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Automated restrictor plates and Randy T's to do list.

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lordtodd75:

How hard would it be to make a joystick restrictor plate that rotates automatically (4-way to 8-way) that also opens (no restriction) automatically depending on what game you are playing in mame. Does not seem to be a very difficult venture for someone with engineering skills. What does everyone think? This was to be my big contribution to the mame community but alas, I do not even know where to start.

My thinking so far:
-Fashion a flat metal plate that has a diamond cut out of the center, then cut the plate in half. 1/4 turn rotation would take you from 4way to 8way. Pull it apart at the cut to remove restriction.
-Use 2 motors for Automated movement, one with a worm gear to open and close the plate, one with a rotational gear to handle the rotation.
-Use info from controls.ini (or whatever the mame equivalent is nowadays) to have the computer send a "signal" that tells the motors what to do.

Is this doable? Like i said, it sounds easy enough to someone that has never really worked with motors or interfacing mame with hardware.
Questions, Comments, Suggestions?

Ginsu Victim:

Seems like it would be difficult to do without needing a decent footprint.

lordtodd75:

So is that your way of saying it would be too large  ;D

Xiaou2:

 I had started work on this a long time ago...

 Easy as it may seem... its a lot more complex than it appears.
Especially when such extreme accuracy is needed at all times.  And the
amount of pressure/forces/abuses must be withstood.

 Would probably be expensive, huge, and take a decent time to assemble.

 I reserve the rights to this concept, which shall not be made commercial
without my permission.. (probably for the low cost of a few pieces of actual
hardware ;)  )

 I believe the drawing is a bit reversed.  I have it correct on my paper sketches...
but made some mistakes when I went to make a photoshop demo version.
Probably to do with the Pivot point.

 My device uses one motor to open and close the gates via slots on a huge gear.
It can have several gate arrays, thus needing more motors to drive each
gear unit.   The design had ability for 2,4,8 and round restriction, all in one
unit.  Id have to find the paper sketch to show it.. and or spend a few moments
thinking about how I had laid it all out.


RandyT:


Mechanically speaking, there are a few fairly simple way to do this.  The problem is that simple still costs $$$ because of the special parts required.  It would also need to be limited to whatever power is typically available from a PC power supply and it could not be passive.  I.e. it requires a brain of some nature and the ability handle the type of power needed to drive the mechanisms.  Maybe something that can take a signal from an LED-Wiz.

But I tend to think that most folks are probably not going to want to spend what it would cost to automate something like this...

I'll keep kicking it around, as I have in the past.  Who knows, maybe a cheap way will present itself.

RandyT

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