Posted by JimK on 12, 2001 at 12:25 AM:
In Reply to: Power up \ Power down posted by erg71 on 10, 2001 at 2:46 PM:
Here's what I did on my cabinet. Drill a button hole on the top of the cabinet (I used arcade button I had laying around... but any pushbutton will do, you won't see it on top of the cabinet) Install that button and wire it to the power on jumper on your computer's motherboard. Now buy a 12v dc relay. I bought mine from Grainger part number 6c673. Now install 2 outlets. The first outlet should be connected directly to 120VAC (wall outlet). Wire the second outlet as follows: wire 120vac to the pole of the relay, then run the normally open side of the relay to the second outlet and then connect the other side of the outlet to common. Now wire the coil of the relay to the 12vdc pins of your pc power supply. Plug your computer into the outlet that is always on. Plug your monitor, speakers, whatever else that is 120vac into the outlet connected to the relay. The end result of this wiring is when you push the button on the top of your computer, the computer powers up, and then the relay switches on everything else in your cabinet. So power up with a single push button. And if your motherboard supports power on by keyboard... you could turn your entire cabinet on from the keyboard... very slick...
you can email me if you need wiring diagrams for this method.... and this is assuming that you are using a computer monitor or a super vga arcade monitor... you don't want to be powering up your low res monitor with windows :)...
hope this helps,
JimK