Building a CMVS - Part 1

Yeah, new post ! Took me less time to post something than the previous times (we're talking June 2009 to March 2010).

So recently I sold a bunch of stuff on eBay and held off on buying new shiny things for my collection. So once I had enough money in my Paypal account, I went for it: finishing projects that I pushed for too long !

First off was the translucent arcade buttons. This is something that i had pushed back for a long time since it's only a cosmetic thing. I've been wanting to change the buttons of my Neo Geo arcade for so long and after seeing the translucent buttons, I thought it would be cool to have buttons that light up. You can't deny the awesomeness of those buttons.

While the concept is fairly simple, doing was another thing. The quality control on these buttons is not the same as the regular Happ buttons (even if they come from the same mold). You also have to consider that the type of plastic/vinyl used to make the buttons is weaker than a regular plain color buttons. Translucent = weak. The color also affect the weakness. Yellow is the worst, followed by blue.

Anyway, on to the project itself. I first decided that I wanted these to run of the 5V line already coming from the main power supply, no battery or external output. That would have been too much pain just to do that. Using a LED array wizard (http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz), I was able to figure build the needed circuit (it was mainly to know which resistor I needed to use).

One the circuit done and the buttons received, the rest was easier said than done. I installed the buttons and with my drill (I rarely used a Dremel anymore since the holes are all of the same size of an existing drill bit), I made a hole in the bottom and inserted a white LED. Then I soldered everything back to the small circuit, connected everything to the main Jamma connector and I was DONE !

It looks great and I like it. Next : the real CMVS !