Quick Release CP

[jck_strw]

Hi

I'm muddling my way through my first cab and I have a couple of questions.

I'm doing a standard, upright, LuSID-like cabinet.  I plan on using swappable CPs though.  One will have a 4 player setup--4 buttons each (except for the "primary" 2 players which will have 6 buttons) with 8 way joys.  The other will only have a 2 player setup--each with a 4 way joy and some buttons.  The 2 player setup will also have a trackball and a spinner.

So I want to be able to "quickly" swap out CPs when the gang comes over.  What do I need to use to make the swapping quick and easy?  Panel clamps on each to attach them to the cab, naturally.  I was going to use molex connectors, but I'm not sure if I'm thinking about this correctly (which is why I'm "thinking out loud" here).  So I run wires (terminated with male molex pins) to a male molex connector from my Ipac, correct?  And then on my CP, I run wires (termined with female molex pins) to a female molex connector.  Connect the two together and we have MAME magic, correct? 

The largest molex connector Happ sells is a 15 pin.  Rough, back-of-the-envelope calculations lead me to about 50 wires for my 4 player CP.  Do they make larger ones? 

Is my thinking correct?  How else have people done this?

Thanks for any input.

[Shape D.]

Try this, 61 pin connector theyre expensive though.
http://www.whirlwindusa.com/multi012.html

[Stingray]

How else have people done this?

This is how my removable control panels connect up:



I used 25 & nine pin din connectors from radio shack. Joysicks and buttons connect up through an old printer cable. Spinner & trackball connect up through an old nine pin cable (don't remember what this was originally).

Here's a pic of the inside of my joystick panel.



The printer cable plugs into #2 on the above illustration. The trackball/ spinner panel has an additional nine pin cable that plugs into #5. I know it's a little wacky looking, but it does the job.

-S

[bionicbadger]

Really silly question.

Would it be possible to hack a wireless keyboard to get it to transmit the output from an IPAC back to the computer/reciever somehow?

You would have to somehow feed the IPAC output into the wireless keyboard's transmitter instead of the input from the keayboard itself.  Has anyone looked into something like this.  Then you could have wireless/swappable panels (but would need extra ipacs/transmitters).

Anyone?

[NoOne=NBA=]

If you hack the keyboard, the I-pac would be pointless.

As far as a 50-pin connector goes, if you really want to do it all in one cable, I'd get a 50-pin SCSI cable, and cut it in half.
That will give you two cables for your panels.
Then all you need is a 50-pin SCSI port to connect to the I-pac, and you're set.

[Stingray]

I started to use a SCSI cable, but determined that I wouldn't need nearly that many inputs, so I used a printer cable instead.

-S

[Minwah]

I use 12-way molex connectors - 1 for each player.  I only have a max. of 2 players tho.

Still, they can be disconnected/connected very quickly.

[jck_strw]

Thanks for the tips.  If I don't go with with a SCSI/printer cable, I was thinking of going the molex-connector-for-each-player-route.

[GGKoul]

I started to use a SCSI cable, but determined that I wouldn't need nearly that many inputs, so I used a printer cable instead.

-S

I used a printer cable, but the wires were too thin and were very difficult to wire up.  Then I tried Ethernet cables, and I ran into an issue with each wire being wired differently.... so I'm in the process of used molex connectors.

[SirPoonga]

My cabinet is designed like this.

For wires I just run the wires from the joysticks and buttons to a db25 connector (then to the ipac).

[thrash242]

Can't you just connect the grounds for all the switches in serial?  It would probably be much neater and easy to make modular wiring.  This is what I'm thinking about doing with my removable panel and it'll have (for the first and general purpose panel):

2 8-way joysticks (4 switches each)
7 buttons each (7 each)

So for each player there'll be 11 wires each plus ground, for 12.  So I'm probably going to have a 12 pin Molex connector for each player plus trackball and spinner for the panel that has it.

[Minwah]

Can't you just connect the grounds for all the switches in serial?

[Stingray]

My grounds are also all daisy chained together and run through a common ground wire in the printer cable.

-S

[yourfatmama]

GGKoul, i was considering using ethernet cables for my swappable panel, could you elaborate on the difficulty you ran into when attempting to use them for yours? i saw a guy use them for his modular panels and it looked like it worked well (other than the thinness of the wires).

[Doc-]

CAT5 panels and cables are optimal for modular setups.  The wires are thin, but I have quite a few tips for mitigating that on the site below.  So far I have had no broken wires, despite daily handling of the modules on my system by my 6 year old son (we're always swapping panels):

  http://www.beersmith.com/mame/

See the wiring link at the top of the page.

The bigest advantage of the CAT5 system is that you can plug it in with one hand while holding the panel with the other.  It could be extended for larger panels - just divide the inputs up into separate cables (perhaps one for buttons, one for joysticks like mine...)


Cheers!
Doc -

[Buddabing]

Hi

I'm muddling my way through my first cab and I have a couple of questions.

I'm doing a standard, upright, LuSID-like cabinet.