"You Don't Know Jack" Hand     Buzzers

Phase I

By Nick Vazzana
    December 2006

Phase I: Build the Controls

After more than 5 months of playing "You Don't     Know Jack" on the arcade and ignoring the little voice in the back     of my head telling me to build some hand buzzers, I finally caved. Using     the tutorial at Arcadeparadise.org     as a starting point of sorts, I decided to take the design a step further     and make some really unique and "professional" looking hand     buzzers. Since "You Don't know Jack" can only support a maximum     of 3 players at a time, I only needed to create 3 buzzers. Each one took     about 30 minutes to assemble and finish.

Material list:

    
• (3) Handset phone cords, or one really long one      to cut into thirds
    
• (3) 6" metal or plastic pipes
    
• (3) Mountain-bike rubber hand grips
    
• (6) Plastic furniture endcaps, like those found      on cheap metal tables and chairs
    
• (3) 8" of red and black wire, 18-22 ga
    
• (3) 1/2" vertical momentary pushbuttons (not      microswitches)
    
• (3) 1/8" 2-Channel audio jacks - Male
    
• (3) 1/8" 2-Channel audio jacks - Female
   

Tools needed:

    
• Soldering iron & solder
    
• Electrical tape
    
• Hot-glue gun
    
• Strippers (no, not that kind!)
   

Start by working a handgrip over a section of pipe.    

    
    Mountain Bike handgrip installed on pipe

Using the soldering gun, solder the 8" lengths     of red and black wire to the momentary pushbutton and independently wrap     the connections in electrical tape to prevent short circuits. Set that     aside.

    Momentary pushbutton soldered to wiring.

If the handset cords you're using came terminated with     RJ-11s, clip them off. Slip the plastic audio jack cover over the phone     cord and remove about 1/2" of the outer sheathing to expose the 4     telephone wires. Clip the 2 middle ones, you only need the wires on the     sides.

    Phone jack sans RJ-11 connector.

    Stripped and ready for connection.

Strip and tin the 2 remaining phone wires (they're 26ga).     Then crimp the metal 1/8" audio jack to the external insulation of     the phone cord while keeping the exposed telephone wires from wandering     in the middle. Carefully solder the wires to the outward facing sides     of the terminals and test for continuity with a multimeter.

    Terminating the phone jack wires.

Heat up a hot-glue (hotmelt) gun and inject a small     bit between the newly soldered connections to give it support and prevent     the frail wired from breaking off.

    Hot glue to stabilize the connection and strengthen     the wiring.

Thread the plastic jack cover onto the jack to close     everything up. Make a hole appx 1/4" in diameter at the end of a     plastic endcap. Thread the other end of the phone cord through the cap     as shown and tie a knot to prevent it from being pulled out by accident.    

    
    Tie a knot in the cord to keep from losing it through     the endcap.

Connect your button/wire assembly to the unfinished     end of the phone cord by stripping the wire as described before and soldering     the 2 outer wires to the un-finished ends of the red and black wires (It     doesn't matter which one goes where, just as long as they make a good     connection). Wrap the wires up independently with electrical tape to prevent     shorts in the buzzer.

    Wrap wires independently to prevent shorts.

Next, make a hole in another plastic endcap the same     diameter as the button's threaded mid-section. Work the it through the     pipe, and push it though the new endcap's hole.

    Almost done.

Once you get it through, thread the small nut onto the     button-shaft to prevent it from backing out of the cap. Roll up the ends     of the bike grips and push the endcaps over the pipe. It'll take some     elbow grease to get them on, but once they're there, you wont have to     worry about them coming off by accident any time soon. Flip the grips     back down over the cap and you're done!

    Finished Game Show Buzzer Controller.

Interfacing the handbuzzer with the cab is actually     easier than making the buzzers themselves...

Phase     II: Arcade Cabinet Integration

RetroBlast! Recommended Links

Head     Over To Nick's Site For More Pictures

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Comments (1)

• |65.255.147.xxx |2010-03-30 19:33:17 kaitlin  - ????????
  from a scale from 1-10 how loud is it
  would this work on a game show
  
  Please email me back at kjkbff@rocketmail.com
  
  THANK YOU
  
  
  • 0
  • 0

  Reply

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