Looking for Wild Western, Front Line, Tin Star rotary twist fire measurements.

[MilkyShakester]

Howdy, new to all of this so I apologize if this is the wrong section for this topic.

So my dad and I are planning our first MAME cabinet, and my dad really wants to have a swap-able control panel for the Taito game Front Line, including the Taito "push to fire" rotary knob. Obviously originals are hard to come by and fairly expensive, but I'm a machinist by trade, and based on the schematics in the manual it's a pretty simple mechanism, so what I'd like to do is build one from scratch. The main mechanism seems to just be like a standard 8-way joystick, except with a stationary knob and a cam that actuates the microswitches, and a gear with two ball bearings to keep it "clicked" into one of 8 positions, plus the microswitch at the bottom for the push to fire function. I could potentially rig something up on my own just with that knowledge, but I'd like to keep it as close to the original as possible.

With that being said, I'm looking for someone with an original or rebuild who can provide me with fairly accurate measurements (I can even mail you a cheap pair of digital calipers if necessary) for the various parts. I've managed to source a replacement gear to avoid having to figure out the gear geometry, but I'd mainly need the shaft length and diameter, the width of the keyway in the shaft, the radius of the actuator cam on the big and small sides, the diameter and height of the knob, and some various measurements around the plate steel housing. Depending on how well I can streamline the manufacturing process, I'd potentially be willing to do a few runs of the reproductions as well if there's any interest, or at least make a few extra parts to sell as replacements. I can't guarantee it'd be necessarily cheap for a fully assembled spinner, but I'm certain I could keep it under the $250 asking price of the originals.

The easiest method would be for me to take the measurements myself, but I certainly wouldn't trust some random stranger with my $250 spinner if I had one, so I get it. If anyone can help out, I'd greatly appreciate it.

[PL1]

Six games used this controller:
- Front Line
- The Tin Star
- Wild Western
- Sheriff (Nintendo)
- Bandido (Exidy -- licensed re-release of Sheriff)
- Western Gun Part II (Taito -- licensed re-release of Sheriff)

The wiki's Joystick Database has pictures of the Taito Aim-n-Fire and a similar controller used on the Nintendo games.

Taito:


Nintendo (?):


If you need to design your own from scratch, here's a preliminary design with the basic math for the actuator cam:
- I'd update the design to use short roller-arm microswitches like the Taito pic above.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,148298.msg1545522.html#msg1545522



There's also a guy selling a compact version on e-bay.
- It's not quite original size and not cheap, but it might be an option.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/FRONT-LINE-ARCADE-ROTARY-SWITCH-IN-MINIATURE/164148979716




Scott

[MilkyShakester]

Thanks for the info, I can definitely work with that. I was originally gonna try to do a true reproduction, but honestly there's a lot of stuff I'd change about the original design anyway to reduce the amount of parts. I'll just need to find the estimated amount of travel of the roller switch for my difference in radii and I should be good to go, the rest isn't really much of anything. May also try to machine the gear and cam as one solid piece and broach a keyway through the whole thing to save myself some time, can't really think of a good reason they need to be separate. Also yeah, I actually commented on one of that guy's YouTube videos and got a reply, I may end up going with one of his full-size models if/when he puts them back up.

[MilkyShakester]

Here's a tentative design for the gear/cam combo. Dimensions might change when I get the roller arm switches and can take true measurements for travel, etc, but this will be a good place to get started. Hoping to keep them fixed to the shaft to reduce friction, though I think it'd be possible to have the shaft move separately from them for the push to fire function if I went with an oversized keyway or something. I just tried to make the components tall enough to not disengage from the bearing detents or the switches when moving up and down, but again, these measurements may change when I start to build the housing.

[MilkyShakester]

So here's what I came up with for the rest of the housing. Again I'll need to adjust everything for how much travel I want, and potentially adjust the gear teeth for how much engagement I want with the ball bearings, but the basic design seems like it should work.

[PL1]

Impressive.   


Scott

[pumaconcolor]

Great stuff guys!  Thanks for bringing my attention to those controllers on eBay; I just bought a mini-sized one and will use it in a small MAME control panel.