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Connectors for swappable control panels
MinerAl:
--- Quote from: zzsprade on May 29, 2003, 06:18:07 am ---Can anyone think of an idea of how to have swappable control pannels that are attached by connecting the new control pannel onto a rail and sliding it into place, so that the connector on the back of the new control pannel lines up with the conencter on the arcade cabinet that would connect to the encoder. By pushing it up along the rail it would push the two connectors together, as they would be alligned.
Ie. something that looks neat that has no cable (That was so much simpler)
Any ideas?
-Alex
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I like the idea!
You could use old fashioned cabinet drawer slides to line everything up. I'd think the best connector for this would be something in the centronics family (old parallel printer and SCSI-1 cables), since they are fairly low insertion force, have lots of pins (36 and 50 respectively) and have sturdy enough pins to survive slightly poor alignment.
You'd want some way to lock your CP into place though; a lock knob to turn perhaps? Otherwise the first time you pulled down on a joystick your whole CP would slide out.
Unless you put the connectors on the bottom so that the CP slid in vertically instead of horizontally, and had gravity hold it in place.
It would be a very slick solution to swappable CPs!
zzsprade:
MinerAl,
Mate I think you are on to something there. Absolutely brilliant! Cheers
-Alex
pmc:
I see lots of references on web sites for internal IDE cables, but they are all female/female connectors. I found unwired male connectors at my local electronics store (You Do It Elecronics, Wellsley MA -- totally awesome electronics superstore) for a couple of bucks, but it'd have to be wired-up. I also wanted more pins for future expansion.
I ended-up buying a $9 internal 50-pin SCSI cable (reminds me of an old internal Mac cable and looks alot like an IDE ribbon cable) which has M on one end and F on the other and is about 20" long. I cut it in the middle and am wiring one cut end to the IPAC and the other to the CP mounting wires. I opted to skip barrier strips and just use butt-connectors although it's a little messy.
I think an external cable would be cleaner, but couldn't find much of a suitable gauge so I went with the SCSI connector. It's not mounted yet so I'm not certain how well it'll work. But the connect/disconnect part works perfectly. The bigger concern is how to attach the SCSI cable, how to manage the wiring, and how to keep it all clean working.
I'm starting to like the idea of a telco 66-block and some quick-disconnects....
wee beastie:
I used RJ45 (ethernet) cables. I used to wire ethernet for a part time job, so I had all the tools already anyway. I know it's not as clean as one connection, but at the most, I only have to plug in 4 ethernet wires to get a control panel working (this is for my street fighter panel which has the most inputs). Ethernet is so easy to connect/disconnect, that it's an incredibly simple task to swap them out.
pmc:
--- Quote from: wee beastie on June 02, 2003, 01:58:25 pm ---I used RJ45 (ethernet) cables. I used to wire ethernet for a part time job, so I had all the tools already anyway. I know it's not as clean as one connection, but at the most, I only have to plug in 4 ethernet wires to get a control panel working (this is for my street fighter panel which has the most inputs). Ethernet is so easy to connect/disconnect, that it's an incredibly simple task to swap them out.
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I thought about that but didn't do it (I have tons of Cat-5e cable so I thought I'd use that for mounting wire). What are you using for a patch panel? A 110 block with those RJ45 inserts? Back to telco gear again I guess.