newbie wiring cp questions-clarification

[dac]

Hello all,
I've been looking around in here, and seen several posts about wiring the CP up, I've been to Bob R's site and read the wiring info there as well, but just want to make sure I'm doing this right.

I'm wiring each player's (2 player cp) joystick and buttons as seperate "circuits" (meaning 1 ground per player)

1) wiring grounds.  If I understand this correctly, you do this in a loop, starting at say P1 left, and go to all the buttons daisy chain style, making sure that the last in the chain is the P1 right (before heading out to I-Pac).
My questions on this are: is this the right way to do this?  and secondly, do people put 2 wires from each ground "circuit" to the i-pac?  eg the start and end points of the "circuit go to the I-Pac...

2) mounting  ipac to cab / cp.  I've got the i-pac in the cab vs the cp so that I can use serial cables for fast disconnect switching w/ a 4 player cp.  what's the best way to mount the i-pac itself to the 3/4" ply?

3) and this is the one I haven't seen anything on yet.  I'm using Happ supers, and when they're fully assembled, I get a loud click ( shifting of the joystick?) when going from one side to the other (eg left then right).  but if I go in a smooth semicircle, there's no noise (save for the microswitch clicks).  is this normal?
it's a weird thing, it feels like it's shifting levels,

I donno. weird stuff. but I'm having a lot of fun with this...

Thanks for any help

[CthulhuLuke]

Well since the I-Pac has 2 ground ports coming out of it, if you connect one of them to one side, and the other to the other side, you're golden.  Here's to answer you're questions:
A) it doesn't matter where you start with the ground, as long as it's a full loop around the P1 or P2 side.  The best I'd say would be to start on the P1 right, do a circle around the joystick, then go to the buttons, and finish off with the 1 Player start button, and connect your first ground to that Player 1 start button.  And vice versa with the Player 2 side.  (If you really need help, I'm going to have a drawing of my grounds that i need for when I take off the prototype on my control panel, and I can scan it for you.)
B) I would say get some kind of non-conductive foam (I used those bubble things that you can pop) or something and place it on the bottom of the I-pac, then just find some small screws that will hold the I-pac in place, and maybe some tape just to be safe.
C)Yeah, sometimes the Supers will do that if they're mounted a certain way, I don't really get why they do that sometimes, but I know what's causing the sounds.  It's because the black actuator on the bottom of the joystick shaft is actually slipping over the microswitch levers, and it makes that loud TWANG noise.  I heard this one guy put a plastic O spacer on the bottom of his shaft, so it prevented the Actuator from going over the levers.  I'm sure you could rig something like that up in 2 seconds, so just experiment with it.
   -Good Luck
     -CthulhuLuke

[u_rebelscum]

CthulhuLuke answered most stuff; just filling in a little.

1) wiring grounds. .... My questions on this are: ....  and secondly, [why] do people put 2 wires from each ground "circuit" to the i-pac?  eg the start and end points of the "circuit go to the I-Pac...

You could do just one end and have the ground wire terminate at the last switch, but if the wire breaks at any point, all switches beyond that point wouldn't work.  With the looped ground circut, one break in the wire won't stop any switches from working.  It's a simple prevention measure.

2) mounting  ipac to cab / cp.  I've got the i-pac in the cab vs the cp so that I can use serial cables for fast disconnect switching w/ a 4 player cp.  what's the best way to mount the i-pac itself to the 3/4" ply?

I did: cp wood - (2) 1/4" wood spacers - (4) rubber washer - ipad board - (4) rubber washer, and screwed it in with (4) screws.  The wood spacers where glued and nailed into the cp base first, one for each side of the ipac.
You can also use plastic spacers and screws.

3) and this is the one I haven't seen anything on yet.  I'm using Happ supers, and when they're fully assembled, I get a loud click ( shifting of the joystick?) when going from one side to the other (eg left then right).  but if I go in a smooth semicircle, there's no noise (save for the microswitch clicks).  is this normal?
it's a weird thing, it feels like it's shifting levels,

CthulhuLuke is right on the reason.  I ran into this problem and found a fix that worked for me:
The bottom of the joystick shaft has three groves for the C-clamps.  I had the C-clamp on the one closest to the end and was getting those clicks.  So I moved the C-clamp and put it in the middle grove.  No more extra clicks.  (does this explain it clearly?)

[dac]

thanks for all the information!  The clicking was starting to really worry me, I'm going out to get some plastic washers to fix this asap.

Will let everyone know the results...

[Lilwolf]

As for the ground.

Make each a round robin ground.  (ie, at the end, bring it back to ground again).  Why?  because then if you break a connection, it wont kill anything... you need to have two breaks to make something stop working.

Next, you don't have to daisy chain them.  Any way to get to any ground and your golden.  So at the ipac, you could have from one ground connection going out 10 directions.

this of course can make things more of a mess... but not always.

for instance.  what if you have extra buttons for coins... but you want to be able to disable them (so people are forced to use the coin slots).

Well, from any ground (whatevers closest) you bring a ground from there, bring it into a switch, then daisy chaing to each of the new coin buttons then stops.

So if you break the switch, each of those buttons loose their ground and stop working.

But its also nice to have one main ground wire coming out.

why?

Again a switch.  I use my computer in my cabinet with a seperate monitor and keyboard for development.  When I'm donig this, and my daughter comes up and hits buttons... I now have extra keys in the middle of my source (happens often).  So now I have a single switch for disabling the ground to all my buttons.

good luck

[SirPoonga]

Hello all,
I've been looking around in here, and seen several posts about wiring the CP up, I've been to Bob R's site and read the wiring info there as well, but just want to make sure I'm doing this right.

I'm wiring each player's (2 player cp) joystick and buttons as seperate "circuits" (meaning 1 ground per player)

1) wiring grounds.  If I understand this correctly, you do this in a loop, starting at say P1 left, and go to all the buttons daisy chain style, making sure that the last in the chain is the P1 right (before heading out to I-Pac).
My questions on this are: is this the right way to do this?  and secondly, do people put 2 wires from each ground "circuit" to the i-pac?  eg the start and end points of the "circuit go to the I-Pac...

http://ultimarc.com/ipac2.html
There is a wiring example there.

2) mounting  ipac to cab / cp.  I've got the i-pac in the cab vs the cp so that I can use serial cables for fast disconnect switching w/ a 4 player cp.  what's the best way to mount the i-pac itself to the 3/4" ply?

I got nylon spacers from the local hardware store and mounted the IPAC to a board first.  You can see that on my site.

[Tiger-Heli]

B) I would say get some kind of non-conductive foam (I used those bubble things that you can pop) or something and place it on the bottom of the I-pac, then just find some small screws that will hold the I-pac in place, and maybe some tape just to be safe.
-CthulhuLuke

I would think this might cause a problem with static electricity, but I dunno.

[dac]

alright,
I did the wiring, creating a loop so that if there's one break in the "circuit", it wouldn't take the buttons following it down as well.  Thanks, that's exactly what I wanted to hear.  I know it could be done w/o the loop, but just feel better with the extra protection.

went with the nylon spacers, seem to work great.

hmm, I've done some fiddling with the joystick, trying to see where / what is causing the clicking.   If I pull up (out) on the joystick, it doesn't click at all (again, save for switches).  It almost seems like the cause is the cone piece...
I tried seeing if there was any way to put the c clamp into the 2nd slot, but using the long sleeve  for more length doesn't allow me to even see that slot. also, where does the washer go in the assembly?
how I assembled the joystick:
shaft
long sleeve
covering washer (big black to hide hole)
cone piece (
joystick base
hourglass piece (fat side towards base for 8 way)
c clamp.

I'm assuming the needed added washer goes between the c clamp and the hourglass piece.
I'm going to buy some washers to try this out tonight, and see what happens...

[PCC]

When you assemble your Super Joysticks, you need to pull the shaft down to expose an otherwise non-exposed slot for the e-ring.  Put the e-ring on that slot, not on one further down the shaft.  You shouldn't need additional washers unless you are using the Tulip Joysticks (http://pccab.net/4way.htm).

[CthulhuLuke]

I think I know what you're problem is.  A lot of people have had this problem, and I'm not really sure why, buuuut, here's a link to my other post about helping a guy with his supers,  http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=2036    Try that and see if that fixes what you get.
 Btw, my I-pac has had 0 static problems with the bubble things underneath it, but I'm sure if you A: didn't put enough foam underneath it, or B: put some kind of conductive material there, it would start botching things up.
   -CthulhuLuke

[dac]

Arg,
ok. maybe I just wasn't looking at the assembly instructions close enough.  
The cone shaped piece was upside down in my assembly, once I turned that over... no click... sigh

the clip does fit on the stick, but I see no way for it to reach the second slot... Not important anymore, thanks all for the excelent help...

I'm going to get some pictures of the cab to help some other questions I've been seeing around here.


ok