Couple questions about adding "D" buttons

Rig

Tarma's Gun Polisher
Joined
Mar 25, 2011
Posts
109
So, I'll say this up front: I've never worked on an arcade machine before. I have a vast knowledge of PC's and the like, so I know what not to touch (the monitor). I also shouldn't have any trouble with wiring, but, it's *how* to do the wiring that I'm unsure of.

So, I've got an old cab that was converted to a MVS 1-slot. Not sure what cabinet this used to be, but, it's going to be my "kick-around" cab for now.

It only has A, B, and C buttons for each player. :( It also stinks that they are stupidly placed:

...B...
A....C

As you can hopefully see, they have a triangular placement. I'm not gonna go through the process to change that; I simply want to add the D button for each player. I'm thinking maybe up top, like the B button:

...B...D
A....C

Okay, so, I think I'd need the following:

Buttons - 2 (One for P1 and one for P2)
20 gauge stranded wire (How many feet for this project?)
Female wire disconnects - 2

Is that it? Now, I haven't been looking inside this cab much yet, so I haven't seen the wiring for the controls. Can I simply wire directly from the button to the disconnect panel? Or, do the D buttons have to be wired in the same loop as the other buttons?

Hopefully, this isn't too much work. I paid very little for this working cabinet, and the monitor is crisp and very nice, so I didn't want to just pull the components and junk it.

I've also got a blown speaker, but, I'm not gonna worry about that right now. That will be up after this button project.
 

jew90

Geese's Thug
Joined
Nov 6, 2010
Posts
273
Hey there,

This is a straightforward job.

You need to find out what sort of buttons are in your cab first of all.

The Happ buttons are designed to be mounted through a thick wooden control panel so they are quite long, the Japanese Sanwa ones are designed to go into a metal panel.

You can fit the Sanwa ones to a wooden panel but it is extra hassle to cut the wood away.

Anyhow. Once you have a couple of buttons that will fit.

Each button will have two wires to it, a ground (earth) wire and the button press wire.

All of the grounds are linked together in a daisy chain, so you can wire these up from your other buttons earths.

Since the cab was converted it might not have any wiring from the JAMMA edge connector for button 4, in which case youll need to run the wire from the button all the way to the edge connector and solder it onto the edge connect.

How much you need depends on how long the current loom is, have a look inside.

so to sum up, from each button there will be two wires. the one will goto earth (connect it up to an earth on another button) and the other will goto the jamma edge connector
 

Rig

Tarma's Gun Polisher
Joined
Mar 25, 2011
Posts
109
Excellent, thank you much!
I'll be sure to post how it went!
 
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