Carriage Bolt Size?

[JAMMA Guy]

What size carriage bolts do most control panel overlays (plexiglass) use? (I'm thinking 5/16-18 x 1" ... does that sound right   )

[Ken Layton]

Whoa! That's way too big.  

Normal carriage bolts on commercial arcade machines are 3/16" diameter x 1-1/2" long. The 3/16" diameter bolts are threaded to 10-24 threads.

[JustMichael]

If you can't find any bolts that are 3/16" (most places go down to 1/4"), you might want to check with Bob Roberts.

[whammoed]

If you can't find any and don't want to buy 100 from happ like i did, I can sell you some of my leftovers at cost.  They are the black oxide ones(black in color) they are #10 and 1 1/2 inches long

[fredster]

Yep, I second Ken.  It's 3/16" - 1" to 1-1/4" long depending on the CP.

[Ken Layton]

I just buy 'em in 1-1/2" long and cut 'em to length since every control panel is different.

[JAMMA Guy]

Thanks for the all the replies  

Hmmm ... I wonder why Randy Fromm's site recommends drilling 5/16" holes   (...  or is that just so the square part of the carriage bolt will fit the hole so the head sits flush?)

[Ken Layton]

Yes, that's why Randy Fromm recommends the 5/16" holes. It's so that the plastic won't crack/split when you tighted the bolts. There needs to be some 'give' in the hole so the stress of tightening doesn't f*** it up.

[deibit]

I have some questions:

First I live in Europe so im not used to this way of measuring bolts  

3/16" is the inner diameter of the nut or of the bolt head? what is the the relation ratio between the head diameter and the bolt diameter? why sometimes people speak of them saying 3/16"-1" and sometimes 10-24? what does it means these numbers?

I want to drill holes in a metal panel to mount a joystick, what should be the size of the hole I should drill in the metal suposing Im using 10-24 carriage bolts? (I bring the metal panel to a metalshop so I should give exact measures)

Are this happ parts ok for a metal panel mounting?

Carriage Bolt - 10-24 - 43-0149-00
Hex Head Steel Kep Nuts - 90-1204-00

http://www.happcontrols.com/tools/43002101.htm!
http://www.happcontrols.com/tools/43101800.htm!

I also plan to install a trackball, (Ultimarc) are these carriage bolts also ok?

And last.. how long should be the carriage bolt for the trackball?

Tnx

[Ken Layton]

Here's an example of American standard hardware numbering:

10-24x1" means it's a number 10 machine screw with 24 threads per inch and it's 1 inch long. A number 10 screw is 3/16" diameter in it's threaded area. This translates to roughly 5mm diameter in metric terms.

[MonitorGuru]

Most post-classic games use 3/16" carriage bolts.  These are only available via mail order (e.g. Bob Roberts) or if you have an ACE Hardware in your town. Everywhere else starts at 1/4".

Some older classics, especially Midway ones with metal control panels used #8 size, which equates to about 1/8" in size, or in other words the next size smaller than 3/16" (.125" vs .1875").  They were also 32 threads per inch IIRC.  These are virtually impossible to find. Only a few places still have them.  They're common in regular bolts (e.g. with philips or plain heads) but extremely rare in carriage bolt size, unfortunately.

[JAMMA Guy]

I got mine from www.boltdepot.com