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Contacts for removable panels (cable-free)

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2600:
For PCB parts, Pitch has to deal with the distance between pins.  Measurements are taken from the center of the pin to the center of the next pin on the same row.

2.54mm is like the standard header distance used on Floppy Headers and IDE headers.

Minwah:

--- Quote from: 2600 on September 20, 2005, 07:43:58 am ---For PCB parts, Pitch has to deal with the distance between pins.  Measurements are taken from the center of the pin to the center of the next pin on the same row.

2.54mm is like the standard header distance used on Floppy Headers and IDE headers.

--- End quote ---

Thanks, that's handy to know.  Probably a shame I ordered the 4mm ones  ::)

stratjakt:
An idea I'd cooked up for something like this had four springs mounted on the bottom of each panel, recessed into 7/8 holes so that if the panel lay flat on the floor or something, they wouldnt get bent or crushed. 

The cab would have four copper pipe caps (3/4 inch caps from the plumbing section at home depot), attached to wires leading directly to a USB port on the PC.

The springs would make a good contact with the caps, and the caps themselves would act as a guide with the recessed holes in the panel.  The panels could then all have a cheap USB hub.

Only having four points of contact (actually, I'd thought of 5, one just being a large field ground) would make it much more robust, since the more contact points, the greater chance of failure. 

Electrically I think it would work fine, since none of the stuff I would hook up are "high bandwidth" devices.  An external HDD on a USB2.0 port might behave a little wonky, but a joystick should be cool.

The downside, of course, would be that each panel would have to have its own USB encoder. 

But, the way I figured it, each panel would be completely different, and it's very hacker friendly - ie; get a cheap USB steering wheel, hack to make a driving panel.  Hack a cheap USB mouse to a trackball, etc.. Hack a cheap USB gamepad or stick to make a more standard arcade panel.  My plans also called for cheap usb headphone ports, for silent playing.  Easy to add a usb socket to plug in a keyboard/mouse for testing and setup, or a usb pendrive to upgrade the software (or network card, etc - you see where I'm going with this).

Dont forget, XBox accessories are all just USB, with very good homebrew drivers about (btw, my XBox S-type controller with hacked cable is *the best* gamepad I've ever used on the PC), so there's plenty of gaming junk in the bargain bin at EB.  I also considered using an XBox as the brains of the cab.

It seemed cheap, easy to source (parts all at home depot, a dime a cap and pennies a spring), very rugged, and very doable.

I've since backed off on making a mame machine, deciding I prefer rebuilding dedicated uprights, but if I do eventually build one, some sort of removable panel is necessary. 

I find nothing really "authentic" about some cluttered panel with 90000 buttons and 4 kinds of sticks and spinners and trackballs and guns and steering wheels and waffle irons.  The whole point of an arcade cab is simplicity - it should be obvious how it works and what you're supposed to do the first time you drop a quarter in. 

Hell, I even find neo-geo games that dont use all 4 buttons a little hokey.  That's just one guys opinion, though.

2600:
stratjakt, it seems like a lot of work to avoid plugging a cable in.  Seems like a better investment would be a hub, USB extension cable, etc.

stratjakt:
True, but I'd just rather do the work up front than every time I need to switch panels, have to plug the cable in, then make sure it doesnt get squashed, etc..  I wanted to just be able to grab a new panel and drop it on without having to think too much..  Something easy enough for my kids to do, my biggest problem would be making the panels themselves light enough for them to be able to manipulate.

The panels would be one finished piece, with no dangling cords to get crushed or tripped over..  If you think about it, the cords would have to be really short, leading to some sort of awkward "hold fairly heavy MDF panel with one hand kind of half on while you reach in and plug it in blind", or really long, leading to "trip over it or snag it and wreck it". 

I wanted them to just pivot along a rail on the front, and let go, and it plunks right into position, and on the software side, use the auto-detection features of the OS to trigger a modification of the game list appropriately.

Of course, I instead opted to buy a bunch of real cabs and build a game room to put them in.  Talk about a lot of work.

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