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needed help with dreamcast to arcade display and control interface questions
Hiub1:
Ok, here we go.
That is the picture of the back of the switch box for player 1. On the top side, that single connector is wired up to the arcade controls. As for the other 2, one of them is wired up to the 1st player dreamcast pad that was hacked. The other one is wired up to the 1st player side of the Ipac. The Serial Switch now basically shares the player 1 arcade controls to both the DC hacked pad and to one side of the Ipac.
Like I said before, I have 2 switches, one for each player, and this works great. You just have to make sure that the pinout for both the Ipac and the Hacked DC pad is exactly the same, including the grounds and the start button.
There are a couple more images. Sorry that they are crowded, but you should get the picture somewhat.
northerngames:
Awsome and completely understood and over night I imagined my own and I thought of something way different but I think your guys way is better and cleaner but I was thinking.
take my 24 control panel signals "buttons/joys" and wire them to a female 25-pin and then put a 25 pin male on the ipac and a 25 pin male on the 22 dc for 2 player signals and then swap them manually but they too would still need to match pin for pin on the ipac and dc controls to work right but with that switch box it would eliminate the manual swapping of the cords.
so with my above signals for 24 max I could get away with just one of them switch boxs instead of 2 correct?
eitherway I am now all set on the controller situation and still intrested in any info on the display questions I dont have my vga box in yet so I have not been able to test anything but I dont wanna go jumong into it without asking and end up with a fried monitor or something lol.
thank for the help so far it helped a bunch :cheers:
AndyWarne:
So many questions...but one point before continuing. You mention running into a 15Khz monitor but then mention a VGA box. The VGA box will not send 15Khz. It will send a VGA signal.
The Dreamcast AV adaptor which we produce (which www.arcadecabinets.co.uk sells) has a sync separator on board. This might be needed by your monitor because the DC sends a composite video signal through the sync pin and most monitors won't sync unless the video is stripped out of this. Whether or not you need the amp depends on the spec of the monitor.
I think as a first step, the spec of the monitor would need to be known, is it a fixed 15Khz or a multi-sync? Actually many Nanao monitors used by Sega are VGA not 15Khz.
Note that the DC control adaptors sold on arcadecabinets.co.uk can be used with a KVM switch so you can have the output of the Mini-PAC switched to a PC or the DC control adaptors. The Mini_PAC needs the PS/2 cable. Hacking controllers is admittedly cheaper though.
Andy
northerngames:
Hi andy thanks for the follow up my nanao has a switch I installed on the harness to swap from 31K permanent and 15K permanent I currently have it set on 15k and plan on leaving it that way.
as for the dreamcast vga adapter when you cut pin 6 it cuts down the adapter to make it display true 15k instead of the vga standard.
as for the controllers I am going to use the DB25 A/B switch box like pictured above it may take a little longer but would save me $100.00
so I am all set on what I am doing with the controller and was wondering now about the video amp and hooking the hacked vga to 15k dc box up to it or if I even need to.
I guess I shoud ask since the arcadevga only does 1 volt instead of the 5 that my nanao monitor need I am unsure if the dreamcast box throws out 1 volt or 5 but in either case if it does put out 5 and I hook that to the amp when it was made to input 1volt is that going to fry the amp or will it accept both 1 & 5 volt input and the amp will accept 1 or 5 volt without damage then I should be golden but would like to confirm it before I go hooking things up and watching sparks fly lol.
AndyWarne:
It would not damage the amp but the picture would look strange as the amp would be max-ed out. But the VGA box should send 1 volt video (or thereabouts) as thats the VGA standard.
Seems a bit of a waste though to process the 15Khz signal from the DC into a 15Khz signal for the monitor using a converter!
Andy