Quick Disconnects (may be in wrong place - sorry if so!)

[RTSDaddy2]

Hey guys...

Now, if you've read previous posts of mine, it's pretty obvious that I still am learning my way around a shop. 

I will soon be creating a second control panel (with steering wheel), and I had a question.

I got the little .187 connectors attached to my joysticks and pushbuttons, but I really don't know that I see anything "quick" about removing this panel to replace it with another.  I even though about just unscrewing everything from the IPAC, but that doesn't make sense...

As I pondered this question, I wondered "how quick is a change from one control panel to another, esp. ones with differing sets of buttons? Furthermore, how is it done?"

BTW, before anybody says so, NO, I forgot to do a search on here...off to do that now (I always forget about the search feature)....SEE HOW GOOFY? 

[axefreak]

Do a search on google for "terminal blocks", you will find lots of ideas!  If you have 2 different panels I would do it like this:

1)  wire the IPAC or Keywiz to one set of terminal blocks.  Wire all the controls from the 1st console to a set of terminal blocks that "plug" into the terminal blocks that are wired back to the encoder.

2)  wire the IPAC or Keywiz to a 2nd set of terminal blocks.  Wire the controls from the 2nd console to a set of terminal blocks that "plug" into the terminal blocks that are wired back to the encoder.

This way you can plug one console into the termianl blocks that are for that console and you're ready to play.  Once you are done, unplug it and plug the 2nd console into its terminal plug set-up and you're ready to play.

If I made this sound confusing, its not.  Here is a rough sketch..

[Tahnok]

Quick disconnects are called so because they are quicker than soldering. They are not meant to be changed often though.

Don't try to rewire the panel everytime. Every panel needs to be wired and go into some sort of single plug that can easily be switched. I don't have swappable panels, so I can't help you much here.

[brian23]

There is really nothing quick about what you want to do. I have my I-pac in the center. I ran wires from the terminal block to the i-pac for each player. First wire is ground, then R, L, U, D, etc. I do this for each player. I then daisy chain the grounds on each controller to the ground on the terminal block. If you wanted to "pop-off" your CP top and to add new controls, simply unscrew 10 or so wires from the terminal block (the one's coming from the controllers - not going to the i-pac). This will take about 10 minutes. Place your new already wired up CP on the CP box, re-wire into the terminal blocks. Tada, new CP setup. Unless you had some sort of harness where you could quickly unplug and reattach, then it would be fast.

If you want it to be fast, you could use spare molex connectors. You will need a few male and female molex connectors. Snip the wires and strip the ends. If you have a Joystick, 1Player Button, and 6 buttons, you will need 11 leads. Three molex connectors will give you twelve leads. The problem with this setup is the color may trip you up since molex usually uses a yellow, black, black, red coloring scheme. If you were to wire up all your CPs like this, it would save a lot of time instead of unscrewing everytime you wanted to put a new CP on.

 

[axefreak]

If you do it like I said, you will not have to unwrire or rewire anything.  Why would you want to mess with that?  Wire it so you can just "unplug" the console and "plug" the next one in.  I wouldn't want to have to keep messing with the wires.

[tristan]

I used a solder-on DB-25 connector for mine. Then I just grabbed an old parrallel backplane from an old computer (most computer shops will have these laying around, and will probably give it to you if you're nice), bent it at 90 degrees, and mounted it under the monitor. Soldered the cabinet's wiring into a female DB-25 in the backplane, and then soldered the control panel into a male DB-25. Now I can swap control panels in less than 2 minutes.

[brian23]

I used a solder-on DB-25 connector for mine. Then I just grabbed an old parrallel backplane from an old computer (most computer shops will have these laying around, and will probably give it to you if you're nice), bent it at 90 degrees, and mounted it under the monitor. Soldered the cabinet's wiring into a female DB-25 in the backplane, and then soldered the control panel into a male DB-25. Now I can swap control panels in less than 2 minutes.

That's a great idea. I'm not too good at soldering so I went with the modified molex idea. I had a bunch of old fans laying around. Any of these ideas will work.

[markrvp]

RTSDaddy:

Are you adding a 360 degree wheel or a 270 degree PC wheel?

If you are adding a 270 degree PC wheel then chances are you can just plug it in USB and map all the controls you need to the buttons on that wheel.

If you are adding a 360 wheel, then that would be just plugging in a USB mouse.

[Avery]

I'm using CAT5 connectors on a modular panel.  Not sure how many wires you want to have to plug in every time you change panels, but if you buy the outlets off E-bay they're pretty cheap.

If you buy them at a hardware store it'd practically be cheaper to build a second cab.  Grumble......

[RTSDaddy2]

First of all, thanks for all the advice guys!

Gotta be quick, it's for my wife for Christmas (say what you will - and trust me, I know some of you will -  but she LOVES racing games) and I expect her back from the store soon.

Mark,  I think it is a 270 wheel, and it may be that I can get the buttons on the wheel to work with MAME.  I have had NO time to try this out, get to the shop and cut the panel, et. al....I'm just going to have to tell her I've got things to do down there.  I know she'll be suspicious, because she really wants light guns (honestly, she does - loves Jurassic parK).

Should run I suppose....will post here again as time allows.