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| Swappable Control Panels -- Molex? |
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| Buddabing:
A straight-through parallel port cable setup would be pretty cheap and easy. For your first panel, just cut a cable in half and put the female end on your cabinet and the male end on your panel. Then run the wires from your encoder to the female cable ends, and from the male end of the cable to your controls. For the second and subsequent panels, throw away the female end and use the male end on the panel. That'll give you 25 inputs, which is enough for 2 joysticks (4 wires each=8) with 6 buttons for each player (12), with a pause button, a coin button, 2 start buttons, and a ground. I suppose you could pass in the ground with your power cable and have a second coin button. You could also have each panel have its own encoder. IIRC MAMEMaster! uses this approach, and if I ever get going on the project that's what I'm planning. For powering the panel, a Molex connector would be a good idea. I did that for powering my coin door lights. I took an old Molex connector from a fan, ran wires from it to the coin door, which were conveniently 12 volts, and voila. But for controls? I dunno if that's such a good idea. |
| DrewKaree:
You can also buy D25 connectors - basically what Budda's talking about, but since you still have to connect the wires, why not just wire them straight into the connector and skip the "strip wires and solder" thingamabob. Just make sure you get a male and female. Check mouser.com |
| gnateye:
i used baddabings method too, and ive been super happy with it for about 4 years at least, and i have 3 seperate panels that i swap between regularly, it helps to use actual control panel clamps as well, makes the switching really fast and easy. next time i make a new panel though im gonna go with drewkaree's suggestion, all that stripping and crimping on those little tiny wires is a pain, if i can save a few steps buying the connectors then i will for sure. one tip either buy the same brand cables (i find belkin have color coded wires) that way you can easily make new panels without having to figure out what aire goes where etc. just my 2cents... |
| Havok:
I have swappable panels - they are all usb... |
| releasedtruth:
I used a SCSI-1 cable. Male on one end, female on the other. Cut it in half, wired everything up, good to go. Cable was maybe 3 bucks, has enough connections for me, but depends on how many you need of course. GT |
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