In essence, I am looking for a multipole, multi throw switch in order to change between player modes on an arcade cabinet. I need to switch 2 groups of 13 momentary switches between 4 groups of low voltage DC inputs.
I am building an arcade cabinet that uses a PC to emulate many different games. The control panel uses momentary pushbuttons (microswitches), all connected to a common ground. The positive terminal of each button is connected to an individual screw terminal on a PCB that, when closed, emulates a USB keyboard keystroke to control the game. The product I am using is called Ultimarc I-Pac 4 (first pic below). It has 56 individual inputs, which would allow up to 4 players with up to 8 buttons and a joystick each.
My cabinet design calls for 1 joystick and 7 buttons per player plus a coin and start button for each. Each joystick uses 4 inputs. This means each player requires 13 inputs x 4 = 52, giving me 4 extra inputs to use to control the PC itself. Because I will primarily use this machine alone or with one other player, as well as to keep the user interface from being ridiculously large and complicated, I am planning on having only a 2-player control panel on the cabinet. This is fine for about 90% of games.
The problem comes when 4-player games require a certain player number in order to select the character you play as. For example, in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, player 1 is Leo, player 2 is Mike, 3 Don, and 4 Raph (or something like that). If I only players 1 and 2 wired into the ipac, I cannot ever play the game using the latter two characters.
I want to be able to select which player number I am by switching each group of controls between player inputs. What I have in mind is a rotary switch with 4 positions on each side of the console. However I cant find a 13-pole, 4 throw switch. One probably doesn't exist. I'm sure if it did, it would be prohibitively expensive anyway. Buttons and joysticks are cheap, so if a cost-effective solution isn't possible, I'll just build the control panel with 4 player inputs.
Some possible solutions I thought of:
-Stringing together 13 SPDT relays on each side all with a common control circuit hooked up to a SPST toggle.
-modifying a pair of 4-way KVM switches
-using an arduino
The relay thing seems simple and effective, but would give the left player only the option of Leo or Don, and the right player only the option of Mike or Raph. No playing with Leo and Don together or Mike and Raph together
On the surface, having each group of 13 inputs to a KVM (or something similar) that could switch between 4 sets of inputs seems like it would work. A VGA cable has 15 pins, 2 more than I need. But is a KVM or VGA switch basically a 15 pole, 4 throw switch, or is there more to the inner workings that would make it interfere with the signals from the arcade buttons ? I found these (2nd pic below) at monoprice. Also this one (3rd pic) might be more aesthetic if I swap out the pushbutton for an arcade button and extend the LED's to the control board on the cabinet. Will this work?
I don't even know how an arduino might do this, but maybe someone out there does...
I hope my explanation of this problem makes sense
Thanks,
Brad
The Ipac 4:
Manual VGA Switch:
Electronic VGA Switch:
This is not my console design, but gives an idea of what I am going to build:
I am building an arcade cabinet that uses a PC to emulate many different games. The control panel uses momentary pushbuttons (microswitches), all connected to a common ground. The positive terminal of each button is connected to an individual screw terminal on a PCB that, when closed, emulates a USB keyboard keystroke to control the game. The product I am using is called Ultimarc I-Pac 4 (first pic below). It has 56 individual inputs, which would allow up to 4 players with up to 8 buttons and a joystick each.
My cabinet design calls for 1 joystick and 7 buttons per player plus a coin and start button for each. Each joystick uses 4 inputs. This means each player requires 13 inputs x 4 = 52, giving me 4 extra inputs to use to control the PC itself. Because I will primarily use this machine alone or with one other player, as well as to keep the user interface from being ridiculously large and complicated, I am planning on having only a 2-player control panel on the cabinet. This is fine for about 90% of games.
The problem comes when 4-player games require a certain player number in order to select the character you play as. For example, in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, player 1 is Leo, player 2 is Mike, 3 Don, and 4 Raph (or something like that). If I only players 1 and 2 wired into the ipac, I cannot ever play the game using the latter two characters.
I want to be able to select which player number I am by switching each group of controls between player inputs. What I have in mind is a rotary switch with 4 positions on each side of the console. However I cant find a 13-pole, 4 throw switch. One probably doesn't exist. I'm sure if it did, it would be prohibitively expensive anyway. Buttons and joysticks are cheap, so if a cost-effective solution isn't possible, I'll just build the control panel with 4 player inputs.
Some possible solutions I thought of:
-Stringing together 13 SPDT relays on each side all with a common control circuit hooked up to a SPST toggle.
-modifying a pair of 4-way KVM switches
-using an arduino
The relay thing seems simple and effective, but would give the left player only the option of Leo or Don, and the right player only the option of Mike or Raph. No playing with Leo and Don together or Mike and Raph together
On the surface, having each group of 13 inputs to a KVM (or something similar) that could switch between 4 sets of inputs seems like it would work. A VGA cable has 15 pins, 2 more than I need. But is a KVM or VGA switch basically a 15 pole, 4 throw switch, or is there more to the inner workings that would make it interfere with the signals from the arcade buttons ? I found these (2nd pic below) at monoprice. Also this one (3rd pic) might be more aesthetic if I swap out the pushbutton for an arcade button and extend the LED's to the control board on the cabinet. Will this work?
I don't even know how an arduino might do this, but maybe someone out there does...
I hope my explanation of this problem makes sense
Thanks,
Brad
The Ipac 4:
Manual VGA Switch:
Electronic VGA Switch:
This is not my console design, but gives an idea of what I am going to build:
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