Adding real controls to a plug and play

[Tupin]

I've seen some people take those Jakks Pacific Plug and Plays and put in real arcade buttons and joysticks, in order to make it more authentic.

I have a great Pac-Man plug and play, and I wanted to put it in a box with an 8-way joystick and restrictor plate, has anyone done something similar to this? It looks pretty simple, but the menu button on mine has a very strange setup that I'm not sure if it could be replaced with a regular button.

[kedawa]

What is so strange about it?

[Satoshi_Matrix]

I'm sure I could help you with that, but I'd need detailed photos of the innards of what it is you've got there.

[Tupin]

I'll try to get pictures of the menu button. Most of the thing is labeled, the only thing I would like to ask is am I correct in believing that "VDD" is ground for the joystick, right?

The menu button is similar to that in a remote control, and has what I am pretty sure is a surface mount resistor in the center.

[InsaneDavid]

Pull the board, it's easier to figure everything out once the board is removed. One way or another, there should be some kind of connection made between two points. Regardless of how that connection is made, it can have cables run to it from a switch to complete the connection. The custom made 3/5th size arcade cabinet that I converted to a MAME cab started out like this, with one of these plug and play's wired to arcade controls.

http://www.classicplastic.net/dvgi/special-galagamultigame-02.jpg

Power connection was also hardwired. The original joystick assembly was retained (the white part) and a faux spinner was attached to it so the steering in Pole Position wouldn't have been lost. If I still had it I would send you the board but all that ended up being scrapped when I converted it.

EDIT: Forgot that I did shoot one quick video before I started to re-purpose the cabinet - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-9_Jkl2aUo