State of Steering wheels.

[jelwell]

So I've done quite a bit of searching and a few things seem clear to me:
1) I need a 360 wheel - since the games I care about (in order) are: Super Sprint (360), Super Offroad (360), APB (360) and Spy Hunter (270).
2) No PC (logitech/MS/whatever) steering wheel is 360 degrees.
3) I want to support (at least) 2 player Super Sprint - and I'd prefer a fluid game play for both players & matching wheels.

I want to know 2 things now:
A) What's the *best* option? (Should I order 2 Happs 360s and an Optipac?)
B) What is the cheapest option? (Should I rummage up some steering wheels and hook them to a mouse or a spinner?)

Are any of my facts wrong? Is there *still* no PC 360 wheel?
Joseph Elwell.

[NoOne=NBA=]

360 wheels go really cheap on ebay, and most of them are very durable.
This makes used ones a much better deal than new ones.

Just look for ones that don't look beat to death and rusted, and you should be OK.

[Chris]

Don't forget you'll need two sets of pedals as well.  I have noticed that PC wheel pedals are awful for playing standing up...

Are you building a driving game only cab?  If not, figuring out how to make your wheel coexist is a tricky wicket... and 360^o arcade wheels are heavy, so a pair of them on a swappable panel is less than convenient.  I have a pair of Pole Position wheels and a PP shifter in the garage, and I've been wrestling with this problem for over a year...

--Chris

[jelwell]

Don't forget you'll need two sets of pedals as well.

[Flinkly]

no offense, but you might want to start going swappable panels soon.  thats one big frankenpanel. 

as for swinging wheels, i don't think thats gonna happen.  don't forget that the wheel has a shaft that sticks out a ways, and then encoder stuff for the spinner like mechanism at the end. 

as for pedals, unless your gonna use a chair, i think your outa luck if you want to attach them to the bottom of the cab like minwah.  your cab sticks too far off the floor with those casters.

bottom line, you gotta ease up on trying to play every game, unless you go swappable or modular.  and getting all the driving stuff you need is gonna cost alot of money, even from ebay.

[Chris]

I was thinking of putting T-nuts in my panel and mounting the wheels in a box that has knobs to screw into the T-nuts, but the T-nut holes will look awful for the 99% of the time that the wheels aren't installed.  1Up did this for a prototype way of mounting either T2 guns or a Star Wars yoke, but I think he abandoned it.

If you hold a Pole Position wheel in your hands, I think you'll se that swinging wheels aren't an option.  I think Super Sprint wheels are smaller, though.

--Chris

[jelwell]

no offense, but you might want to start going swappable panels soon.

[Flinkly]

well if your up for anything, i like the second option you showed.  i've been thinking of a good way to put t2 guns and the sort on my cab, but due to the distance from control panel to screen, i dind't think i could do it.  but that looks like a viable option for alot of things.  kinda like a showcase cab pedistal thing...

[jelwell]

I was thinking of putting T-nuts in my panel and mounting the wheels in a box that has knobs to screw into the T-nuts, but the T-nut holes will look awful for the 99% of the time that the wheels aren't installed.

[Chris]

Sadly I've never held them except when they've still been connected to their cabinet - which hardly matters.

I have held many a PC steering wheel and those are light enough that a hinged panel seems like it would work.

The mounting hardware is all thick, heavy welded steel.  THose suckers were meant to last forever.

That pedestal seems like a really simple, elegant solution, especially if you could find some other use for it in the game room so it's not just taking up space sitting there, lie a storage cabinet or something.  With two wheels and a shifter, being top-heavy might be an issue.  Hmm... time to hit the drawing board.

--Chris

[jelwell]

well if your up for anything, i like the second option you showed.

[paigeoliver]

Your best steering wheel option is going to be picking up an entire dual steering wheel panel. A populated Sprint 2 panel or an entire macine would be great.

I am not suggesting this, but a person COULD chop the top half off a Sprint 2 and then place it in front of their existing cabinet.

[Kremmit]

I don't see why your "swing under" idea won't work, as long as your current panel is attached to the machine really well, and can support the weight of two wheels mounted in enclosures, and can handle the stress when those enclosures are swung up or down.  I've got some Off Road wheels here, and if memory serves, they don't protrude very far inside the panel.  I'll try to dig 'em out and get you some pictures, and weigh 'em, too.

Pedals are easier- Happ sells a model that's made to bolt to the front of the cab.  Or, if you get the kind that mount to a board on the floor, that's easy too, as it's just a board, on the floor.  I'll grab a pic of my Off-Road cab's pedal setup, too.

As for how to interface 'em, you can do two wheels on one mouse hack, or a whole bunch of 'em on an Opti-Pac.  Pedals can be done with a Dual Strike hack, or Dave's AKI interface.

[Chris]

I would think a flip-down kickplate might be good if you need to get pedals out of the way...

[Kremmit]

Hmm, flip-down.. if you don't want the flip-down panel to protrude when it's up, you'd need to cut recesses in the cab to make room for the pedals.. and if you're already cutting recesses, why not make it so it folds up INTO the recess, with the front flush.. neat-o!

edit- just re-read that, and you're not talking about mounting a fold-down panel onto the front of the cab, you're talking about making the actual kickplate part of the cab fold down, aren't you?  Also neat-o!

[jelwell]

Your best steering wheel option is going to be picking up an entire dual steering wheel panel. A populated Sprint 2 panel or an entire macine would be great.

I'm getting greedy. With the pedestal idea I'm thinking I might be able to fit 3 or 4 steering wheels! BwahahahahahaHAHAHA! Are there any Super Sprint-like games that support 4 simultaneous players? I could only find the original Sprint 4 & Sprint 8 but I'm not going to play those older games, just the more modern games with a bit more color and detail.

I don't think I need a shifter to play any of the games I want. But I suppose it wouldn't hurt to add one or two if the pedestal isn't too crowded.

I am not suggesting this, but a person COULD chop the top half off a Sprint 2 and then place it in front of their existing cabinet.

I make no apologies for wanting to destroy an arcade cabinet:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,33560.0.html

Joseph Elwell.

[jelwell]

I don't see why your "swing under" idea won't work, as long as your current panel is attached to the machine really well, and can support the weight of two wheels mounted in enclosures, and can handle the stress when those enclosures are swung up or down.

[jelwell]

I would think a flip-down kickplate might be good if you need to get pedals out of the way...

I don't think I understand this idea? A flilp down kick plate? Any pictures of this?

Hmm, flip-down.. if you don't want the flip-down panel to protrude when it's up, you'd need to cut recesses in the cab to make room for the pedals.. and if you're already cutting recesses, why not make it so it folds up INTO the recess, with the front flush.. neat-o!

Here's two ideas I was thinking of for the pedals. Either idea works for the pedestal or on the cabinet:

Minwah's cabinet with external pedals:


Some guy's internal pedal design:


I don't really have a preference. Any suggestions on why one design is better than the other? I can't imagine a need for hiding the pedals. The only reason I wanted to hinge the steering wheels is because they'd get in the way of the rest of the control panel. Although if I went with a hinged steering wheel it would be kind of cool if when you pop the steering wheel up the pedals also drop out.
Joseph Elwell.

[menace]

Here's what I did:

rotating 3 sided panel--control panel #3 has pegs which mate with the wheel assemblies and lock in.  the pedals are then flip up/hideaway style which operate using those magnets that they use for cabinets and stuff (i.e. push in to lock, quick push to unlock)  My only beef was not finding 2 pc pedals that were the same so player 2 got the more uncomfortable ones    This setup works beautifully with an optipac under the hood to control them.  The advantage of this is that as far as mame is concerned the wheels are always plugged in(thanks to the optipac) so there is no re-ordering of controls every time i add and remove things.

the pedals are an analog joystick to usb plug that have been hacked to separate the two axis of the joystick.  Player one is +x, -x and player 2 is +y,-y.  Once you have mapped this in mame it works quite well.

[paigeoliver]

Also, if anyone near St. Louis wants to haul off an empty Sprint 2 cab to chop the top half off of, well, I have one in my basement. I'll leave the pedals and coin door on it if you toss me a $20.

[jelwell]

Here's what I did:

rotating 3 sided panel--control panel #3 has pegs which mate with the wheel assemblies and lock in.

Rotating? So your driving control panel hides in the cabinet when not in use?

I don't think I'm following this. Do you have a picture of the rotation, and also what the cab looks like when it's not a driving game?
Joseph Elwell.

[menace]

the wheels come off, get stored in the drawer below then you rotate.  here's a mid construction photo and one of the 1st control panel

[menace]

and her is control panel #3 bare before the wheels are attached.

[jelwell]

the wheels come off, get stored in the drawer below then you rotate.

[wallyhooker]

Also, if anyone near St. Louis wants to haul off an empty Sprint 2 cab to chop the top half off of, well, I have one in my basement. I'll leave the pedals and coin door on it if you toss me a $20.

Hi!

I'm in Effingham, IL, just down I-70.

[Kremmit]

Finally got around to those pictures.  The thing weighs 9lbs, including yellow metal panel.  Most of the weight's in the wheel assembly, though.  There's another version of these wheels with a regular flat encoder wheel, that protrudes a little less.

[jelwell]

I'm definitely going with the pedestal idea. Now that Cruisn USA plays at full speed in mame .94u5 I'm thinking about a 3 wheel control panel. The two outer wheels would be 360s for Super Sprint and the like. The center wheel would be a 270 for Cruisn and the like.

Do I need shifters for the outer 360 wheels? Or only the center wheel?

Maybe Wheel, shifter, wheel, shifter, wheel. That way the 2 player 360 games can each have a shifter and the center 260 wheel can use either a left handed or right handed shifter.

Here's another pedestal implementation I found:
http://mannix20.tripod.com/id29.htm
Joseph Elwell.

[Chris]

Now that Cruisn USA plays at full speed in mame .94u5 I'm thinking about a 3 wheel control panel.

Huh?  Did I miss a memo?

[MiKman]

Well you still need a 3.0 Ghz machine, but yes it does, mame 0.94 u5 plays it full speed.

[Chris]

Here's another pedestal implementation I found:
http://mannix20.tripod.com/id29.htm
Joseph Elwell.

That one's nice and thin.... I could probably slide that behind the cabinet when it's not in use...

I was envisioning a pedestal with a rotating top... I have two 360^o wheels, a 270^o PC wheel, and I'd like to have a yoke...

Right now, when I want to play Crazy Taxi or Outrun, I put a flat box I created over the trackball to protect it and then clamp the Logitech USB wheel to the front of the CP, but it's kind of annoying to do and when kids are driving wildly, I'm always afraid their going to break off something, as the whole thing looks very Rube Goldberg-ish.

[jelwell]

Now that Cruisn USA plays at full speed in mame .94u5 I'm thinking about a 3 wheel control panel.

Huh?