Arcade Control Panel - Part 2 - Electronics

OK - I have a control panel - it's built - <bias>it looks lovely</bias> - so let's try and connect the hacked keyboard controller (see earlier posts) with the built panel, and see if we can't get it all to work.

MORE PHOTOS TO FOLLOW

The Process:

1. Install the microswitches for the joysticks and buttons


2. 6 buttons per player, 1 joystick per player (4 switches), 1 coin per player, 1 start per player, 1 game selector (the ESC key) = 25 microswitches: 2 wires per microswitch=50 connections. Each connection on each microswitch receives a 1.5mm crimp connector, so we need to make 50 wires of, let's say, 9" (~23cm) length, each with a crimp connector on one end, and the other end stripped ready to be installed in the screw block connector.


3. I made 25 white wires and 25 black wires - one for each side of the microswitch, and also, now that I know one connector has to connect to the top layer keyboard connections (see the Keyboard Hack posting for more details) and one connects to the lower layer, I know all my white wires should be together and all my black wires should be together in the screw blocks. Not a necessity, but useful for troubleshooting.


4. I don't trust crimp connectors, so after I've crimped my bunch of wires, I also drop a splodge of solder into the crimp connector to make sure I have a good connection.


5. DO THIS DIFFERENTLY - 9" per wire was way too short - I had a real struggle when it comes to screwing these all together into the block connectors - no enough play on each wire so the controller which I expected to rest several inches from the underside of the panel, actually comes to rest within a few millimetres of the underside - not ideal.


6. Time to look at my keyboard pairings again - - I look through this sheet, highlighting all the keys that my control panel will use - UP, DOWN, CTRL, ALT, etc. Now I count all the left column numbers, and all the right column numbers, so I end up with a number of wires to connect to screwblock 1, a number for screwblock connector 2, and so on for the 26 connections. So for example, if I know there are 4 wires for connection 2, I twist 4 of my white wires together, screw them into connection 2, then push the 4 crimp connectors onto one side of the 4 microswitches that will use connection no. 2. Hope this makes sense.


7. I work my way sequentially through each of the block connectors, counting the number of wires, twisting, screwing into the block, pushing the crimps onto the correct microswitch, etc, untill all 26 connections on my Keyboard Hack are complete.


8. I now have an arcade control panel with a keyboard connection - it's not been hard to do, but has taken some time - time to test it!!!!!!

So I connect this thing to my PC fire it all up and......

NOTHING - not a sausage

Pants!

Panic! - I've broken it all - the keyboard PS2 is broken again - one of my solders has shorted - i don't understand what's going on.

One Chicken & Mushroom Pot Noodle, and one Stargate Atlantis episode later, and a thought occurs to me, "Do I understand how these microswitch-y thingies work?" - let's google them.

A couple of websites and some wikipedia later, and I have the answer I suspected - "No, you don't understand how they work!"

Three connections per microswitch and I need 2 - - I connected all my wires to the top connector and the bottom connector - I find out from my google-ing that a microswitch can either "make" or "break" a connection depending on which of the two side connections you connect - I had setup the switches in "click to break" mode - essentially meaning that all the keys were pressed and I pressed a button to "lift my finger off the keyboard"

Embarrased, but strengthened by the Pot Noodle, I returned to the panel, and pulled all the black connections (see, I told you the colour coding would come in useful) from the lower side connection and pushed on the upper side connection - again, this would have been a lot easier if I'd left some more length on the cables, but I managed.

Second test

It's a good job the wife and kids weren't home, cos I'd probably have terrified them with my manic whooping and jumping around.

I have a working control panel.

Picture Homer Simpson drooling over doughnuts, "UUUUUUMmmmmm Control Panel" and it doesn't quite do it justice.