 on ebay.

Here is what I use each of the prongs for:

Spinner (requires one male power supply connector):
1 - +5v
2 - Ground
3 - X1
4 - X2

Trackball (requires 2 male power supply connectors):
1 - +5v (spliced together with the Y +5v)
2 - Ground (spliced together with the Y ground)
3 - X1
4 - X2

1 - +5v
2 - Ground
3 - Y1
4 - Y2

4/8-way joystick (my modules also include 2 buttons - requires 2 connectors)
1 - Ground
2 - up
3 - down
4 - left

1 - Ground
2 - right
3 - button1
4 - button2

(etc.)

The idea is to accomodate all of the following (and more).  I also have plans for a 4 player version, but to be honest I spend way too much time playing the games and not enough time finishing the project:



Here's a picture of the Leland spring joystick module.  It's basically an analog joystick connected using 1UP's Sidewinder Dual Strike hack):


Here are some pictures the modules:

[unclet]

Curious: What would you do with 8 spinners?

[jerryjanis]

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=S&game_id=9741

Also, the harness that would handle 8 spinners is the same as one that would handle 4 trackballs which is useful for Atari Soccer and Football.

[unclet]

Alright, Sprint8......but he did not mention having 8 pedals either.  I mean I just did not know where 8 spinners would go on his swappable panel

[JamesS]

I like the idea of Modular, I just thought it would be a lot harder than swappable.

I really wanted rotating, but I felt that would be much more difficult than Modular, and therefore more difficult than swappable.

[Stingray]

Sprint 8! I haven't seen one of those since I was a kid. I wonder if there are any still out there?

-S

[eightbit]

Heres pics of a serial extension cable quick connect-

[Brad Lee]

First off, my apologies to the 56k crowd, if a admin wants me to link these instead just please let me know and Ill whip up a webpage


My nifty little cover, with each pin labeled as to what it does (up, down, left, right, b1,b2 etc)

cover removed. there is one wire going from each terminal on the ipac(left) and optipac(right) to the wiring block(white). Each unique terminal , plus the +5 and GND from the ipac(didnt use either from the opti, those are for other things) totals up to 50. Im using 25 pair wire, so thats 50 wires

the thick gray cable coming out of the top of the white block is another 25pair cable, with the female end on it. Technically these are RJ-21 amphenol cables, most commonly used on telephone systems. The ends are very similar to printer cables with centronics connectors. the blue/yellow wires coming from the right side of the block(and in the very foreground) are going to admin buttons, and things that arent on the CP itself(coin door and admin)

the white bar across the front of the CP is a piece of wire molding to keep things tidy. the 25-pair with male connector runs through te oremold, and splits off individual wires where needed(see the last pic below) The latch is kinda fuzzy there, its a little better in the rest of the pics

another shot, but the ends connected. at this point, Ive got a working CP

finally, the CP lifted. theres the wire mold, with holes drilled in the side to allow groups of wires out, a group for the buttons, a group for the stick, etc. When the CP is in position, I tuck the cable and connecters down into that hole on the right side


Back to pics 4 & 5- right now the front is exposed underneath the CP, perfect spot to stuff my wireless keyboard. WHat I plan on doing is running a piano hinge the length of the CP at the front, and fabricating a L-shaped piece of plexi the width of the CP. Ill use small magnets, like on a cabinet latch, at the bottom so that it stays closed unless you purposely tug on it, so you'll be able to lift the L-shaped flap and undo the latches. Ive got the hinge on order from mcmaster (here, i think, page 2793 at the bottom) It'll slip onto the plexi covering on each contrl panel- thisway, when I do swtich panels I can slip the L-shaped flap off of the CP and slip it back into the new panel thats going on- I only need to make one piece then, and reuse it

[telengard]

Hi all.  I am currently getting ready to start my second cab and wanted to use swappable panels.  I will be using an I-Pac but my question is, what do I need to make it swappable?  I am guessing that I will need some sort of male-female quck connects between the I-Pac and panel.  Can anyone please give me suggestions on how they have done this?  Any help is appreciated.  Thanx.

Hey there.   I had swappable panels at one point.  I used molex connectors.  They are a little more work but they seem sturdier to me for some reason than DSUBS for this purpose.  Plus if you need to do anything requiring a little current it's probably safer to use a molex with the thicker wire.  I have since switched to a modular approach much like jerryjanis above ( my web page is below ).  I'm much happier with this setup, but it's definetly more work.

There are at least 10 or so cabs I've seen with swappable panels, plus the 1-UP rotating panel approach so there are some good examples out there to learn from.

Good luck and have fun!