doo138 Posted June 2, 2013 Share Posted June 2, 2013 So I got a dilemma building my project. What I'm doing is just building a box that will house my computer and want to have 2 wireless boxes with the arcade controls on top with a flip up lid in each for access to the wireless controllers inside. My problem that's keeping me up at night is finding a way to power the ipac in the controller boxes to be wireless. Just wanted to see if anybody knew a solution for making the ipac wireless. If not, I guess they will just have to be wired. Thanks for your time and help guys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doo138 Posted June 2, 2013 Author Share Posted June 2, 2013 The problem is providing power to the ipac. Thought about finding a battery that could be charged that sits inside the boxes containing the ipac that could power the ipac and power the wireless dongle but found nothing. I thought a ps3 battery would work but I think they work at 4 volts and I'm not too electronically gifted to make something myself. I'm pretty sure usb power is somewhere around 5v not sure about amps. Just can't find a solution to this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doo138 Posted June 2, 2013 Author Share Posted June 2, 2013 So just posted this and came up with a solution. An external battery pack that provides dual charging usually used to recharge phones and tablets. For $30 it claims it can charge an iphone 7 times before needing to be recharged......not sure how long that would last providing power to an ipac and wireless dongle, or if it even would output enough power to continuously run both. I'm guessing it would. Not sure about shelling out $30 to find out it won't work. I guess I'll keep this up in case anybody wants that tid-bit of info or if anybody has another workaround. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian_hoffman Posted June 2, 2013 Share Posted June 2, 2013 maybe something like this?!? http://handheldsci.com/kb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
32assassin Posted June 2, 2013 Share Posted June 2, 2013 your Ipac needs to be connected to the PC in order to work, how exactly is that problem being solved seems to me that you need to go old school, prior to the invention of keyboard encoders dedicated to arcade cabs, solder some wires to a wireless controller and connect those wires to your arcade buttons. http://forums.xbox-scene.com/lofiversion/index.php/t676862.html 1. no need to connect to PC 2. solves your power problem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doo138 Posted June 2, 2013 Author Share Posted June 2, 2013 That's awesome and exactly why I posted this on here. Looks like it would work. $60 is absolutely crazy. Now to figure out if I an extra $150 is worth having wireless...lol thanks for finding this for me man...maybe I can find a cheaper one...i appreciate it so much Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doo138 Posted June 2, 2013 Author Share Posted June 2, 2013 Well the ipac is essentially a keyboard controller, so i would need a way to supply power to it and make it a wireless keyboard like brian_hoffman supplied.........I could see problems with this. Maybe it just doesn't work and your right that it needs to be wired directly to the pc and I could see some lag going on with this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doo138 Posted June 2, 2013 Author Share Posted June 2, 2013 And it might not suppy enough amps to run the ipac directly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thooperman Posted June 2, 2013 Share Posted June 2, 2013 You definitely would be best off going with 32assassin's suggestion of the wireless controllers. It shouldn't cost that much to set it up. You can pick up 2nd hand wireless xbox controllers and the wireless adaptor pretty cheap if you look around and then you can use xpadder or joytokey to map your controller to keyboard inputs. The soldering isn't that hard to do, there's plenty of guides around on how to solder if you aren't familiar with doing it. Then all you would need is 2 AA batteries for each controller. Is there a reason you want to go with an Ipac over wireless controllers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doo138 Posted June 2, 2013 Author Share Posted June 2, 2013 Hey thooperman thank you for helping make up my mind. I'll just use wireless x-box controllers. I really wanted to keep the arcade controls but I think I'm gonna go without them. Way too much of a headache, hassle, and money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doo138 Posted June 2, 2013 Author Share Posted June 2, 2013 Maybe down the road i'll pick up a wireless controller and hack it to solder in the arcade controls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mameman Posted June 2, 2013 Share Posted June 2, 2013 why not just hack a wireless keyboard. its all we used to use in the old days (wired, not wireless) but should work fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gigapig Posted June 2, 2013 Share Posted June 2, 2013 I used an Xbox controller and it works very well. I also have a detachable cable for the trackball. I made my self an arcade stick, no room for a full cab in my house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doo138 Posted June 3, 2013 Author Share Posted June 3, 2013 @ gigapig That's what I'm thinkin would be the cheapest and easiest way to go about this....maybe if I can find a cheap enough controller. And the setup you have there looks awesome. Is the computer in the pedestal? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gigapig Posted June 3, 2013 Share Posted June 3, 2013 @ gigapig That's what I'm thinkin would be the cheapest and easiest way to go about this....maybe if I can find a cheap enough controller. And the setup you have there looks awesome. Is the computer in the pedestal? No, the controller has no PC inside, it's just on my lap. It's made from a lightwieght rigid foam base and a acrylic top. The Xbox controller was donated to me and was in a mess, but I had a spare shell kicking around. You don't need a shell at all anyway, you can attached a separate battery pack straight onto the battery terminals. Having said that using the case is easier. A word about the soldering. Each contact on the circuit board for each button and D-pad has a Positive side and a common ground (-). You only need to solder 1 point on the circuit board for the ground and then daisy chain that wire to the negative side of each button and Joystick microswitch. Use a thin wire also, 26 or 28 AWG. The solder points are very small and excess heat can cause the track and solder point to lift off the board, thats why I used hot glue on each solder point to stop the wires moving around after soldering. If you do have that problem there is an alternative solder point for each button. If I remember correctly the D-pad is the worse. The analogue sticks are redundant. If you have an Xbox you can also use it for that as well for Tekken, Soul Calibur etc. Try and get a cheap controller for somewhere. You may have seen these already but here are some links to some tutorials. I cobbled together a quick video of my setup which should be up shortly. The common ground starts off being a red wire and then is joined to the white daisy chain. The orange wires are the positive wires. I used shorter wires for the initial soldering and then added the longer ones later. It was easier and neater that way. Sorry for the long winded post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doo138 Posted June 3, 2013 Author Share Posted June 3, 2013 Dude no....thank you for the long winded post. You gave me everything I would have had to search for right in one spot. Thanks for goin out of your way to help me and anybody else needing this info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gigapig Posted June 3, 2013 Share Posted June 3, 2013 Dude no....thank you for the long winded post. You gave me everything I would have had to search for right in one spot. Thanks for goin out of your way to help me and anybody else needing this info. Anytime, your very welcome. You can PM me if you need any additional help and keep us posted on how you get on, and what you decide to do. All the best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nitussi Posted June 3, 2013 Share Posted June 3, 2013 Hey gigapig, if you want to make your stick totally wireless with the trackball and all, the item mentioned by brian_hoffman in post #4 may do the trick and it could be powered by the 360 controller if you tap from it. Just an suggestion if you haven't already thought of it. If that is a ps2 trackballs, I have several of those myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gigapig Posted June 4, 2013 Share Posted June 4, 2013 Hey gigapig, if you want to make your stick totally wireless with the trackball and all, the item mentioned by brian_hoffman in post #4 may do the trick and it could be powered by the 360 controller if you tap from it. Just an suggestion if you haven't already thought of it.If that is a ps2 trackballs, I have several of those myself. I hadn't thought of that no, so thanks to you and Brian, something to consider for future projects or if the cable becomes a pain. I shall see if I can source one here. Interesting that it works with Android etc, I could stick a dock at the back of the arcade stick for my Note II. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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