Will I have problems if I buy and connect two i-pacs to my computer?

[Optics]

Hi, i've just started building my mame arcade machine, and part of the niche of my machine is that it has a rotatable control panel, and in total i'm going to have over 58 buttons due to the multiple panels for different games. If I buy two I-pac's and simply plug one into usb1 and another into usb2 will I have any problems? Will I still be able to map everything properly? Thanks in advance.

[lanman31337]

Hi there!  You might want to check with Ultimarc, but this is what I think.  To program them, you'll have to have one hooked up at a time, but you should be able to use them both separately.

[Jdurg]

I think you can actually hook the two I-Pacs together and have it function as one.  At least that's what I interpreted from the description Ultimarc has on their website.  (This may only be applicable to the IPAC2 and not the IPAC4).

[kelemvor]

You should be able to use them together but you'll have to reprogram one of them to use all the player 3 and 4 buttons.

Unless you want them both to actually be player one and two depending on which CP is up.  THen you should be able to just plug them in and go from there without anything special.

I guess it depends what exactly each one will be doing.

[Hoopz]

How many will be plugged in at any one time?  With multiple panels, you may need to describe your setup and see what people can come up.  There may be something suggested that helps out.

[Fozzy The Bear]

Hi, i've just started building my mame arcade machine, and part of the niche of my machine is that it has a rotatable control panel, and in total i'm going to have over 58 buttons due to the multiple panels for different games.

You don't need two Ipac encoders!!!

Think about it!!...................... No?? Not got it yourself yet??.... OK I suppose I better tell you then 

You don't need two because you won't be using all of these rotatable panels at the same time. You'll only be using one of them (unless player 3 and 4 are going to be on their backs on the floor using the Tron Panel while you're using the Pacman Panel on the top)

SO! Player 1 Button 1 on Panel 1, is simply parallel connected to Player 1 Button 1 on Panel 2 and Player 1 Button 1 on Panel 3 is parallel connected to Player 1 Button 1 on panel 2  etc etc etc for however many panels you have. Those three buttons then only used up ONE input on the Ipac.

You will only be using one of your panels at any one time. So the maximum number of Ipac inputs you need, is the maximum number of switches on any one panel. Not the total number of switches on all the panels.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear) 

[Optics]

You don't need two because you won't be using all of these rotatable panels at the same time. You'll only be using one of them (unless player 3 and 4 are going to be on their backs on the floor using the Tron Panel while you're using the Pacman Panel on the top)

SO! Player 1 Button 1 on Panel 1, is simply parallel connected to Player 1 Button 1 on Panel 2 and Player 1 Button 1 on Panel 3 is parallel connected to Player 1 Button 1 on panel 2  etc etc etc for however many panels you have. Those three buttons then only used up ONE input on the Ipac.

You will only be using one of your panels at any one time. So the maximum number of Ipac inputs you need, is the maximum number of switches on any one panel. Not the total number of switches on all the panels.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear) 

So I can hook up multipule buttons to one input?  Basiclly my goal is to create a One player, Two player, and Four player panel, each with it's own sets of buttons for varying games, so if I can just hook up all three panels "one player standard inputs" to the same slot that'd be awsome!

But the reason I made this post wasn't because of mame per say, rather it was because i'm using multiple emulators on my Arcade machine, and so I was wondering if I would be able to simply hook up all my controls to the I-pacs, plug them into a usb, and then simply map the buttons, button by button.  Instead of working with pre-set functions I was hoping to simply have "Button 1" "Button 2" Button 3" which I could then map each individual one to whatever I wanted; and by having two i-pacs I would have been able to double the amount of potential buttons I could map to different keys... which for other emulators might vary depending on the control panel.  I thought there was a piece of software that worked with the i-pac that allowed you to treat the arcade buttons as any other controller or joystick hooked up to your PC? It was my impression that I would be able to map the buttons game-by-game on mame this way, allowing myself to pick which buttons do what - for applications besides mame as well.

[kelemvor]

Yes except you can't get enough inputs for a 4 player CP with only one iPac.

But you can put all the Player 1 BUtton 1 wires to the same slot on the iPac.  Same with everything else.

But when you get to P3 and P4 is when you need to add a second one.

Are these CPs all going to be connected at the same time where you just rotate it or something?  Or will you physically remove one CP to put on another?

If the second, then just use network jack plugs in between the buttons and the iPac to make it real easy to disconnect one and reconnect the other

[Optics]

They will all be connected at the same time - the different panels are used for different games, so my projects goal is to simply rotate an axel and switch to another game with no hassle inbetween.  I don't really want to have to input specific controls into "Player 1 slots, Player 2 slots, etc." - all I want to do is connect the arcade controls to the I-pac so that I can plug the I-pac into my computer VIA USB and then map the controls to whatever I want... that way i'll have a list of every single button/Joystick/Trackball I have plugged in, so I can map them to anything - Mame games, Project64 games, even prehaps some PC games.  So if I have a button 1 plugged into some slot on my I-pac I don't perticuliarly care if it's used for the slot designated on the i-pac, I just want to have the control to make it do whatever I want it to for any use on my computer, including mame games.  That's the reason I want two ipacs, that way I can increase the potential pool of buttons so I have enough for all the different kinds of games i'm playing - as mame is only a fraction of what my arcade machine is going to be.

[Optics]

Sorry to double post but just a quick update for anyone whom might view this thread in the future:  I emailed ultimarc with this question, and got the following response:

Yes this is certainly possible. You would need to program one board with all diffeent keycodes from the other (if you need them to be different) and then connect both boards, each to its own USB port.

So it is possible from a wiring perspective, but i'm sure that on the software side I can customize each button to what I need to as well for other emulators. Thanks to everyone who replied... if I can repeat wirings for the "one player" buttons for example I will; as long as this works for other emulators as well.

[ahofle]

 

Yes except you can't get enough inputs for a 4 player CP with only one iPac.

You do not need 2 IPACs even for 4 players.  Instead, get one I-PAC4.  MAME and just about every single emulator out there allows you to remap inputs, so you can make them the same.  You are trying to throw hardware at a problem that can be easily solved in software.

[kelemvor]

Yes except you can't get enough inputs for a 4 player CP with only one iPac.

You do not need 2 IPACs even for 4 players.  Instead, get one I-PAC4.  MAME and just about every single emulator out there allows you to remap inputs, so you can make them the same.  You are trying to throw hardware at a problem that can be easily solved in software.

Well yes, but I was going off the assumption that he already had one Ipac2 and he could just get a second one instead of shelling out for an ipac4 since getting a second ipac2 would be cheaper.

[Optics]

Yes except you can't get enough inputs for a 4 player CP with only one iPac.

You do not need 2 IPACs even for 4 players.  Instead, get one I-PAC4.  MAME and just about every single emulator out there allows you to remap inputs, so you can make them the same.  You are trying to throw hardware at a problem that can be easily solved in software.

Well no, that wasn't my problem - I AM going to buy an I-pac4, but even with an I-Pac4 I won't have enough slots - I need an additional I-pac2 to cover them all, and I was wondering if through software i'd be able to map BOTH i-pacs to unique configurations without issues.

[ahofle]

Well no, that wasn't my problem - I AM going to buy an I-pac4, but even with an I-Pac4 I won't have enough slots - I need an additional I-pac2 to cover them all, and I was wondering if through software i'd be able to map BOTH i-pacs to unique configurations without issues.

You're going to have more than 8 buttons per player?   

[Optics]

On one panel no, but as I stated in my original post I'm designing a multi-panel multi-emulator panel system.

[ahofle]

What several others have been trying to convey is that, unless you will have more than 4 players on any one or your panels, you can have multiple controls go to the same IPAC input.  For example, if 3 of your panels have a player one joystick, each joystick's wires can go to the same IPAC player one joystick terminals -- they will all be active at the same time, so pressing up on any one joystick will be seen by the IPAC as 'player one up'.  Then you map your player one controls in each emulator to keyboard arrows 'up'/'left'/'right'/'down' and you are good to go.
Not trying to change your mind or be a hardass, I just wanted to make sure you understood all this.

[Optics]

Oh no believe me I understand this -- and more then likely this is the solution i'm going to go with.  I was just trying to get an answer hypothetically, in case for whatever reason I do wish to map the controls separately from each other.