My Arcade Shopping list - few newbie questions/ verifications

[stoli7188]

hey everyone I've been wanting to build my first MAME machine for sometime and over the past few days I have done a ton of research.  I'm not sure if this should be in the project announcements are the main section but I have a few questions I want to make sure of before I start buying any of the parts.  Here is what I will be buying, if there are any noticeable incompatibilities (don't think there will be) or if I happened to pick a poor quality product (known to have issues) please let me know.  Again I've done quite a bit of research but I just want to verify before I start spending money.

Also the spinner and trackball (links below) I am buying coming with either a PS2 or USB interface so that means there is no need for an optipac, correct?

Quite a few things require USB ports (guns, 360 joysticks, spinner/ trackball interface) will this cause some kind of interference issue- even if I have enough open USB ports?

The LCD TopGun WORKS with winxp and CAN have two guns working simultaneously, according to the research I've done.

Anyway here's what I will be building:

Mameroom UII cabinet (using the kit)
4 player control panel  (from scratch, guidance from St. Clairs book and mameroom instructions)
-2 U360's with 6 buttons  http://www.ultimarc.com/ultrastik_info.html
-2 MagStiks with 4 buttons http://www.ultimarc.com/controls.html
-Trackball from http://www.dreamarcades.com/partstballs/white.shtml
-Spinner from http://www.slikstik.com/spinfeat.htm
-Buttons from groovygamegear.com
-2 TopGuns http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-zo-49-en-70-16s7.html
-Ipac 4 http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html

One final question, the U360's connect via USB i believe and then the 2 Magstiks along with the rest of the buttons will connect to the Ipac4.  Once that is all set up I can configure it so the two U360's are P1 and P2 while the 2 Mag stiks are for P3 and P4, which is all done in the software/key mapping part?

I apologize if this is a little confusing but any light you can shed on my project/ concerns will be very much appreciated, thank you,

[Joystick Jerk]

If there is any chance you can get a hold of free woodworking tools, or know someone who can cut wood for you, or whatever, DON'T buy the kit from Mameroom, or anyone else for that matter. The markup on the basic cost of the wood is insane. There's maybe $120 in MDF in the UAII cab, and that's being generous, so they'd want us to believe them cutting the wood is worth upwards of $300. I don't think so.

The book has plans for the UAII, and there or loads of other plans free on the web.  If you can cut the wood yourself somehow, you'll save yourself so much money.

[bfauska]

A couple of suggestions for you to save some $$.

The U360s will allow you to hook 8 buttons up to each of them, meaning that the player 3 and 4 buttons and joysticks could be hooked up to a smaller encoder than the ipac4, the Ipac2 for example. 

If you are getting basic happs buttons not electric ice or translucent then I would suggest getting them from the same vendor as some other part.  With the number of sources you are using it is going to cost you as much to ship all the parts as it is to buy them.  Ultimarc has the same (non-illuminated) buttons as GGG.  I am not saying don't go with GGG (in fact it's the only company I have purchased parts from and I plan on all my future purchases being from there), I am just saying that if ALL you are getting there is the buttons you would be better off getting them from Ultimarc to pay one fewer shipping charge.

OR if you want to cut down on vendors and possibily get a better product, you could go with the TurboTwist2 spinner from GGG, and your buttons, this would knock off shipping from slikstik and drop $20 off the price of the spinner so a savings of $32 which you could use tword the electric ice trackball from GGG, which would knock off the shipping charge from dreamarcades of $7 meaning you have a lighted trackball for only $8.  Sounds great to me.  The TB from GGG is at least as high quality as the imperial, if not the same unit with some modifications.  And considering you saved $26 switching from the Ipac4 to the Ipac2, your actually up $18. 


Whew, am I great or what  , light-up trackball and $18 bucks for beer or something else fun. 

Seriously though, your equipment choices all sound like they will work well, whether or not you take my vendor advice.  If you aren't interested in the EE TB you could ask Randy (he is the owner of GGG) if he has any other 3" TB setups.  If you go with the spinner and TB from him you would only need one "mouse" interface since the mouse uses the x and y axis and the spinner could use z, which would save like another $6 on the spinner.

[stoli7188]

joystick jerk and bfauska, thank you very much for your input and advice.

joystick jerk, I thought about just buying the UII cutouts and building the cabinet from scratch, although I have not completely ruled this out, given my situation I would think it be much easier and efficient if I just baught the kit.. but again I will give this decision some more thought, thank you.

bfauska, thanks for point out the vendors and the savings.  i decided to go with the spinner GGG but keep the trackball from dream arcade.  also thank you for pointing out that the U360's can support 8 buttons as I will now switch to the ipac2 as well. saved about 50 bucks right there and even more on the shipping so again thank you!

I think everything else looks good and it all should work together, is there anything I am forgetting? wiring stuff for the control panel?- or does that come with the buttons and ipac?

Also if i build the control panel out of MDF do i need to buy the mounting plate for the trackball?

[Chris G]

There are ways to mount the TB w/o a mounting plate, but I've found the mounting plate makes it very easy.  Recommended, unless you have some unique restriction that makes it troublesome.

If you're going with the 2-player IPAC, that should work, you'll just need to mess around with the controller/MAME setups so the joysticks control the appropriate players.

[Tiger-Heli]

Also the spinner and trackball (links below) I am buying coming with either a PS2 or USB interface so that means there is no need for an optipac, correct?

Correct.

Quite a few things require USB ports (guns, 360 joysticks, spinner/ trackball interface) will this cause some kind of interference issue- even if I have enough open USB ports?

Possibly - you will have problems if any two devices use the same controller circuit chip, and the same pair of USB ports - namely that the devices may swap positions (Joystick 1 becomes Joystick 2 on reboot).  The U360's allow you to specify a UID through software, which will avoid this, so your likely only conflicts are the TopGuns.  Plug each one into a different pair of USB ports on the motherboard and you shouldn't have any problems.

The LCD TopGun WORKS with winxp and CAN have two guns working simultaneously, according to the research I've done.

AFAIK, yes, but I'm not certain of this.

-Trackball from http://www.dreamarcades.com/partstballs/white.shtml

Decent price on the T-ball, but I think Menace or others have used Happ T-balls for around $35 in the B/S/T forum.  The GGG Spinner that you switched to has a connection for these built in.

-Spinner from http://www.slikstik.com/spinfeat.htm

Recommend the TT2 spinner from GGG as Bfauska said also.

-Ipac 4 http://www.ultimarc.com/ipac1.html

Saw this got changed to the I-PAC/2.  You might also consider either the KeyWiz or GP-Wiz from GGG as well.  Pretty much personal opinion and what features are important to you.  See http://www.mameworld.net/tigerheli/encoder/index.htm for my run-down of the options.

One final question, the U360's connect via USB i believe and then the 2 Magstiks along with the rest of the buttons will connect to the Ipac4.  Once that is all set up I can configure it so the two U360's are P1 and P2 while the 2 Mag stiks are for P3 and P4, which is all done in the software/key mapping part?

Yes, basically.  You have three variables here:
1) What input you connect the buttons and joysticks to.
2) What key the input is programmed to send in software.
3) What key MAME is set up to receive.
For MAME it really doesn't matter what you do . . .
IOW - you can wire Button 1 to input P1SW1, and have it send L Ctrl, and everything will be fine.  You can also wire Button 1 to input P1SW5, re-program the encoder so P1SW5 sends "R" and remap MAME so P1B1 is "R" and that works fine also (but is a bear to keep straight for troubleshooting).

[stoli7188]

hey guys thanks a lot for all the help, quick question about configuration now..

I am going to go with the GGG spinner, if I buy this with the Master config and the PS2 interface, does that mean I can hook up the PS2 trackball from dream arcades (as a slave) to the spinner interface card and connect both of these (trackball, n spinner) to the computer via one PS2 connection? 

I am pretty sure thats what you were saying Tiger but I just wanted to verify. thanks.

[Tiger-Heli]

I am going to go with the GGG spinner, if I buy this with the Master config and the PS2 interface, does that mean I can hook up the PS2 trackball from dream arcades (as a slave) to the spinner interface card and connect both of these (trackball, n spinner) to the computer via one PS2 connection? 

Not exactly - The TT can be either USB or PS/2 mouse.  The DreamArcades is obviously PS/2 mouse with its own interface.

You only have one PS/2 mouse port.

You can either:

1)  Connect the TT spinner as USB and the DreamArcades as PS/2 mouse.
2)  Connect the TT spinner as PS/2 and one of Menace's Happ Trackballs to the TT Spinner using the same PS/2 mouse connection (through the TT spinner interface board).
3)  Remove the interface board from the DreamArcades Trackball and connect it to the TT Spinner using the same PS/2 mouse connection.  (You would have to figure out how to remove the PS/2 interface portion of the DA Trackball.)  This shouldn't be hard to do, but I don't know specifically how you would do it.  DA might also sell an arcade trackball with no interface, which would be an easier connection and should be cheaper, but I haven't checked into that.
4 and 5)  Connect the TT spinner as USB and either one of Menace's Happ T-balls or a modified DA t-ball (as above) to the TT interface and the same USB port.  (Not really recommended - unless you didn't have a PS/2 mouse port for some reason.)

Also keep in mind that options 3 through 5 require that the spinner operate as the Z-axis.  This is fine for later versions of MAME, but earlier versions didn't read the sensitivity of the Z-axis properly, and it could be a problem if you wanted to use the spinner to navigate your frontend or with non-MAME emulators.  Not likely to be a problem, but something to be aware of.

[stoli7188]

hey thanks for the quick response, i decided to save myself some money and buy one of menace's happ trackballs and simply connect it to the TT interface which will plug into the PS2 port.

so basically I don't need any other connector or interface, just the Happ trackball from menace and I will be able to connect it to the TT interface?

[scotthh]

so basically I don't need any other connector or interface, just the Happ trackball from menace and I will be able to connect it to the TT interface?

Correct. Look at the TT2's OptiWiz in the attached picture. On the bottom right there are 5 sets of 2 pins. 2 for the x-axis, 2 for the y-axis, 2 for the z-axis and two sets of +5 and ground. You wire up one +5v and ground along with the x and y axes to the trackball. The TT2 gets the other power, ground and the z axis.

I'd recommend purchasing a cable from GGG. Just tell Randy exactly what you're doing with it (Happ track ball to TT2 version of the Optiwiz). For $15 he customized one for me with the little black Molex connectors on the Optiwiz end and the big white Molex connector on the trackball end. You can see my thread where I tried to make my own.  And once again, you save on shipping.

[stoli7188]

thanks for the explanation, however the spinner here

http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=86&products_id=268

i dont think comes with the optiwhiz

so i would have to buy the above spinner, the cable you showed, and this optiwhiz here

http://groovygamegear.com/webstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=260

to do what i need it to do? or does the optiwhiz come with the TT i linked to above?

[Tiger-Heli]

or does the optiwhiz come with the TT i linked to above?

Opti-Wiz comes with the master TT spinner - as Scotthh showed - just the spinner and the cable to buy.

[stoli7188]

awesome thank you!

looks liike ill start purchasing some stuff today and hopefully ill be getting started when i get back home next week

[stoli7188]

i think menace may have ran out of trackballs.. if he has will this one work?

http://cgi.ebay.com/HAPP-3-INCH-TRACKBALL-FOR-GOLDEN-TEE-GOLF-VIDEO_W0QQitemZ160110514563QQihZ006QQcategoryZ13718QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[stoli7188]

from looking at the pictures it seems that the trackball is the same one menace was selling so I ended up getting it for 33 plus 6 shipping.. not too bad