ok this is what i want for my CP

[bossyman15]

i will be starting my project maybe next week 

however i would like to make 4 player CP but 1st and 4th are as is... but 2nd and 3rd is modular panels.

now the cp will be MDF but in center where modular panels will be, will be metal.

i think it could work but i am not sure how it works

i read through this site http://users.adelphia.net/~bsturk/mame.html but it didn't have enought details on how to do it. any other site out there on how to do it?

[Franco]

You may want to re-phrase your question, the post doesnt seem to make too much sense.

From what I gather you want to make a CP out of MDF with a swapable metal center section. You said that you want players 2+3 to be the swapable ones, I assume you mean the two player stations in the center? These two posistions tend to be players one and two. Player three tends to be on the left and player four is normally on the right.

What exactly is it you are having problems with? The construction theroy, the patch panel or......?

Anyway, I like the idea of this!

[Pik4chu]

You may want to re-phrase your question, the post doesnt seem to make too much sense.

From what I gather you want to make a CP out of MDF with a swapable metal center section. You said that you want players 2+3 to be the swapable ones, I assume you mean the two player stations in the center? These two posistions tend to be players one and two. Player three tends to be on the left and player four is normally on the right.

What exactly is it you are having problems with? The construction theroy, the patch panel or......?

Anyway, I like the idea of this!

My understanding is that he wants

Code: [Select]

|.--------------------------------------|
|  P1   |    P2    |    P3    |   P4     |
| Fixed|   Mod- |  Mod-  |  Fixed  |
|         |   Ular   |  ular    |            |
|____.|______|______|______|
Like that, and it seems his questions are in regards to everything, both how to design it to work and how to do all the hookups.

Now if thats the question my suggestion would be to make the whole panel out of metal (the top atleast) and then the center spot modular, this should give you a more seamless (clean looking) design.

As for modular panels, the keys here are labelling and lots and lots of planning.

You need to plan out what modular jack (in the link the person used a patch panel, which is quite clever IMO) you need to make note of what jack correspeonds to what button on your encoder (which in this case will likely be one of the larger controllers like the IPAC⁴
Remember the better you label and plan out you can potentially avoid any reconfiguring of your emu program when switching panel pieces.

As for the theory behind the link.  What he did was (as the best I cna tell) he wired a seperate jack (read, patch panel) to a different input on his encoder.  Somewhere he has a list denoting what # = what key input.  So when he is swapping panels he knows that "ok, for this game I need 4 buttons (say A, B, C, D for example) and one 4-way joystick and a start button so he gets out those panels and plus the attached ethernat cables into thier corresponding jacks  on the panel and he is ready to go. 

Something to keep in mind is that the person's cab we are reffering to did a ONE player panel, the more stuff you add the more complicated it can get. So major planning is a must, I really cant say that enough

Hopefully that begins to answer your questions.

{Footnote:}
I would like to say that I have never built a panel or a cabinet, by experiences comes from that of wiring large buildings and infrastructure solutions that are involved with my job as an IT consultant.  Including the general knowledge of basic electronics and connections.  And what I have learned from reading many projects and browsing this site for the last few days. Basically what Im saying is I can help you with wiring and theory but the layout of your panel is beyond me

[Pik4chu]

some mroe thoughts.
Upon looking over that site more and looking closely at the pics it seems that he uses the color coding to determine what plugs to use based on the game he is playing.

There are also a couple different ways to wire this up.  You can do one jack per control pieces (1 for a button, 1 for a joystick, etc) if you wont be having a lot of controls this would work well, but if there are times where there will be many items on the panel you will likely want to use as few as possible (such as 1-2 per panel depending on what controls are there)
And just to emphasize again.  For something like this extensive planning and labelling are what will determine if its a success or not

And have you considered emailing the guy and ask if he has some sort of schematic or drawing that you could study to better understand how he did things? Wouldn't hurt to ask.

[bossyman15]

ahhh i see i think i understand now.... as of patch panel.. know where i could get that?

but thanks for your time to write all that out!

[Pik4chu]

ahhh i see i think i understand now.... as of patch panel.. know where i could get that?

but thanks for your time to write all that out!

Only thing is that patch panels can get a bit pricey FYI.
but try this http://www.pacificcable.com/PatchPanels.htm
You can just do some googling to find better prices, what you want are

[Pik4chu]

the jacks that person used are these http://www.action-electronics.com/grc/ppdc1021.jpg found here http://www.action-electronics.com/ppkeysto.htm#Keystone

To save money you could buy the connectors, then build your own panel from thin particle board and epoxy in the connectors. would likely save a good 40%+ on costs.

[bossyman15]

how's this one?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5729807637&ssPageName=MERC_VI_RSCC_Pr4_PcY_BIN_Stores

[Nannuu]

That cabinet it telengard's from here on the board.  You can also ask him some questions about what he's done.

[Pik4chu]

how's this one?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5729807637&ssPageName=MERC_VI_RSCC_Pr4_PcY_BIN_Stores

that is the panel only, you will need to buy the jacks still.  Still would work well as a template to glue/attach the jacks to.  And a good price for what it is (in relation to time&cost of making your own)

[bossyman15]

And a good price for what it is (in relation to time&cost of making your own)

yeah i agree i will place a order later today after i get the answer from a question i send them.

[Avery]

I'm doing a modular - I went with CAT5 cable/jacks/cord.  My outlets come in three flavors - digital (goes to a KeyWiz), Optical (Goes to an Opti-Pac, and Analog (will go to a USB port as soon as I get around to hacking on a USB joystick).

You don't get a lot of choices on the Optical or analog, but I set up the KeyWiz with 7 sockets
1 - Joystick 1
2 - Joystick 2
3 - P1, 4 buttons
4 - P1, 3 buttons
5 - P2, 4 buttons
6 - P2, 3 buttons
7 - P1/P2 Start, two buttons (which are also wired to pinball flipper buttons) - This lets do a P1/P2 + 1 or 2 button panel for things like defender and asteroids, which puts hyperspace below the player buttons.

My admin buttons are hardwired and concealed.

The big tip - don't buy your sockets at the local hardware store.  You'd think they were carving the things out of unicorn horns or something.  Check E-bay, I got them for about a buck a piece there.

[rogue]

Hi folks,
This is sort of close to what I would like to do. ( I think )

I'm planning on keeping the Ipac and Trackball on a central block.
Then I'm planning on wiring everything on the block to female 16 or 24 way molex connectors.

The removable panels will be wired to molex males, so a change over will involve, unclipping the panel i don't want, unclipping the molex connectors and then clipping in the new panel. The cool thing about this is, I can always have the trackball at the ready and save on ipac's or hacked keyboards.

All you have to do, is always wire the buttons to the same and leave blanks where appropriate on the connectors ..

cheers.