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Interfacing swappable Control Panels..

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Lilwolf:

Also take note..

You will need to recreate one side MANY times.  So whatever solution you come up with... make sure that the control panel side is pretty easy and/or cheap.

I LOVE the idea.  I was thinking that you might want to have the control panel part a standard part (like a 12 position screw terminal or something) so you can add more without having to worry about configuring it... or how to get them all to match up just perfect.



Demon-Seed:

I would like to take my cp and wire it to a swappable type plug but then into  a switchbox of some sort so that I can use one singls control panel for many platforms. ie) IPAC, XBOX, Dreamcast etc.

Does anyone have links and instruction on how to make these swappable control panels? I am sure it would work for my cause as well..... looking for exact how too's


thanks in advance
Jim

Searcher7:

I solved all these "control panel swap" problems over a year ago, when I developed my "Quick-swap" control panel system for use with my Joust cabinet, which has a Multi-Williams installed.(I'm still working on the custom cabinet-art).

Last year when I last posted to this site, I touched on the "Quick-swap" in a thread titled "Connectors for swappable control panels" by "b3atmania".

In order to create this, I had to redesign my joust control panel into *two* parts. The base which is on a long hinge, and the top portion which has the controls.(I used oak, and had to make the control panel angled instead of curved at the top portion nearest the player, because of the mechanics involved.

Anyway, for the contacts I cut 1/4 inch wide by 1 inch long strips of Phosphor-bronze(CA 544), and I used nylon as a hard backing. I carved slots into one side of the nylon blocks(for each of the 56 hand made contacts), and used the rubber of a bike innertube as a backing under the part of the strips that make contact with the opposite strips that are postioned inside the control panel base which swings down.(If you have a Joust, Robotron, or StarGate cabinet, you'll know what I'm talking about.

The first half of each of the 56 contacts is positioned in it's own slot which I carved in the nylon. There is a lead screwed into each strip at that location. The part of the strip that bends around the corner of the nylon is the part that makes contact with the cabinet strips that are positioned inside the base of the hinged control panel that is "permanently" connected to the cabinet.

So when the top part of the control panel is positioned into place on the hinged based, all connections are made.

With the "Quick-swap", I can swap any number of control panel tops onto and off of my cabinet fast, because I use two door knob latches that allow me to twist a knob, which I located underneath the bottom part of the control panel base, to unlock the control panel so that it can swing down and allow me to swap to whatever control panel top I want to put in.

Getting the tolerances right was the toughest part of this project, and I still have more work to do.

Anyway, that is the basics of what I did. One day I'll have to create a good write-up with pics to explain how it is done.

The "Quick-swap" is almost as "revolutionary" as my muliti-sticktor invention which is simple by comparison.

But I won't get into the details of that one. :-)

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Nannuu:


--- Quote from: Stingray on March 23, 2004, 12:22:22 pm ---I was thinking you could just lay down a strip of rubber and then lay your leafs across that. I'm sure one bike inner tube would provide more than enough material.

-S

--- End quote ---
Or if you need more flexure than that and want it cheap you could buy a couple Nerf balls and cut them up.  You can glue it as small cubes underneath each leaf.  That would keep it from becoming deformed.  Or cut up some plastic bottles/milk jugs and screw the pieces behind the leaf for support.

I'm not sure what the cost is but you really should be able to find some metal that does not become deformed.  ALL metal exhibits some elasticity without deformation.  The stress-strain curve for a given metal will tell you but then you'd have to take all kinds of measurements for the parts you have and your deflection, then the math <blah>.  Might just be easier to buy a bunch of different metal pieces and give them a try, or get a Nerf ball.

Nannuu:

Doh, typed at the same time!  Or you could just use the parts that Searcher7 references above.....

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