odd....

[btp2k2]

a few years ago, my wife bought me a X-Arcade 2 player stick for my birthday. I am sure if she had any idea what doors it would open it, she would have gotten me a digital camera or something lame like that.

So, I recently brought my X-Arcade out of mothballs. I took it apart and began a salvage operation so I could use the buttons, etc in another project. I found something very strange.

The contacts on the microswitches are backwards. I wired up the while panel using a Minipac just as I had many times before. But when I fired it up....nothing worked. The only difference in the other projects was pushbuttons using the red Cherry switches...so, I looked carefully at the wiring harness from the X-Arcade and then checked out the X-Arcade site for a wiring diagram. Sure enough....the ground goes on the middle contact, rather than the top like the Cherries.

I have never seen that before, mostly because I have never used any microswitches other than Cherry. Is that common for switches from different manufactures to have the contacts in different spots?

[leapinlew]

does it matter? I thought it was a circuit completing a connection and didn't really matter if the ground was on the top or middle.

Maybe I'm not understanding you.

[bfauska]

I would think that Leapinlew is right.  As long as the circuit is being connected by the switch then it doesn't matter wich wire is on which spade, as long as they are on the correct pair of spades.  The only way it would matter is if the X-arcade buttons have a diode in the microswitch for some reason.

Did it fix the problem when you switched it?

Definately wierd.


Brian

[btp2k2]

no, it doesn't matter....I just thought it was odd.

I had never seen them in a different location like that, so I wanted to know if it was that was typical to see from different makers of switches.

Just curious

[AlexKidd]

LOOKOUT! That's the X-Arcade security scheme. If you crack it and hack the buttons to work with another device you'll be voilating the DMCA!!