Project Arcade Part 2 of ???????????????????????

Well my arcade project is getting put in to a holding pattern until i get my plans straiten out and save up some cash who knew this was going to add up so fast :| but on the good side thanks to my wife she let me order 7 of my RGB LED Buttons for just player 1, Why just player one WELLLLLLLL at $45 for 7 and there is 4 total players and it adds up so i just want to test one side before i spend a lot and it not works or looks bad then im just out $45 then close to $200 and be left with buttons that i cant use well i can use them but not in the way i want to any who i digress what they will do for me is i can set the buttons to light up in any color so for like neogeo games it will only light up the buttons for that game and the color of the button for that game hard to explain so once they come in i will take pix of them better then me trying to explain lol.

On to the other parts.  Now i have had the parts for a while now but with my blog i can explain my progress of my project  :D

1. The Heart of Project Arcade.

This is a "IPac4 (4 player version)" why do i need this well let me tell you why, MAME uses key board commands for the button presses unlike a real arcade system where its electrical so left ctrl is player 1 button 1, left alt player 1 button 2 and so on.
So with the IPac it takes the electrical commands from the buttons and converts it to the keyboard commands and yes i can program it to be any command for any button, some people do keyboard hacks where they take apart a keyboard and pull the controller out and hot wire it. Yes that's a good cheep way to do it if cash is tight but to me i rather go the easy way and buy the IPac.

2.  Buttons Buttons Buttons oh and some joy sticks.
The fun part ordering your buttons and joy sticks and this is where you can get creative now some people stick to 1 color or 2 colors but me HA i want COLOR MAHAHAAHA but for phase 1 i ordered Red, Green , Blue, and Yellow and later on ill get other colors but want to get the basic stuff out of the way.

6 of each except for Red but there is a reason behind that and that involves the RGB buttons.








3. To Mouse or Not To Mouse that is the Question
To mouse is the question some i have seen some that have a track ball and read some that say don't bother well i went all out and got one and not just a normal one but an RGB one yes i love the lights.
Here is a few pix of it

This is the best track ball i have ever found.

The track ball "ball" is 3" in diameter and the model i got has RGB LEDs in the bottom to allow me to change the color to any color i want and with the software LED Blinky i can configure the ball to be different colors when X game is loaded or off when the game doesn't use the trackball.

4. LET THERE BE LIGHT.  RGB LEDs I say :P
Now how am i doing all this color mixing well easy.... all by hand yep and i use a flux compositor and some duct tape and bailing wire to.................. just kidding i use a PacLED64 controler.

What this baby does is allows me to turn on and off certin channles thus turning on\off the led that is on that channle, iv also pongered if i can use it to control a relay to to have say a fan turn on but ill stick to leds lol.

Up to 64 leds can be connected to it at the same time and all can be on with no issues or 20 RGB leds due to needing 3 channles per led but in my current plan i will need 2 controlers but that will be way later on.

5. Yes Mom i had to take it apart to see how it works. ( The Screen)
As a kid i allways took stuff apart and wasent allowed to have screwdriver in my hand but that didnt stop me though :P on that note i been trying to descide on what kind of screen i needed, many people go the old school way and put in a CRT screen (the old big glass screens) but im going to do LCD for a few reasions.
1st - Size a CRT is so big i need to have enough room in the back.
2nd - Weight some CRTs can get really heavy and the bigger you go the heavyer they get.
3rd - Heat a CRT produses a lot of heat thus i will need to have more fans to vent the heat out.
4th - Death a CRT can be very dangerious and if you not carefull it can kill you in a heart beat.
So yeah i think ill stick to an LCD screen.

This was a View Sonic monitor i had laying around nice little 19" so i think it will do fine for now till i find a bigger one later on.









Well i think thats it for today sick of typing lol