Automation

[Ropi Jo]

So.. are we going to see any automated projects this year..... or what?

There's been virtually F-ALL since mine.

[bobbyb13]

I know I'm still too much of a sissy to try at this point!
 

Bueller...?

[DaOld Man]

Nothing in the immediate future for me.

Waiting for you guys.

[darthpaul]

Nothing for me but I started dismantling the automated cabinet. I needed to make room for a Mandalorian Pinball machine that is due to arrive in March. Thanks for all your help with the cabinet Ken but I just went too far with it. If I had designed the cabinet from the beginning to do what we hoped it would do, it may have worked. I do plan to do a pedestal build. The only automation planned for it is the 4way to 8way joysticks using servos and your joychoose.  I was thinking about having the light guns rise up out of the control panel but I think I'm just going to keep it simple. Look out for the project announcement, I'm working on the control panel art right now.

[DaOld Man]

Nothing for me but I started dismantling the automated cabinet. I needed to make room for a Mandalorian Pinball machine that is due to arrive in March. Thanks for all your help with the cabinet Ken but I just went too far with it. If I had designed the cabinet from the beginning to do what we hoped it would do, it may have worked. I do plan to do a pedestal build. The only automation planned for it is the 4way to 8way joysticks using servos and your joychoose.  I was thinking about having the light guns rise up out of the control panel but I think I'm just going to keep it simple. Look out for the project announcement, I'm working on the control panel art right now.

Bummer man, but that project was a big challenge.
Mandalorian Pinball? Man that sounds great! Be sure to post pics when you get it.
Good luck with your pedestal build. Joychoose is still broke for the newer releases of Mame. Try Control Choose instead. I think it will work for all versions of Mame (but of course I could be wrong).

[darthpaul]

I'm keeping all the old software running on Windows XP, everything was working so no need to change.

[DaOld Man]

Sorry about the old thread bump, but Ive been working with servos to mechanically switch the  joysticks between 4 and 8 way, based on game (or emulator) selected.
I use control choose  (Mala plugin) to set the servos.
Might post some pics later.

[darthpaul]

Any update on this?

[DaOld Man]

Sorry for the late update, but yes, Darthpaul. I am finished with the joystick servo project.
Its working very good.
Here is a pic of Player 1 servo, (I have a servo on both P1 and P2 Joysticks).


Here is another shot of the same servo:



And here is the servo controller I used:



The controller can control up to 6 servos, of course I'm only using 2.
The controller needs 5 volts Dc for power, and it talks to the computer via USB.
I am using Control Choose plugin for Mala to tell controller to switch between 4 way and 8 way.
Control Choose calls bat files that send servo positions to the controller.
Control Choose sends 4 way or 8 way commands based on Mame game usage, and also for each emulator used. (Example NES uses 4 way).

[DaOld Man]

Here are the bat files that controlchoose calls.
They send a message to the maestro controller (app for the servo controller board), to switch joysticks to 4 way or 8 way.
I had to change extension to txt for this site to let me upload them.
These are batch files and have extension ".bat" in the real world.

[DaOld Man]

I tried to post a pic of the controlchoose action list, but the site wont let me, says its a security risk???
Anyway here is the list typed out:

If Control= joy4way Then Run F:\Arcade\MaLa174\plugins\4way.bat
If Control= joy8way Then Run F:\Arcade\MaLa174\plugins\8way.bat
If Emulator= NES Then Run F:\Arcade\MaLa174\plugins\4way.bat