LOL, I'm working on my panel now and finally see what you mean. It's not actually the PCB, rather the stick housing that fouls the iCade fixing pillars unless you rotate the Sanwa housing.
Now you know! And knowing is half the battle. Thanks for the pics (you and MarkHerm), those are really useful for people wanting to do it.
In the end I decided to use IL buttons, as I prefer the concave look/feel. I also added a "Player 1" button. My Sanwa stick did not come with any fixings for some reason. The iCade screws are too small, however, I found that the little screws that come with PC case fans are perfect for the job. In fact they do up REALLY tight. Anyway, iCade that is staying as an iCade... done. MAME conversion on iCade #2 next. Plans coming along nicely for MAME conversion... Going to have a new top, back & front section made for the iCade, 2mm wider to accomodate the new screen (227mm wide). This way I can use the existing sides and control panel. Plexi bezel & marquee will make the this little cab look awesome. Especially by the time the illuminated pushbuttons are installed and custom graphics (or laminate) added! Screen & LCD controller links: http://www.digitalview.com/products/alr-1400-lcd-controller http://www.optrex.com/products/partdetail.asp?PartNumber=T-55586D104J-LW-A-AAN Nearly forgot... 1/2" T molding too. Can't have a MAME cabinet without proper T molding lol.
Okay, as of today I had all the parts to at least install the Sanwa joystick, so I did ... the screw terminal that I ordered was WAY too huge and heavy duty to be installed inside of the iCade enclosure so I ended up soldering everything and finishing with heat shrink and zip ties (somewhat) tidily. If anyone's interested in that procedure, I took a few pics which I can post. Thanks again for all the helpful information in this thread!
Great work everyone! hey mremulator, did those IL buttons require any sanding of the control panel? might be helpful for those folks without a dremel. Thanks. my parts should arrive today so I'll let you guys know how it goes.
Here's some quick illustrated steps for people finding themselves having to solder the wires. The images are huge so I'll just provide links to them. Something tells me that if you find yourself needing to solder these wires, you won't really need this guide, but maybe it'll help someone do this cleanly. You can get everything you need at Radio Shack, though not the 'best' examples of each. 1. Cut five pieces of heat shrink tubing and put them onto each wire of the harness http://fanglers.letsneverdie.net/i/src/132677279269.jpg First, attach the wiring harness that came with your joystick to it (this is assuming you've already completed the installation as detailed in the other posts). Now, cut five pieces of heat shrink tubing and slide them onto the five colored wires of the Sanwa wiring harness, sliding them all the way down to the joystick end. If you think they won't stay, tape them down. In the image above, you'll see four of the five wires have heat shrink tubing ready to go (I had already done the ground wire). 2. Shorten, remove insulation from the end, and twist the copper of the 4 direction (white) wires and one ground (any of the four black ones) http://fanglers.letsneverdie.net/i/src/132677280931.jpg I assume for this step that you've removed the original joystick by snipping the wires soldered to it pretty close to the actual joystick's switch solder points. Using wire strippers (or razor blade/scissors CAREFULLY), strip off about a quarter inch of the plastic insulation of the end of each of the five wires (four white wires, one for each direction, and one black wire, for ground - the other ground wires we will handle later). Also, keep in mind that you'll probably have TONS of surplus length for each of these wires so feel free to trim them shorter here. Now, you should see stranded copper protruding from the end of the insulation. Twist it until it looks like the (hopefully not too blurry) picture above. 3. 'Tin' the twisted copper ends of each wire http://fanglers.letsneverdie.net/i/src/132677306631.jpg Just like you tin the tip of your soldering iron, apply a bit of solder to the twisted copper tips of each stripped wire. They should look like my blurry pic above, or better yet, like the twisted and tinned ends of the wiring harness the joystick came with. I hope. 4. Solder the appropriate wires together, end to end http://fanglers.letsneverdie.net/i/src/132677315754.jpg Okay, referring to the wiring guide posted earlier and the silk screened direction markings on the PCB, it's time to connect the wires. PRIOR TO THIS STEP YOU SHOULD PROBABLY USE ALLIGATOR CLIPS OR SOMETHING SIMILAR TO TEST THAT YOU HAVE MATCHED EACH DIRECTION UP PROPERLY. with the wires touching end to end, apply heat so the solder on each wire gets hot enough to 'fuse'. The solder should look shiny as it does this - if it appears dull, add more solder. 5. slide heat shrink tubing over the solder joint, and apply heat http://fanglers.letsneverdie.net/i/src/13267731801.jpg http://fanglers.letsneverdie.net/i/src/132677320089.jpg http://fanglers.letsneverdie.net/i/src/132677322336.jpg You can use a hair dryer if you do not have a heat gun, but please be aware of what you might be incidentally heating as well. 6. Zip tie excess wire together and tape/tuck extra ground wires away http://fanglers.letsneverdie.net/i/src/132679196157.jpg Okay, I didn't do this super cleanly but it is much better than a rat's nest of wires everywhere. For the tucked-away ground wires, please make sure that no exposed metal is touching anything else. This could cause things to malfunction pretty nicely. There you have it! A probably useless guide. If anyone does need soldering tips, though, let me know.
Hi all, great thread. Regarding the octagonal gate, is it really only an improvement for fighting games? I don't play fighting games, I'm just frustrated with how easy it is for the stick to find the diagonals and not the vertical/horizontal points. An octagonal seems like it would be slightly less frustrating as each direction has it's own 'lock' point, but possibly still quite frustrating in that it would be as easy to hit a diagonal as before?
So: - you got the gate part right; it restricts the "move" zone for the joystick. - changing the gate is done by pressing 4 plastic prongs and just popping it out. No need to remove the stick. - the Sanwa gates seem (that's a big supposition) to be compatible with the iCade stick. I didn't keep mine, so someone else can confirm or deny this. In any case, a square, rotatable gate is on any Sanwa stick, so you could buy an octogonal one, try it (if it fits) on the iCade stick, and then if you don't like it, use the one on the Sanwa. - octogonal gates are AWESOME for fighting games. No more going up-right then you do a Hadouken, since there is a groove at "right" (which is not in the square one, as you guessed). Personally, and unless you only use the stick for 4-way games with no diagonals (Pac-Man), I'd always use octogonal gates. Especially if you want some grooves to "stop" the stick. As for diagonals on a octogonal gate, since the stick "distance" (what moves to hit the button) is closer to the center, unless you hit the groove dead-center, it won't register. In the end, it's all a matter of testing and feeling. I know that since I tried an octogonal one, I'll never go back to a square one (or set as a diamond, to only allow 4 directions. No Street Fighter with this though).
Add two sticks to iCade? Hi, I've been following this thread for a few days and took the plunge today, new switches and stick are on the way, but it got me thinking about a slightly more radical mod. Most of the games I'm interested only require a few buttons. Games like mr. Do!, ms. pacman, Joust, Q*bert etc. only need 1 button each, however, my favorite all time is Robotron, which can't really be played faithfully with the iCade's current button set-up. It seems like at least a few of the guys in this thread have more than a bit of mame experience, so I was wondering if one of you could answer this question. Since the iCade board is only emulating a keyboard, would it matter if I eliminated 4 of the buttons and instead hooked those connections up to a second Joystick? If I recall, mapping buttons around in mame was fairly straightforward. This would still leave me with 4 available buttons. One for coin, one for Player one, and two more for actual buttons required by the above games. I don't play too many fighters and could easily give them up for a real robotron experience. Answers and/or feedback would be much appreciated.
Yes, this would work. However, you can't use the 2 red buttons for mapping. But you need those for player 1 start & coin anyway. You could blank the 4x old holes off with a thin piece of black plastic or similar I guess.
What parts did you order? I was thinking of trying something along the same lines but hadn't found a good LCD that was close to the right size.
The new display is an industrial panel made by a company called Chi Mei, part # G104X1 - L02. 400 nits / 1200:1 contrast ratio (very nice). http://www.used-lcd.net/chimei/datasheet/G104X1-L02.pdf The LCD controller is made by Digital view, part # ALR-1400 http://www.digitalview.com/products/alr-1400-lcd-controller The inverter is made by ERG, part # 8MAD3896F http://www.ergpower.com/pdf30/8MAD3896F.pdf Bezel is 3mm plexi 235 x 190mm & marquee is 235 x 47mm. I also ordered some 1/2" T Moulding. Pics coming soon!
I found some decent stuff here. http://www.gameongrafix.com They have saving the image disabled, but prt-scr works. Most are too small, but a few here and there are decent enough size that you should be able to blow them up nicely.
