Arcade Cabinet Upgrade - Looking for input

[joshlindem]

Almost 20 years ago, I was gifted the remnants of an original arcade cabinet. It had the marquee, controls and coin slots intact.  I pulled out all the original wiring\speakers\lights and replaced it with a basic desktop computer running DOS+ MAME w/17" monitor. Wired in some LED lights behind the marquee, computer speakers replacing original and used an IPAC Ultimarc board to connect the arcade controls to the computer.
Much of that was from the help of users on this board.

Flash forward to now, and I'm relooking at my cabinet. It's great. still works and still fun to play. In the time that we've had it, we've had to move twice and it's a "beast". It's heavy, and large. I'm looking to rebuild everything. Maybe see about acquiring a smaller cabinet. (would love separate input on this)

I've built a Rasberry Pi 5 with RetroPie. And now I feel like I'm starting all over again from scratch. Albeit a little more confused this time around. I’ve copied over my roms to the retropi and it currently can work with regulat controllers. But now that the pi5 is working, next step is putting it in the arcade cabinet.

I need to upgrade the current i-PAC (PS2) to the newer i-PAC2 (USB) and the cabinet itself should work the same. But I originally set this up so long ago I don’t recall if I had to do anything to the board in DOS. In which case if I wire up a new ipac2 and connect it with usb to my pi5 what will I need to do in order to get it to work with retropi?

Am I correct in thinking that all the controls should operate the same from the old to the new?

Definitely lots of info to go through here

[joshlindem]

the old board

[BlueGhost]

A little late, but yes an I-Pac 2 should work.  If you are only doing 6 buttons per player + start + coin/select, you may be able to get away with using the GPIO headers on the Pi and skipping an encoder.

I like Batocera, similar to RetroPie but has more options for emulators, including the latest version of MAME compiled for Pi.

[burnaz1124]

This is close to what I want to do.  I have 24 buttons, 3 joysticks, 1 spinner and 1 trackball.  Looking for a board that can handle that. Please advice.  TIA!

[joshlindem]

This is close to what I want to do.  I have 24 buttons, 3 joysticks, 1 spinner and 1 trackball.  Looking for a board that can handle that. Please advice.  TIA!

Ultimarc has an I-PAC 4 that should cover all that

[joshlindem]

I put this larger part of the project on hold for a while (working on other projects) But I circling back around to his now looking to modify te physical cabinet (remove a lot of dead weight and perhaps cut down the cabinet)

But first I’m looking at how I can connect a pi5 to te existing structure and remove the DOS-based PC.

Has anyone done something similar to this?

[PL1]

This is close to what I want to do.  I have 24 buttons, 3 joysticks, 1 spinner and 1 trackball.  Looking for a board that can handle that. Please advice.  TIA!

Ultimarc has an I-PAC 4 that should cover all that

An IPac4 has 56 microswitch inputs, but does not have any optical inputs for the trackball/spinner.
- The Dupont pins on an IPac4 are only for programming the board at the factory.

You can fit those controls on one Ult. I/O board.
https://www.ultimarc.com/control-interfaces/i-pacs/i-pac-ultimate-i-o/

Wiring harness supplied for 32 input connections. Additional harness options for the other 16 inputs. Connections marked on the board.
Trackball and spinner interface. When enabled these use a total of 6 of the available 48 inputs.

24 buttons (24 microswitches) + 3 joysticks (12 microswitches) = 36 microswitch inputs.

Trackball and spinner need 5v + ground + a total of 6 optical inputs.

That leaves you with 6 unused inputs. 

If you like the wiring on the IPac2 better, use two IPac2s or

If you want to cut costs, use an IPac2 for 32 buttons/trackball/spinner and an Arduino with a keyboard firmware for four of your admin buttons. (Coin, Start, Pause, Exit, etc.)


Scott