Basic Building Info Needed!!

[SgtLny]

Yessirree I am a Newbie when it comes to building my own arcade controller.  But, I am nonetheless computer-smart and have quite good electrical and craftsmanship abilities.  Unfortunately, I do NOT want to waste money on parts by screwing them all up by making stupid mistakes.  So, if ANY of you that know these answers, be so kind and help me out!

Apologies now for sounding stupid, but I am only asking these things to be sure.  I respect all of you that can do this with ease, and hope to become just like you in time.  Thanks in advance for your help.


Info:  I am doing a Sidewinder Hack using the daisy-chainable gameport Sidewinders.  I am making a 2-player control board with 2 joysticks, and 10 working buttons each (11 each, but the last one is the 'mode' button that doesn't do much).  I will use it for ALL types of gaming, but my fav stuff is fighting games like Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom, etc.  Please keep this in mind when you help me out, I want the best solution that works best for this type of gaming!


1.)  4-way/8-way joystick.  Do they both connect using 4 microswitches, or does the 8-way have 8 microswitches?  My understanding was just that the 8-way uses 2 switches for diagonals, meaning that 4 are present, but with an 8-way, my fighting games will work as needed, and a 4-way is for like Pac-man and precision up-down, left-right movement games.  Is this correct?

2.)  What gauge wire do I use?  I have heard the following:
14 gauge for Ground, and 22 gauge for connecting to switches correct?  And use a rosin-core solder to connect them?  

3.)  Soldering....Now, should I just solder to the board, and use terminals to connect to the microswitches?   This seems to be easier to transfer things between microswitches in case i ever change buttons (for color schemes or new layouts).  Just wondering if there is a preferred way that you guys have....

4.)  On a microswitch, I know which one is the ground, but of the other two, how do you know which one to connect to?  I have never seen an up-close diagram of a microswitch, so i am unsure if there is a labeling or what....

5.)  This is specific to a sidewinder hack (maybe others, but who knows), using ground wires... is there only 2 places for ground on the controller board?  I mean, is it you go out from one, and then just daisy chain from each switch until you get back and connect to the other ground spot?  Or, is there a specific ground spot for each button?  


---->Last Q--
If I can get this to work nicely, I am interested in working with a lightgun setup for some games like Area 51 Arcade, Lethal enforcers Sega, etc.  I was wondering how hard these were to get working, what it entailed, and if it really worked that well in the long run....Just an opinion here is fine, i just want to know if it is something I should plan for or not.  If you think I should go for it, do you have any recommended happ control guns I should look into?  Thanks again all for helping out.  I'll post all of what I learn from this project in detail on my site.


Thanks again,

SgtLny
Webmaster, www.cncgaming.com

[RandyT]

Info:  I am doing a Sidewinder Hack using the daisy-chainable gameport Sidewinders.  I am making a 2-player control board with 2 joysticks, and 10 working buttons each (11 each, but the last one is the 'mode' button that doesn't do much).  I will use it for ALL types of gaming, but my fav stuff is fighting games like Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom, etc.  Please keep this in mind when you help me out, I want the best solution that works best for this type of gaming!

Well, if you look at my sig, you'll be able to figure out my thoughts on that one, but let's move on ;-).

1.)  4-way/8-way joystick.  Do they both connect using 4 microswitches, or does the 8-way have 8 microswitches?  My understanding was just that the 8-way uses 2 switches for diagonals, meaning that 4 are present, but with an 8-way, my fighting games will work as needed, and a 4-way is for like Pac-man and precision up-down, left-right movement games.  Is this correct?

Yes.

2.)  What gauge wire do I use?  I have heard the following:
14 gauge for Ground, and 22 gauge for connecting to switches correct?  And use a rosin-core solder to connect them?  

If you are going to hack joypads, use something smaller.  There's not a lot of room to solder on those boards.  I'd suggest 24 or 26ga.  The ground can be 22ga.  And yes, rosin core solder.  Never use acid core on electronics.

3.)  Soldering....Now, should I just solder to the board, and use terminals to connect to the microswitches?   This seems to be easier to transfer things between microswitches in case i ever change buttons (for color schemes or new layouts).  Just wondering if there is a preferred way that you guys have....

Either that, or bring the wires out to a Radio Shack Terminal strip.  Fairly cheap and easy to change around when you need to.

4.)  On a microswitch, I know which one is the ground, but of the other two, how do you know which one to connect to?  I have never seen an up-close diagram of a microswitch, so i am unsure if there is a labeling or what....

One will be labeled COM and another will be labeled N.O.  Those are what you want.  All the COM's go together and hook to ground.

5.)  This is specific to a sidewinder hack (maybe others, but who knows), using ground wires... is there only 2 places for ground on the controller board?  I mean, is it you go out from one, and then just daisy chain from each switch until you get back and connect to the other ground spot?  Or, is there a specific ground spot for each button?  

You should get a cheap ohm meter and check this for yourself to be sure.  But everything I hear about the sidewinders state that they use a common ground.

---->Last Q--
If I can get this to work nicely, I am interested in working with a lightgun setup for some games like Area 51 Arcade, Lethal enforcers Sega, etc.  I was wondering how hard these were to get working, what it entailed, and if it really worked that well in the long run....Just an opinion here is fine, i just want to know if it is something I should plan for or not.  If you think I should go for it, do you have any recommended happ control guns I should look into?  Thanks again all for helping out.  I'll post all of what I learn from this project in detail on my site.

From what I understand, there is no easy way to interface an arcade gun control to do what you want.  Act labs makes one that they claim is MAME compatible, but I can't offer anything other than that on the subject.

Thanks again,

You are welcome, and good luck.  Oh, and BTW, check out the search feature on the board.  You'll find this info and much more if you need more details.

RandyT

*edit*
Crummy typos.....

[Tiger-Heli]

---->Last Q--
If I can get this to work nicely, I am interested in working with a lightgun setup for some games like Area 51 Arcade, Lethal enforcers Sega, etc.  I was wondering how hard these were to get working, what it entailed, and if it really worked that well in the long run....Just an opinion here is fine, i just want to know if it is something I should plan for or not.  If you think I should go for it, do you have any recommended happ control guns I should look into?  Thanks again all for helping out.  I'll post all of what I learn from this project in detail on my site.

What RandyT said. . . Regarding guns, retroblast has a review at http://www.retroblast.com/reviews/lightgun1.html