How to wire coin up buttons to be toggled on/off

[QuixoteQuest]

My arcade manufacturer built our arcade with a working coin door. But we also have "free play" coin up buttons on the CP, too. I'd like to use my coin door as a portioning device for my sons. Therefore, I'd like to make the CP coin buttons able to be toggled on/off. And I'd like to do it more elegantly than merely plugging/unplugging the quick disconnects from the microswitch by opening up the CP. (I think my 10 year old could easily figure out how to reattach them.)

So my thought is this: Could I cut the non ground wire going to each coin-up button, then wire on an extension to each of the two pieces. Then I could wire each set of two wire extensions down inside the cab behind the locked coin door and hook each end to some sort of always on/off switch where one side of the wire goes on one terminal. The other wire goes on the other terminal. Then when the switch is turned "on" the circuit would be completed and the free coin buttons would work (in addition to the coin door). When turned off the circuit would be broken and only the coin door would work. I'm sure there is probably some kind of switch that could be mounted right to the surface of the wall on the inside behind the coin door that wouldn't require drilling all the way through the wall to mount.

Pardon if very elementary question but I just did my first DIY project yesterday of wiring an extension to my PC power button out to the underside of the CP, so now I'm full of ideas of how to tweak my cab more. This seems like an easy mod, but I want to be sure it is the N-O connection I should break on the coin-up switches and not the COM/ground. And could I take both coin buttons and wire them into the same switch, so both would be open or closed with the same switch?

 

[Thenasty]

That would do it, unless he's smart enought to take the wire from the coin door to the CP buttons. 

But this are lock so, can't get it.
Now, if he realize that SAVE STATE works, and when the CP buttons work for credits, he just put TONS OF CREDITS so when he start the game over, the credits are still there   

[steveh]

Is that box using some sort of encoder?  what is it that you have?  i was thinking of using a shazam key and hiding all my free coin keys under the p1 keys and then hiding the shazam button somewhere

[QuixoteQuest]

That would do it, unless he's smart enought to take the wire from the coin door to the CP buttons. 

But this are lock so, can't get it.
Now, if he realize that SAVE STATE works, and when the CP buttons work for credits, he just put TONS OF CREDITS so when he start the game over, the credits are still there   

Yep, Save State could definitely be the workaround    Well I won't tell him if you won't

I don't need the cab to be impervious. It's not a commercial unit or anything. But a simple, and more elegant solution to switch on/off free play than plugging/unplugging the CP coin-up buttons would be a fun little DIY project.

[miles2912]

What I did was wire the ground to the switch and then to the credit button.  Wire the coin door to a common block and wire the credit button to the same block.  Flipping the switch will disable the button.  You can see the switch in the pic (middle right) and the common block.

Don

[QuixoteQuest]

Is that box using some sort of encoder?  what is it that you have?  i was thinking of using a shazam key and hiding all my free coin keys under the p1 keys and then hiding the shazam button somewhere

Yeah, it just has an IPAC. Its coin up inputs right just take the two wires from the coin door and from both CP coin-up buttons. A Shazam key is definitely another option, though it'd be hard to use a hidden button without revealing its location. But unlocking the coin door and having a switch for free play on or off would seem to be an easy thing to do, depending on how generous a parent I am in a given day

[QuixoteQuest]

What I did was wire the ground to the switch and then to the credit button.  Wire the coin door to a common block and wire the credit button to the same block.  Flipping the switch will disable the button.  You can see the switch in the pic (middle right) and the common block.

My grounds were wired together with all the other grounds for the CP admin buttons. Therefore if the ground circuit is involved at all in the switch wouldn't all my admin buttons cease to function when the circuit is broken? That's why I was wondering if I just took the coin-up button control leads and broke them with an on/off switch I could effectively make the free play an enabled/disabled feature of my cab.

That said, there are workarounds. Hopefully my boys will play along with the portioning control nature I want to implement without trying to crack the system.

It may not work. At least if either son turns out to be anything like their Dad was at that age 

[miles2912]

My grounds all connect to a common block and then to the mini-pac.  Makes trouble shooting if you have a short simple.  So half my CP is wired to the block then the other half.  The coin door is wired to it and then the pinball buttons.  Finally I have the toggle switch wired to it.  I found this much easier then doing one big long ground wire.

Don

[Kaytrim]

I plan to implement the same type of system in my cab.  Make sure that the coin box area is sealed and that you cover all the coin buttons not just player one.  You might want to lock the CP down to the cabinet so the wiring is inaccessible.

Don't forget where you stash the keys. 

[QuixoteQuest]

My grounds all connect to a common block and then to the mini-pac.  Makes trouble shooting if you have a short simple.  So half my CP is wired to the block then the other half.  The coin door is wired to it and then the pinball buttons.  Finally I have the toggle switch wired to it.  I found this much easier then doing one big long ground wire.

I can see the wisdom to how you did it. Hopefully I never get a short and have to troubleshoot the system my cab maker built for me   

[Level42]

Why not use a keyswitch ? Seems the simplest option of alll IMHO.

[QuixoteQuest]

Why not use an keyswitch ? Seems then simplest option of alll IMHO.

Agreed. I need to search around, though, to find one that could mount thru 3/4". The keyswitch I saw at Radio Shack didn't have long enough threaded portion of the neck.

[_) (V) (-)]

I agree, you can get multi circuit key switches that would turn on/off multiple coin switches at once, useful for multiple coin slots.
Plus you wouldn't have to hide it, put it someplace convenient and just remember where you kept the key.

[gnateye]

i did this in my mame cab for exactly the same reasons

my method ( i wish i snapped a pic, i'll try tonight after work) i have my ipac mounted to a piece of plastic so i can take it out to work on it if needed. when i mounted the ipac i found a really cheap on/off switch at radio shack, cut the ground wires, wired them through the switch and mounted said swith to the plastic that the ipac is mounted too, you flick the switch and the coin buttons work flick it again and nothing, works perfectly and is simple yet elegant solution...

[acevedor2]

That is similar to what I was thinking.  I was going to wire the Coin 1/2 of the coin door to the Coin 1/2 of the IPAC4.  Then I was going to go from the Coin1/2 Buttons on the CP to the Player 1/2 Button 8 ports in the IPAC - through a switch.  The IPAC's Windows config utility will allow me to assign the Player1/2 Button 8 slots as Coin 1/2.  That way when I flip the switch, the coin buttons don't work, just the coin slots.

[FrizzleFried]

Perfect solution...low cost...and effective!

...webcam.

Thats right.  A web cam.   I had an old webcam that I had lost the drivers for years ago that I mounted to the ceiling with the wire going in to the ceiling in the garage (where my "man room" is.   It plugs in to nothing.  It just sits there.   The kids all think I watch what is going on in the "man room" from my computer at work.   I tell them it sees all and records all.  They are convinced.

Muaaaaahahahahahahahaaaaaa!

[steveh]

Perfect solution...low cost...and effective!

...webcam.

Thats right.  A web cam.   I had an old webcam that I had lost the drivers for years ago that I mounted to the ceiling with the wire going in to the ceiling in the garage (where my "man room" is.   It plugs in to nothing.  It just sits there.   The kids all think I watch what is going on in the "man room" from my computer at work.   I tell them it sees all and records all.  They are convinced.

Muaaaaahahahahahahahaaaaaa!

that is not a bad idea

[QuixoteQuest]

Perfect solution...low cost...and effective!

...webcam.

Thats right.  A web cam.   I had an old webcam that I had lost the drivers for years ago that I mounted to the ceiling with the wire going in to the ceiling in the garage (where my "man room" is.   It plugs in to nothing.  It just sits there.   The kids all think I watch what is going on in the "man room" from my computer at work.   I tell them it sees all and records all.  They are convinced.

Muaaaaahahahahahahahaaaaaa!

My bro has a fully professionally stocked gambling room in his house. He has what looks like functioning cameras monitoring the roulette, baccarat, blackjack and poker tables. Any visitor is sure that they just can't be real. But for an eccentric like him no one is positive that they aren't for real.  It's a modern Utah gambling speakeasy!

[JustMichael]

QuixoteQuest,  take the wires going from ground to the coin buttons and disconnect them from ground.  Connect the loose ends to one side of a toggle switch.  Connect a wire from the other side of the toggle switch to ground.  This will allow you to enable or disable the coin buttons by allowing or preventing the ground from reaching the 2 coin buttons.  This won't affect the other buttons.

[QuixoteQuest]

QuixoteQuest,  take the wires going from ground to the coin buttons and disconnect them from ground.  Connect the loose ends to one side of a toggle switch.  Connect a wire from the other side of the toggle switch to ground.  This will allow you to enable or disable the coin buttons by allowing or preventing the ground from reaching the 2 coin buttons.  This won't affect the other buttons.

Really, it's the ground I want to interrupt on those buttons--even though they are daisy chained with the rest of the grounds on the other buttons? I thought it would be the other connection on the button that would need to be wired to the switch. . .

[Kevin Mullins]

If your ground is truly daisy chained from one button to the next..... then no, you can't use the ground side to make the break otherwise the next buttons in line will not work when the switch is off.

So just do it to the other side.

[steveh]

you would have to run a special ground just to your coin buttons.  this should not be a big task. 

what you are looking to do is break the connection that is made when the button is pushed.  you can do that by switching each individual wire on the button.  Or to the common ground to all the buttons. either way you are stopping the connection back to the ipac (or whatever)

[JustMichael]

QuixoteQuest,  take the wires going from ground to the coin buttons and disconnect them from ground.  Connect the loose ends to one side of a toggle switch.  Connect a wire from the other side of the toggle switch to ground.  This will allow you to enable or disable the coin buttons by allowing or preventing the ground from reaching the 2 coin buttons.  This won't affect the other buttons.

Really, it's the ground I want to interrupt on those buttons--even though they are daisy chained with the rest of the grounds on the other buttons? I thought it would be the other connection on the button that would need to be wired to the switch. . .

If the ground literally goes from one button to another, disconnect the ground from both of the coin buttons.  Don't break the wire loop.  Wrap one of the disconnected ground connectors on the wire with electrical tape (so it can't accidentally contact something).  Connect the other ground connector to one side of a toggle switch.  If the wire is too short,  connect a longer wire to it.  Connect the other side of the toggle switch to each button where the ground connector was.

The reason I suggest switching the ground is that you would need only 1 switch no matter how many coin buttons you have.

Yes you could use seperate switches as you thought in:

So my thought is this: Could I cut the non ground wire going to each coin-up button, then wire on an extension to each of the two pieces. Then I could wire each set of two wire extensions down inside the cab behind the locked coin door and hook each end to some sort of always on/off switch where one side of the wire goes on one terminal. The other wire goes on the other terminal. Then when the switch is turned "on" the circuit would be completed and the free coin buttons would work (in addition to the coin door). When turned off the circuit would be broken and only the coin door would work.

As for:

I'm sure there is probably some kind of switch that could be mounted right to the surface of the wall on the inside behind the coin door that wouldn't require drilling all the way through the wall to mount.

I don't know of switches like that except knife switches (like used in Frankenstein).  All the switches I have used, the switch is on one side and the connections are on the other.  This is done to keep people from coming into contact with the wiring.  More likely than not you will need a hole all the way through to mount and wire your switch.  Radio Shack has a wide variety of switches and there is usually one local to most people. Go take a look and find a switch that you like the look of.  DO NOT buy any that say "momentary".  These are the same as arcade buttons.  They will not work as you need them to.  I think a toggle or rocker switch would be fine for this and look nice too.  Voltage and amperage ratings of the switch don't matter for this application.  All of them exceed what is needed.

[NoOne=NBA=]

There's one thing that everyone is missing here.
Unless you specifically prevent access to the admin functions of MAME, they can easily remap the coinup to whatever they want, and then put it back with you being none the wiser.

[QuixoteQuest]

There's one thing that everyone is missing here.
Unless you specifically prevent access to the admin functions of MAME, they can easily remap the coinup to whatever they want, and then put it back with you being none the wiser.

You're right. Even eliminating the keyboard there is a workaround if you can get into the IPAC mapping software. I don't need this to be an impervious commercial unit. Just a portion-controlled home unit that hopefully will not be abused, to the best we can monitor it, and for which I just wanted to implement a more elegant switching mechanism than disconnecting/reconnecting the leads off the bottom of the coin-up buttons.

[miles2912]

Quick Diagram on how I wired in my toggle switch and a basic cp overview. 

Don

[QuixoteQuest]

Quick Diagram on how I wired in my toggle switch and a basic cp overview. 

Don

Very elegant way to go. Looks like one more upgrade to implement on my commercially-produced CP some time in the future.