Building a Installation

[hir0]

I've been lurking on this board for quite some while and i'm very impressed by all the cabinets that are build here. And it has also been a great help for my own project:

I'm now in a school project where we have to build an installation for a exposition. Thanks to the concept we have to build 4 cabinets for a 4 player multiplayer game. Before you all explode that 4 cabinets is too much, please read on   (though you are all right )

We have 1 main pc, that has a Keyboard encoder (probaby a Ipac2/Minipac) with 4 Joysticks connected that will go to the 4 cabinets. I'm kinda worried that the distance between the Joysticks and the Encoder might be too long (like 5m) . Is there such thing as a limit of length of the cables? If not, then i have nothing to worry about except for the length of the cables. And if there is a max length can we amplify the signal in some way?

Also the cabinets won't be like all the other cabinets here, but more sleek and thin. More like the VF5 Arcade cabinets. Well at least they are in the initial design.  Since they have to be mobile. Also we will prob use some 15" TFT (with touch screen overlay) screens.

When my login is fixed i'll post some pics and more info

[Ed_McCarron]

We have 1 main pc, that has a Keyboard encoder (probaby a Ipac2/Minipac) with 4 Joysticks connected that will go to the 4 cabinets. I'm kinda worried that the distance between the Joysticks and the Encoder might be too long (like 5m) . Is there such thing as a limit of length of the cables?

You'll probably be fine.  The IPAC input pins are active +5v, iirc, and are pulled to ground to turn them on.  Worse case, if you find electrical noise is an issue, you can either use a shielded cable (ground the shield) or add heftier pull up resistors to the signal lines.

Sure someone'll jump in with more.