Lately, I have been considering rewiring my original control panel. It was my first experience with arcade CPs and didn't turn out that great. A little while ago my trackball mysteriously stopped working. The mouse hack had always been a bit iffy; I have to wonder if a trace finally lifted. That along with the small, but livable, problem of the keyboard hack's buttons not being quite right (I misread the matrix) has pushed me to look into encoders.
The minipac looks like it will suit my need of switches and trackball (also Ultimarc brand), but there are a few things I don't understand.
This table...
http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/encoder/main.htm#THE_PLAYERS...says that it can be as cheap as $29 or as expensive as $69 (the ultimarc catalog is down right now, so I can't actually look). Which of those harnesses and cables will I need if I don't have a problem with stripping and crimping my own connectors and I have the harness that came with the trackball? I'm planning on running in USB mode, though I hope that is just a standard USB A to B cable. I also need to be able to hook-up the player start lights.