Connectors for swappable control panels

[b3atmania]

As I am going to have multiple controlpanels on my cabinet I was thinking about how to make swapping a panel easy without having to rewire the IPac and OptiPac.

One solution would be to have every control panel having its own IPac and/or OptiPac so only two USB cables would have to be connected. Not very cost-effective.

Therefore I would like to mount the IPac and OptiPac fixed in the cabinet and put some connector between them and the control panel.

Now, I have to decide on some kind of connector. I need something that has sufficient pins for an IPac56 and OptiPac plus some more for lights and jumpers. It must also be resistant to many connect/disconnect actions so that leaves out connectors that have pins that are held by friction like parallel port cables. The pins on those break/bend very easy.

What do you guys recommend?

[paigeoliver]

Get some jamma size (or larger) edge connectors at your local electronics bits place, and get a fingerboard to go between them.

[Smittydc]

I used an rs-232 cable and wiring blocks -- haven't had any problems with them.

[Brad Lee]

Cant really tell color from the pics but on the CP side, white/blue is always P1up, blue/white is always P1down, white/green=p1b1, green/white=p1b2- the color follows from the wiring block(coming out of the ipac/optipac)

The wire itself is 25pair, 50 wires. Using every input on a ipac2 and the Optipac, I came up with 48 unique leads, and used the other 2 for +5v and ground

The ends on these cables(rj-21) come in male and femald and they kinda snap together, they dont come loose. I just make sure that Ive got a few spare male ends and use that on the panel.

oh, one more showing that it is infact just one cable coming out of the control panel

[SirPoonga]

because I have my common buttons (start, coin, quit, pause) on my shelf that freed up enough inputs to use a parallel port connector for my control panel.  You should see pic of it on my website.

[Civilan]

I plan on using a card edge connector with fingerboard as paigeoliver suggested.

BTW, a normal card edge connector is much like an old ISA slot on a motherboard.

I liked this approach because I wouldn't have a cable dangling from the uninstalled control panels.

Cheers,
Civilan.

[SirPoonga]

I liked this approach because I wouldn't have a cable dangling from the uninstalled control panels.

I don't have dangling wires.  The cable fits nicely inside the cp when not in use

[rampy]

I liked this approach because I wouldn't have a cable dangling from the uninstalled control panels.

I don't have dangling wires.  The cable fits nicely inside the cp when not in use

good.. there's nothing worse than a loose dongle  =P

rampy

[SirPoonga]

good.. there's nothing worse than a loose dongle  =P

rampy

SMACK
*shrug*

[Hoe]

I used DB37's. They're like a parellel connector, only with 37pins instead of 25. I use the top row of pins for player one, the bottom (smaller row) for player two.

[Sasquatch!]

Nobody's using molex connectors?  I was thinking about using them, but I'm not sure which size to get and where to buy them.

[zzsprade]

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

[TheTick]

Nobody's using molex connectors?  I was thinking about using them, but I'm not sure which size to get and where to buy them.

PartsExpress has them for special order.

TheRealBobRoberts has them instock. I just placed an order for the .062 Plug & receptacle 15 pos.  I'm building swappable control panels... on of which supports four players.  Each player connected to the Ipac4 has their own molex connector. 4-way, 8 buttons, coin, start, ground. Won't be using all the connections but it keeps it modular.

[Hoe]

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

You masy be able to get away with finger boards and connectors for them... they'd be like big nes carts

[bigmoe]

You guys are great!  

I am putting some thought into this problem, too.  Since my lack of electronics knowledge is dwarfed only by my lack of woodworking knowledge (well, there may be a few other knowledge-vacuum areas, like "attractive cooking using eggplant"   ... but fortunately, eggplant isn't a MAME prereq, at least as far as *I* know...), I'm happy to soak up whatever y'all leave laying out.

Brad Lee: Nice pics.  Thanks!  Any hints on where you bought those rj-21's?

paigeoliver, Civilian et al: Can you fill me (us?) in more on the edge-connector option?  Do you cover them like DBs?  Do you use two females, one on the cp & one on the panel, then connect them with a strip of wiring that has male connectors on both ends?  Very interesting...

bm

[paigeoliver]

Ok. Yes, you use two identical female edge connectors. You could technically skip the one inside the cabinet itself and instead solder your connections onto the fingerboard itself, but that is a pain in the butt (and is harder to fix if you break it).

A fingerboard basically looks like the edge of a Nes cartridge. There is nothing fancy about it, just straight traces from one side to the other.

You can order JAMMA fingerboards from tons of places. Get 2 of them, so you will have a replacement in case you break one later. Just get the plain ones that are straight across. Not the fancy ones with cutouts or the ones designed to be soldered all over.

 If you can't find any cheap JAMMA edge connectors, then just start looking for 56 pin edge connectors. My local random electronics component store had 3 cases of the darn things, which were exactly the same as JAMMA connectors except that they were not "keyed" (which means they could be plugged in either way).

[telengard]

As I am going to have multiple controlpanels on my cabinet I was thinking about how to make swapping a panel easy without having to rewire the IPac and OptiPac.

One solution would be to have every control panel having its own IPac and/or OptiPac so only two USB cables would have to be connected. Not very cost-effective.

Therefore I would like to mount the IPac and OptiPac fixed in the cabinet and put some connector between them and the control panel.

Now, I have to decide on some kind of connector. I need something that has sufficient pins for an IPac56 and OptiPac plus some more for lights and jumpers. It must also be resistant to many connect/disconnect actions so that leaves out connectors that have pins that are held by friction like parallel port cables. The pins on those break/bend very easy.

What do you guys recommend?

I have a swappable control panel ( soon to be modular woo-hoo ) and I used Molex connectors.
Easy to crimp and connect together.

[Brad Lee]

BigMoe, thanks.. I, uh, "bought" them at work, I work for a phone company, that's also where the big white jumper block came from

If youre interested, PM me and I can get some(ie 3 male and a female, or 2 females and a male, or any mix), this goes for anyone really

The wires are 24(maybe 26?) awg, a little thin for some peoples liking around here, but Ive had no problems- strip twice as much as you need for the conenctor and jsut double it over to thicken up the end

[Homebrew]

Here's a thought.  This really applies to those who use hagstrom breakout boards, but anyone could use it.  What about using the connectors that come on removable hard drive bays.  I have no idea what the part#'s or names are, but you could easily just strip them of a removable hard drive bay.  You can get bays pretty cheap these days anyway.  I use breakout boxes myself, so i just may give this a whirl.  

-Kevin

[TheTick]

The last company I worked at sold more than 3 different kinds of removable drive bays. All the cheapo brands used Centronics connectors without the side clasps (the kind that used to be on printers).

They are pretty snug when connected together.

[MinerAl]

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

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]

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.

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.

[wee beastie]

I didn't use a patch panel.  They sell the plastic boxes at telco stores that have a faceplate that can hold 6 ethernet jacks.  So, I just used one of the black plastic boxes with that faceplate.  Nice and cheap.  Didn't feel like shelling out the cash for a patch panel.

edit:  I reread your last post.  Yes, I used the 110 box and had a faceplate that could hold six jacks.

[MinerAl]

The only thing I'd worry about with using RJ-45 would be my dumb as$ would keep putting the wrong connectors in the wrong sockets.  Do you color code them or something?

[mahuti]

The only problem I have with ethernet cable is the small size of the wiring. I may be wrong, but it seems like the guage on that stuff was about 24 ga. if I recall correctly. Generally everybody seems to prefer 18 for grounds and 20 for wiring connections.

[Hoe]

24 is fine. I believe most telephone wire uses 26guage, which you'll be fine with, too. Using 24+guage seems to be such taboo around here.

[pmc]

The only problem I have with ethernet cable is the small size of the wiring. I may be wrong, but it seems like the guage on that stuff was about 24 ga. if I recall correctly. Generally everybody seems to prefer 18 for grounds and 20 for wiring connections.

Can't be worse than the SCSI ribbon cable I've been working with. Must be 26 or higher. One or two strands broken off is significant. Stripping it is tricky. At least cat-5 cable is solid core, thicker, easy to get tons of, and very easy to work with. You could even pick up a handful of Ethernet patch cables with the connectors already in place -- I threw away a dozen of them last night! If I do this again, I'll use telco cable instead of messing with 24 gauge stranded mounting wire and the SCSI ribbon cable. Hell, I might even redo all of this work right now. I wish I'd thought of this before. I had assumed that people were using lighter gauge wire because of some electrical requirement.

[wee beastie]

I just numbered the jacks and the ethernet cables with a Sharpie.

Even if you plug it into the wrong jack, it won't screw up your setup, it just won't work when you try to play a game.  So, just disconnect and reconnect it the proper way, and everything will work fine.

[mahuti]

About numbering... you can buy wire lables from Radio shack in packs of 4 sheets for about 3$. Letters a-z numbers 1-0 plus some extra characters. they come in handy for numbrering undersides of controls & wires where legibility is important and surface area is small.

[Carsten Carlos]

I use an external SCSI-1 cable and some internals to easier interfacing- they are damn cheap (at least where I got them), and very stable plugs.

Got some pictures on my homepage of this.

[pmc]

I use an external SCSI-1 cable and some internals to easier interfacing- they are damn cheap (at least where I got them), and very stable plugs.

Got some pictures on my homepage of this.

Nice photos. Seems a little convoluted (4 connections), but sounds like it works well enough. I almost went a similar route, but decided I didn't want to wire up the black SCSI connectors (like the one you have on the PCB upstream of your IPAC). I figured it'd be easier to use one ribbon cable and splay out each end. But the IPAC looks pretty silly with a ribbon cable stretched out along it's length and I'm only left with perhaps 1-foot of slack on the other end). Not pretty, but it works OK. The CP end is pretty messy too.

I wish I had a Centronics SCSI cable with a male on one end and a female on the other. A 3-footer would be perfect. Cut it in the middle and wire either end direct. I even looked at an old hard drive case last night and considered plundering it for the female Centronics connector... but I left it alone and turned my vengence to something else...

I'm still considering improving this mess with a barrier strip but can't figure out how to mount the strip itself.

[Carsten Carlos]

Seems a little convoluted (4 connections), but sounds like it works well enough.

I must admit that there are a lot of connections - but I had reasons for it Unfortunately most scsi-cables won't have different colored wires inside, so I started with the ribbon cable and then crimped the scsi-plug to it. The idea behind all is - the only thing I move is a) the scsi-cable on on end b) the scsi-external to internal cable.

Both of them are readybuilt and I can buy them cheap so I don't have to worry if they should break due to hard using. And most important for me, I only had to strip one wire-end for the I-PAC and never have to do this again for all the additonal panels I still have to made.

[Searcher7]

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

Actually, I designed something simular for my Joust cabinet. The only thing left to do is to find the best way to make my own electrical contacts out of Phosphor-Bronze for the zero-insertion-force "connectors" I have to make. This is becuase there are no connectors out there that offer no resistance when put together and pulled apart, *and* also will consistently come together perfectly and without bending the pins. So therefore, I will be using flat strips of the Phosphor-Bronze as contact surfaces.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Searcher7@mail.con2.com

[bigmoe]

If youre interested, PM me and I can get some(ie 3 male and a female, or 2 females and a male, or any mix), this goes for anyone really

Brad Lee: Thanks for the offer...I'm so far away from actually building something, it doesn't make sense for me to start investing in connectors yet.  The design seems to change daily !.  (And with a dog tumor and a broken bathroom sink in one week...the MAME dream just got dreamier...).

PaigeOliver:  Thanks again for humoring me!  It is so great to get details about how everyone is doing this.

Right now I'm leaning toward something even more modular...like some variation OSCAR used for swapping out a trackball/joystick/spinner.  I'll have to check the dimensions on those to see how feasible that would be, especially for someone of so little woodworking skill.  But it's an interesting idea that could save on parts and space, and give a lot more flexibility on cp layouts.

bm

[pmc]

I got my prototype Control Panel up and running over the weekend. Just wanted to let those of you who haven't yet done the CP connections yet, don't use butt connectors instead of a barrier strip or something similar. I'm already having a problem with wires coming loose and wish I had done something more elegant. I used connectors that look a little like this:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?DID=7&Product_ID=2740

The problem is that I'm out of real-estate on the bottom of the CP (it's narrow). So I took all the wires off the controls and tye-wrapped into a umbilical cord that is cut flush at the player-2 end of the CP. Right now I have 28 or so butt-connectors crimped to a ribbon cable that goes to a cabinet mounted IPAC. The butt-connectors hang down 1-2 inches below the bottom of the CP due to the weight. Every time I disconnect the ribbon cable or install the CP, all the wires get jostled a little and sometimes the butt connector crimps fail. Part of that problems is the light gauge wire.

Better to find the space for a barrier strip or mounted male SCSI/IDE and tightly screw both ends into the strip. The strip would be mounted to  the under-side of the CP so nothing should move much. Certainly, the screwed in wires on the IPAQ are in place hard and fast.

So I'll retro-fit when I think of something better. Perhaps Jamma cards....

Hey wee.... what's under that wire-mold on your CP? i.e., how did you connect the wires from the controls to the telco cable that runs into your cabinet?

- Patrick