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Atari Volcano buttons revisited (wiring & use)
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mytymaus007:
Has anyone mounted these buttons to a 3/4 wood contol panel, would love o use these for player 1 and 2 and missle command
smalltownguy:
I'm in the process of getting my volcano buttons up and running on my cab. It's a Mame conversion of an old Atari Rolling Thunder, which used volcanoes for player 1 and 2 start. I've already gotten started on the project with 220 ohm resistors, but I'll see if I can snap some shots of my progress and write up a quick tutorial.

That is, as long as I can get them to work  :laugh2:
RayB:

--- Quote from: mytymaus007 on March 19, 2009, 11:57:15 am ---Has anyone mounted these buttons to a 3/4 wood contol panel, would love o use these for player 1 and 2 and missle command

--- End quote ---
I have, but it required routing out a hole and leaving barely 1/8ths of wood thick to mount the buttons. It's the only way to do it really.
Minwah:

--- Quote from: RayB on March 30, 2009, 01:34:40 am ---I have, but it required routing out a hole and leaving barely 1/8ths of wood thick to mount the buttons. It's the only way to do it really.

--- End quote ---

Or, flush mount a metal plate...more work but more suitable for some things. I have done this for joysticks and when I have wanted to 'move' some holes.
ahofle:

--- Quote from: chiLLbiLLy on January 20, 2009, 03:48:52 pm ---My original thought was that you could simply wire the LED parts of the volcano buttons directly to the Num Lock/Caps Lock control ports on the IPAC (which may not even exist as such) and then the button controls would get wired directly to the player 1 & 2 start ports.  (I know there's also a third LED option that the IPAC & MAME are capable of, that being the Scroll Lock, but I believe it's only used in MAME for a 3rd player start button, which I'm not concerned with.)

Anyway, after reading, it appears that you cannot wire the LED's directly to the IPAC.  Please excuse my 3rd grade electrical/electronics knowledge, but it appears that each button needs to have an ohm resistor wired to them (either 220 or 330 - not sure which, but I think it depends on the rating on the volcano button) and also needs to be wired to a power source and a ground.  Does this sound right?

--- End quote ---

Whether you can hook them to the IPAC directly all depends on the power requirements of your LEDs.  If they are superbrights, you will not be able to wire them directly to the IPAC as it doesn't provide enough current.  If they are normal low power LEDs, you should be able to wire them directly.  You could probably just wire them up and see for yourself if they are bright enough.  If not, you will need some sort of LED 'driver' circuit to boost the power to them (like this: http://www.retroblast.com/20050430285/Hardware/Review-GameCab-Inc.-LED-Driver-Board.php).  I think ultimarc sells a little LED wire harness which plugs right into the IPAC which would make wiring easier.

Once you have the LEDs wired up correctly, they should toggle on/off when you press caps/num lock on your keyboard (attached to the IPAC's keyboard passthrough).  Next you will need to run a MAME utility called 'ledutil.exe' at startup.  It comes in the standard MAME distribution.  This listens for the appropriate MAME events and blinks the num/capslock automatically for various games.  The shortcut needs a parameter to enable USB mode (works for both USB and PS2 keyboards).  So your shortcut should be:
"ledutil.exe -usb".  Put that in your startup folder and run minimized.
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