Multiple video cables merging to one...verify my idea please!

[macabre]

I'm building an arcade box that has many consoles built into the single unit. It will have permanent games built in as well, and the games will be selected by which console is powered on (so only one system will be powered on at one time).

I had assumed that, since I'm doing that, I could literally merge all of the composet (sadly restricted to this due to consoles ages), cables - making all twelve (12!) cables combined into one single yellow video, and left / right audio.

In doing this, will I be loosing any quality of the games output? Will this actually work, or am I doing something stupid? (i'm honestly not as experienced as I should be to be attempting this custom arcade box...)

----------------

On top of that, I'm considering investing in a wireless a/v transmitter / receiver, and adding this into the unit to further remove wires coming from its shell. Are these any good? The unit will have 4 wireless controllers for multiplayer (all infra-red), so I'm already assuming I'll have to do testing to make sure there is no interference (finding 4 controllers that didn't interfere was rough enough).



Thanks in advance for any help!!!

[kendrick]

It's probably not a good idea to have consolidated composite and audio cabling. If you are combining console hardware in this way, you'll need to provide a common ground line. This becomes problematic if not every console is powered on at the same time, since you'll have unexpected voltage draw from components on other circuit boards. This might cause unexpected damage to components. It's safer to use a hard switch that cuts off one output and uses only another.

[viletim]

macabre,

Given that you seem to have no need for:
-- high quality video (wirless tx/rx from composite video)
-- authentic asthetics (everything in the box)
-- authentic controls (wireless controllers)

Have you considered emulation instead?

[macabre]

Yea, I'm more than aware that I could easily emulate most of these games on a classic xbox, which has 4 controller ports and whatnot, but from experience with this game franchise on emulators (legit Hudson Bomberman games), most of the music is rubbish, and the controllers get screwy (a vital requirement for a multi-player focused game). I was told it would take a while to tweak and perfect one game to get on the xbox, but my console will have 12 total (two from gamecube, which might be even trickier to emulate on xbox).


My main reason for starting this was actually because I already have 90% of all the hardware. I'm a huge bomberman fan, and realized that the giant pile of controllers, multi-taps, and the fact that I own a SNES, PS1, and GC entirly for the bomberman games (thats including 2 multitaps, 12 controllers, & 3 sets of AV + Power cables), is a huge mess.

After considering the entire size of my possible end arcade box, it would be about as big as two computer towers next to eachother (smaller actually), and if I'm successful, will literally have just one cable (the power cable - if the wireless AV cables work out).



A possible solution I have for this delima (the "unexpected voltage draw") by instead of making the switch that selects the specific game (by giving that console power), but also selecting the AV for that system. I could get a few female / male VGA cord ends, and use those pin's as the complete connection (iirc there's like 15 on a VGA cable). Instead of a standard "switch" i would just "plug" in that game (making damn sure that nothing else is plugged in at the same time).


I made a post here talking about a delima I had with converting the voltage in my controller hack. I found a way around that problem, but I still want to keep all of the controller grounds connected (as in, all for controller/player 1, 2, 3, &4). Will this "unexpected voltage draw" hamper any of my controllers functions since they will all be tied to multiple consoles? Or will I be ok now that I'm keeping the voltage separate?


Thanks for the help guys!

[kendrick]

Common ground in the controller ports might not be a problem for 8-bit systems, most of which just have pin-for-pin circuits to indicate that a switch is closed. This applies to the SNK Neo Geo systems too. But anything from the 16-bit era or newer will have some sort of serial signaling, and there's no way to predict how extra cables or stray voltage will affect those connections.

By way of information: Extension cables are known to throw off the clock timing on Playstation pads, and the fusible diodes in Dreamcast controller ports actually blow out with some third-party controllers. If you have the spare hardware, I'd definitely do some rigorous testing before finalizing your setup.

[macabre]

Extension cables are known to throw off the clock timing on Playstation pads, and the fusible diodes in Dreamcast controller ports actually blow out with some third-party controllers. If you have the spare hardware, I'd definitely do some rigorous testing before finalizing your setup.

Thanks for the warning~

The only extension cables I had intended on using in the entire thing were just the female ends for the 4 hacked controller pads (two that go to genesis and two that go to saturn, for their wirless controller receivers to be plugged in - just incase they ever break down I wanted the option of making them legit controller ports).

I'd be truncating alot of wires in this entire thing, and all of the controllers for each system are all official, so hopefully that doesnt hurt anything. I'll have to do alot of play testing.

I was mostly following this guide about controller hacking. I was throwen a warning at another forum (sega-16), last time I threw a link from that site up, saying that one of the pcb's had a wrongly labeled voltage.

That worries me. The voltage is the critical one that I have a hard time "seeing" when I'm looking at these controllers. These are the 3 diagrams I was going to use to find the voltage;

Genesis 6 button, Saturn original, and Saturn v2 controller.

Would anyone be able to tell me if they are correctly labeled?




Thanks again so much for helping me with this! This is a pretty big project that I've been wanting to do for a long time, and I know its way out of my league of expertise. I just hope that the more patience and slow-work I put in to it will make a working end unit.