'arcade box' controller

[boileroo]

hey hey

ive been looking into making some sort of custom controller along the lines of the midifighter, and just stumbled across this on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Arcade-Video-Joystick-pack-2-Joysticks-14-buttons-2_W0QQitemZ110393361985QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Video _Games_Coin_Operated_MJ?hash=item19b3f50641&_trksi d=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12|66%3A2|39%3A1|72% 3A1687|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A1|294%3A50

which made me think how cool a really retro arcade box would be, with a couple of really big joysticks and say, 16 buttons.

so my questions are, how easy would those big ass joystick be to encorporate into something, and would the hale UMC 32 i hear so much about be up to the job?

cheers

[Str8upDrew]

Well, easy and not so easy.
What i mean is, most arcade sticks are just 2 pots, so that's easy. But they only use about 40% of the motion of the entire pot, so you need to set it up so that only that little bit is controlling 0-127 of the velocity, or you'll get about 30-80, or something like that. Since the current UMC 32 firmware doesn't allow this to be adjusted internally, you would have to use something like Bomes to work it out.
But after you get the velocity sorted out it should work fine.

-Sounds like a cool looking project, keep me updated.

[boileroo]

cool i get that, Thanks! next question

what does the umc actually transmit? does it send midi, or does it just send data which needs to be interpreted by some software before you can map in traktor or whatever. if it sends midi, how can i be sure that its not gunna be sending the same signal as my vci etc?

cheers!

[Str8upDrew]

It sends midi. Just set it and the vci to different midi channels.

[boileroo]

cool thanks.
and final question (for the moment...)

just to make sure ive understood the UMC properly, every input can be set to be either digital or analogue so buttons, knobs and faders will all work? cheers!

[minimalmintek]

cool thanks.
and final question (for the moment...)

just to make sure ive understood the UMC properly, every input can be set to be either digital or analogue so buttons, knobs and faders will all work? cheers!

exactly
you choose wich kind of inputs you want with little switches

[Str8upDrew]

yeah, and if you want you can do half digital in half digital out, to trigger LEDs. But then you would have to give up the joysticks. Hopefully when firmware 2.0 comes out, you'll be able to do all three. Keep the questions coming, i'm waiting for the UPS guy to get here with some parts i ordered, so i'm super bored.

Oh and i got a question... What were you planning on using for the enclosure?
It has to be pretty sturdy to support the abuse from those joysticks.

[boileroo]

hey ive been looking at some joysticks etc and think that im just gonna go with a couple of ps2 joysticks. (they will work right, just 2 potentiometers per stick?)

i was just wondering how to mount them into the box? perhaps someone has tried this before?

thanks!

[Str8upDrew]

Ask midifidler about the ps2 joysticks, i'm not sure if they are quite the same.

[boileroo]

think ive decided against the joysticks now. dont really see much need for them!

what sort of potentiometers would i need for a regular knob btw? would standard 10k linear be ok?

check out my post below/above to see what ive got planned and give me some feedback

cheers