Simple (but pretty) way to do one button turn on

[fjser]

My cab is near completion. Its a former arcade cab with arcade monitor that was converted to a MAME cabinet. I have read numerous postings about the smart strip and other options for other such turn on systems, but here is my question.

currenlty, the monitor, and marquee light are both routed to the inside bridge in the cbinet that connects to the extension cable on the outside.  How can I best keep using this setup?  What I mean is that I would like to just keep the outside switch as my main off/on mechanism. Can I cut the end of the cord off of the PC power supply and run it straight to the same place the monitor and marquee light go? If so, how will I know which wire goes where?

If a smartstrip is the way to go, how can i best conceal it an still only have one place to go to turn my system off an on?

[JustMichael]

My cabinet didn't have a cord originally so I cut the end off of a 15' heavy duty extension cord (black of course!).  I wired the white wire (neutral) and the copper wire (ground) to an outlet inside the cabinet.  I then connected the black wire (hot) to a switch rated to handle the voltage and current (110V AC or more and 15A or more).  I connected the other side of the switch to the proper side of the outlet in the cabinet.  Now whenever I flip the switch on, the outlet has power.  Flip the switch off and no power side the cabinet.

[JohnNevets]

Fjesr,
It depends what you want to be the controlling device/switch.  The smartstip needs you to turn a device on and start drawing current across it's "sensor" outlet and then it will turn the other things attached to that outlet on.  What a lot of people do is set the computer on the sensor outlet and just extend the computers normal power switch (the one on the front) to a convenient spot (top or back of cab typically) and then when they hit this one button (not a toggle switch) it turns everything else on.  now you would have to reroute all the power cables providing power to the bridge to be plugged into the power strip.  You can also do something similar with a relay and build it yourself, just look around for posts on this.
      The other option is to do like you said and wire an outlet/regular power strip up to the bridge. If you don't know what wires are hot and neutral you probably shouldn't be doing this yourself , so get the help of a friend who dose,or read up on home wiring.  Now you have to figure out a way to get your computer to turn on automatically when power is turned on to the power supply.  This depends allot on what features your motherboard supports.  One possibility is if your motherboard supports a feature in your bios that turns it back on again if there is a power outage.

Good luck, keep asking questions, and I hope this wasn't too long winded.

John