Astro City or Blast City Control Panel Mod for PS2

awc · Post by **awc** » Wed May 25, 2005 7:09 pm

I plan on using either an Astro City or Blast City Control Panel for PS2 like this one:

What do these control panels look like when seperate from a cabinet? Is it as easy as soldering the wires to the PS2 controller PCB? Any help, advice, or info is appreciated.

japtor · Post by **japtor** » Wed May 25, 2005 9:10 pm

not separate from cab, but its the underside at least:
http://chefbox.com/~brian/pictures/astr ... inside.jpg
its basically just a thin metal panel with holes for everything to mount.

mine was in a sanwa box, i assume it was new. had all the controls installed and wiring already connected, just had to screw it in (included nuts/bolts) and plug it into the existing molex connectors on my cab. you could just cut all the cabling and use those and solder from there, or disconnect everything and do your own wiring. the joystick uses a little 5 pin connector, the buttons just have 2 quick disconnects (diff size from whats on a happ switch). the button switches seem to work whichever way the wires are connected, either can be ground or the button circuit i guess (can anyone clarify on how they work?).

anyways, should be pretty easy if you know what youre doing in terms of wiring controllers. just have to have a box or something to attach the panel to, and youll be set to go.

raiden · Post by **raiden** » Wed May 25, 2005 9:12 pm

if you have modded a PS2 controller before, you will have no problem at all connecting the panel to one (or two) controller PCBs. Every button comes with 2 large metal stripes to solder to. Joysticks come in different variants, either with a 5dot-PCB to solder to, or with separate microswitches for each direction. Either way, it´s no problem, for separate switches, you have to connect one pin from each for common ground, but you´ll know this anyway.
There are some optical arcade sticks requiring 5V input, which is present on the PS2 controller PCB, but the Sega cabs have regular microswitch joysticks.

oxtsu · Post by **oxtsu** » Wed May 25, 2005 10:04 pm

japtor and raiden covered the main point quite well. To add, Seimitsu factory version 2L12B Blast/Astro City panel is about $65 less expensive than Sanwa factory. It's the recommendation for value. The again...for ultimate value, the Aero City/Egret panel from River Service is hard to beat. IIRC, the price is $70 (not shipped) for 2L8B panel, all wiring and Sanwa controls included. More compact size as well.

ex. *1 *2

awc · Post by **awc** » Wed May 25, 2005 10:34 pm

What are some good sites to order from?

japtor · Post by **japtor** » Thu May 26, 2005 8:26 am

i got mine off excellent (excellentcom.net i think), just email them for a price list and hardware list, the website is probably way out of date. my panel was $138 pre-ship, at least according to the price list. the picture on the list was an astro city one, i ended up with a blast city one, sorta annoying cause i bought it to replace the beat up astro panel i had (now if only i can find a cheap blast city with a good astro panel).

not sure where else to get stuff (im sure oxtsu would know more), ive seen sanwa panels on ebay a few times, but its a rare occurrence. the times i did, i think they were pretty cheap too.

Post by **Dave_K.** » Fri May 27, 2005 3:58 am

japtor wrote: ive seen sanwa panels on ebay a few times, but its a rare occurrence. the times i did, i think they were pretty cheap too.

There were 4 Astro City control panels that just went on ebay today. Very cheap, but you'd have to replace all the controls.

oxtsu · Post by **oxtsu** » Sat May 28, 2005 7:19 pm

awc wrote:What are some good sites to order from?

I would second japtor's recommendation of Excellentcom. For used control panels there is Yahoo Japan Auctions using an auction assistant (Rinkya, etc.). There's others, but it will entail either prohibitive bank fees or being fluent in Japanese/having a connection in Japan.