Keyboard encoders

[vusteveii]

Hi, im a 22 year old nontechnically minded philosophy grad student who recently stumbled into the MAME scene.  I just finished my cabinet(learned some great woodworking skills in the process) and now need to build a control panel.  I'm building a 4 player CP with a trackball, what keyboard encoder would you vets reccomend?  Hagstrom ke72 or I-PAC or something totally different?  Also does anyone have any link to a site that explains wiring up the console panel, with an emphasis on powering it.  I'd really like to do a nice job and have something i could show off to my electrical engineer friends.

 A second question...Has anyone ever considered backlighting a control panel, I found a local plastic place that will bend and cut lexan and was thinking about putting a sort of translucent contact paper that would glow sort of electric blue under a blacklight underneath 1/2" lexan.  My biggest worry i guess is wires underneath casting a shadow and it looking weird, although this might have a cool effect.  If this would work, i might like to try cutting out part of the side panels and doing this, i think ive seen something similiar on cool computer case mods, although i have no idea how exactly they accomplished it.

Steve

[SirPeale]

Another four player cab...I can't believe how many people want one of these.  Fighters aren't the only games out there, you know.

[AlanS17]

Well it's your cabinet so do whatever you want with it, but regular plexi won't hold. Lexan probably would.

As for the encoder, an Ipac would work. I'm not sure if KeyWiz makes one large enough. (I would have to check.) The Hagstrom would also do the job. If you're planning in advance to use 4 players and a trackball I'd probably go with the Hagstrom to simplify the whole thing. (Then again, that's just me.)

[anthony691]

A second question...Has anyone ever considered backlighting a control panel, I found a local plastic place that will bend and cut lexan and was thinking about putting a sort of translucent contact paper that would glow sort of electric blue under a blacklight underneath 1/2" lexan.  My biggest worry i guess is wires underneath casting a shadow and it looking weird, although this might have a cool effect.  If this would work, i might like to try cutting out part of the side panels and doing this, i think ive seen something similiar on cool computer case mods, although i have no idea how exactly they accomplished it.

Steve

Tryed it w/ my panel...

My panel is like this...

1/8 plexi
-----------
CPO Underlay
------------
1/4 plexi

There is NO wood; it is all plexi...

So I tryed to light it... It didn't look good AT ALL! The shadows from the joystick bases sucked, but wires were okay.

If you use a 12" florecent light it doesn't cast a shadow and looks fine on mine.

[Tiger-Heli]

Encoders - I-PAC/4 will work for less $$$ and easier to configure than the Hagstrom.  I-PAC has example wiring in the FAQ's on www.ultimarc.com.  KeyWiz www.groovygamegear.com has 32 inputs, but you can make it work for a four player game (I plan to), but you need to make some compromises.  Reply back if you want more details.  Gotta go now.

[vusteveii]

Thanks for the replies so far guys.

Regarding the 4player cab...i think this has to do with age(although i have no idea how old you are).  A lot of people like myself 20-22 didn't grow up with pacman and tron, my arcade gaming really got started with TMNT and NBA Jam type games.  I'm not knocking the older games, nostalgia for me though is really playing a 4 player game of TMNT.  

I'm going to pay a little extra and go with the hagstrom i think.  Am i correct in assuming an 8way joystick uses 8 inputs?  with 4 joysticks and 6 buttons per player i'll run smack into the 72 input limit very quickly.  The IPAC with 56 just isn't quite enough.  

Anthony, do you have a picture of your control panel, i'd like to see how yours came out before i go buy an expensive hunk of plastic.

Regarding lexan/plexiglass does anyone know if these can be acquired in red/blue tinted colors?

Steve

[BobA]

I'm going to pay a little extra and go with the hagstrom i think.  Am i correct in assuming an 8way joystick uses 8 inputs?  with 4 joysticks and 6 buttons per player i'll run smack into the 72 input limit very quickly.  The IPAC with 56 just isn't quite enough.  

Do your math again. An 8 way joystick only uses 4 inputs.

BobA

[anthony691]

Thanks for the replies so far guys.

Regarding the 4player cab...i think this has to do with age(although i have no idea how old you are).  A lot of people like myself 20-22 didn't grow up with pacman and tron, my arcade gaming really got started with TMNT and NBA Jam type games.  I'm not knocking the older games, nostalgia for me though is really playing a 4 player game of TMNT.  

I'm going to pay a little extra and go with the hagstrom i think.  Am i correct in assuming an 8way joystick uses 8 inputs?  with 4 joysticks and 6 buttons per player i'll run smack into the 72 input limit very quickly.  The IPAC with 56 just isn't quite enough.  

Anthony, do you have a picture of your control panel, i'd like to see how yours came out before i go buy an expensive hunk of plastic.

Regarding lexan/plexiglass does anyone know if these can be acquired in red/blue tinted colors?

Steve

I'll take a pic soon, but it really, really looks like crap... I couldn't see anyone ANYONE wanting thier CP to look like that... You might want to do the plastic yourself?

I did plastic b/c I can't drill the metal CP that was in my cab, and would wouldn't fit in there...

[vusteveii]

anthony,

actually, no im probably not going to do the plastic myself, i was more curious how it looked lit up.  I'm thinking about underlighting my control panel.  I'd have a 3/4" wood top, but have a single piece of lexan bent to make up the riser part of the cabinet and lighting it.  Hoping it would have a cool looking glow to it.  Also thinking about cutting a large part of the side panels out and backlighting to give it a custom glowing look.  I've got a mental image of what i want, just not sure if im expressing it correctly.

steve

thanks bobA for pointing out that 8way controllers use only 4 inputs.

gracias

[Tiger-Heli]

Thanks for the replies so far guys.

I'm going to pay a little extra and go with the hagstrom i think.  Am i correct in assuming an 8way joystick uses 8 inputs?  with 4 joysticks and 6 buttons per player i'll run smack into the 72 input limit very quickly.  The IPAC with 56 just isn't quite enough.  

I-PAC with 56 inputs is plenty for MAME.  There are no 4 joystick, 6 button per player arcade games.  If you want to support console games (NES), it's another story, but you can do this with joypads and a USB hub.

For MAME, there are about 4 four player four button games (Dungeons and Dragons series, also Tekken if it gets emulated).  All other games are 3 buttons or less.

Here is the breakdown for the I-PAC/4:

4 joysticks - 16 inputs
6 P1 and P2 buttons - 12 inputs
4 P3 and P4 buttons - 8 inputs
4 Coin and 4 Start - 8 inputs

Total - 44 inputs, leaving 12 free for admin functions, Pause, etc.

Here's how to do it with a KeyWiz for $33.  (First, assume you only need to support 3-button games (not a big D&D fan).

4 joysticks - 16 inputs
3 buttons times 4 players - 12 inputs
4 Coin buttons - 4 inputs

32 inputs total - You can layout 6 buttons for P1 and P2 and have the 4, 5, and 6 buttons share inputs with P3 and P4.  (If you have honest freinds, or at least honest P1 and P2 players).

You also need to set MAME up to combine the Start and action buttons, but this is not a problem as I discuss at the end of this thread:
 http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=8351;start=msg63244#msg63244

Finally, you can use the KeyWiz Shift function or map to UP and Down at the same time to add Pause and Escape.  More on the latter option here:

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=7327;start=msg53049#msg53049