‘arcade box’ controller
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: Pardon our interruption...
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
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.
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!
It sends midi. Just set it and the vci to different midi channels.
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
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.
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!
Ask midifidler about the ps2 joysticks, i’m not sure if they are quite the same.
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
I used PS2 joysticks for all the midifighters, they are PCB mount which is an issue if you are not planning to use PCBs.
Can you actually set all 32 channels of the UMC-32 to analogue? Ive been trying to figure this out myself? The user manual seemed to suggest that only up to 16 could be analogue…
Page 5… http://www.halemicro.com/PDF/HALE-UMC32_v141.pdf
All the combination you can get with it
With all the dip switches in the off position, all 32 channels are analog.
hey drew
whats the official name for the 10 pin adapters that are used to connect to the umc?
and secondly, for the 4 ‘bank selecter’ switches id like to encorporate an led in there just so i can see which bank is active, how can this be achieved on the umc?
cheers dude!
Here’s a link for the cables from sparkfun - http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8535
(i think they are simply called 2x5 pin)
As for the leds, i’m not sure how you would achieve that in the UMC. As you are going to have to use Bomes midi translator or something like it just to turn them into toggles. But i believe this is a feature that they are trying to add in the 2.0 firmware.
But what i would do, is not power the leds with the UMC at all. Just instead of your standard spst push buttons for the bank selectors, use dpst push buttons. Then make a simple circuit to control the leds. All together it shouldn’t be to difficult or expensive, just it will have to have its own power supply, but a 9v battery will last for ages powering a LED.
so does dpst mean that ones its on (say, pushed down) it stay on until you push it again? almost like a toggle switch? also, does that mean in theory you could have a midi mapping where 4 switches could potentially toggle 16 banks? (ie all off, all but 1, 2 on 2 off etc…)
interesting…
no. dpst means double poll single throw. i.e. 1 button controls 2 different parameters with a single push. You still want to use momentary buttons(push on/release off), but the triggers should be spst (single poll single throw) as they will control only one parameter at a time.
So on the bank buttons, you can use the dpst buttons to trigger both the corresponding midi cc’s and to toggle the leds.
With the way the UMC 32 is set up now, you will have to make the bank buttons simple midi commands, and use bomes to change them to bank functions that change the corresponding triggers to there new midi cc’s.
Actually, now that i think about it… you could use dpst toggle switch buttons (push on/push off), instead of momentary(push on/release off), for the scenes. But you will have to turn off each scene before the next will work properly. But also you could get more banks like you mentioned, with combinations. It might be a better idea to go about it this way.
But you are still going to need a separate circuit to operate the LEDs. If you’re handy with a soldering iron, i could just design one really quick and send you the parts list and schematics.
Or better yet, if you don’t want to bother with the leds you could just use DPST toggle switches, then you would have the visual reference just based on switch position. And not enough controllers have old school switches on them.
sweet yeh that makes sense. i think what im going to do is have 4 old style toggle flick switches, and just remember to turn each one off when im done. this way ill have loads of available banks should i choose to use them as well as having the most useful bank set to no switches. then once ive got that sorted im going to run a second circuit off either a 9v battery or maybe even a second usb, with 4 parallel branches and an led and switch across each branch.
thanks for all your help!
No problem man. I’m always happy to help.
Can you guys recommend any sources for arcade-style DPST or DPDT buttons?