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making your own frontline style controller
wugly:
Since buying a frontline controller off of eBay is like buying unobtanium I have constructed a frontline controller for myself.
The heart of the project was to buy an eight position rotary switch with 45 degree separation and able top make full circle rotations. the place I found that makes this switch is electroswitch in weymouth ma as a special order which amounts to about 65 dollars. the switch has two poles which are offset. this means that the top pole can be used for the first seven positions and the bottom can be used for the eight and final position it is a 31302MB. The unit is built into a radio shack project box. A square mount is cut out of rigid plastic in which the switch is mounted. The top of the project box has a hole for the shaft to come out and 4 holes are drilled into it near the where the four corners of the rigid square switch mount, also drill through the switch mount so that the holes in it line up with the holes in the project box. For each of the holes you will install a rod in the project box so that the switch mounting square can move up and down on the rods. The holes in the mounting platecan be enlarged so that tubing may be glued into the holes to allow the rods to slide easier through the mounting plate. springs and washers and nuts are then put over the rods so that the switch mount is held near the top of the project box. The length of the shafts in the mounting plates can be adjusted so that they act as stops so that the plate stops level under the top of the project box case. a radio shack roller switch is then mounted to the inside of the project case so that when the switch is pressed down the moving square switch mount activates it and gives you a fire command. I then increased the length of the switch shaft by using a tight fitting tube over the switch shaft and then inserting a new cutoff 1/4 shaft extention on top of that in the tube. It was all glued together using jb weld epoxy. I then found an old fashioned 2 1/2 inch knob with 1/4 shaft insert off the internet to be used as my control knob. This size seems about right for the control because it fits in your hand well and also gives you enough torque to easily turn the switch.
This concludes the description of the mechanical assembly.
Electronics
Since the switch is just simple on off with no mixing of positions we will have to construct a simple diode array. Each section of the array will consist of two diodes with the center between them joined and the current only being allowed to flow from the center joint out to the ends of the diodes in other words the side with the black line is away from the center joint. four such Assemblies of this two diode array or needed and they are organized into square box with two running parallel top and bottom horizontally and 2 running parallel left and right vertically. This should look line a square box when you are done and the corners where the diodes meet should be soldered together. from the encoder board you should attach the up wire to the center of the top diode array and the right encoder wire to the right diode array in its center and so on, this should look the the 4 corners of a plus sign. the eight terminals of the rotary switch will then be connected individually to the diode arrays in a circular manner. The first wire should be connected to the center of the top array of two diodes, the second wire should be connected to the corner where the top and side arrays join together and continue to go around in a circle until all eight positions are filled. Note make sure that the switch wire rotation and how you wire the array coincide or you will be turning in a backwards direction remember that you are looking at the switch upside down. Also remebr that there are only 7 active terminals on the number one pole and that pole number one for both poles 2 and one is the common terminal. On Pole number 2 you must use terminal number five for you eigth position. Ground is run in through a microswitch that can turn it off to both the negative terminal of the fire switch and to the common terminal of the rotary switch. If you do not use this switch you will always have a stray command being input on other games as the rotary switch will not have an off position.wugly
retro enthusiast
delta88:
I had one back when.. Is the gaem that great that this much effort needs to go into using the controler? IIR isnt there another game from taito that uses the same controller?
bkenobi:
Any pictures of the project? I'd like to see what it looks like!
isucamper:
Whew! The original post is way over my head. Does the controller you built interface with the original game or with MAME?
I've been using Groovy Game Gears GPWiz-40 which supports Frontline/Tin Star rotary controls for MAME, in conjunction with Happ's mechanical rotary sticks, and it works pretty good. Not necessarily authentic, but perfectly playable.
Frontline is very hard and very fast paced.
Namco:
:pics :pics :pics