Arcade buttons using a mouse
Here is how you can use an inexpensive USB mouse to connect arcade style buttons to control your booth.
Disassemble a USB mouse and carefully remover the circuit board. | |
Locate the small micro switches. A 2 button mouse will have 2 and a 3 button mouse will have 3. One each for the left, right and center mouse buttons. | |
On the underside of the circuit board locate the micro switch connectors for each switch | |
Using a soldering iron unsolder the connectors of the micro switches. There are usually 3 connectors for each switch. Be careful with the iron, it gets very hot. | |
Use some light weight wire and solder that in place of the micro switch. Usually only 2 of those connectors are used. Test to see which ones are used on your circuit board by plugging the USB cable into the computer and use a small piece of wire to touch 2 connectors and see if the computer responds like a mouse click. | |
Solder the other ends of the wire to the 2 connectors on the arcade button. Do this for each of the 3 buttons. Be sure and allow enough wire to mount the buttons in the booth where you want them. |
By combining mouse and serial triggering methods together to have a total of 7 different commands with arcade buttons. Bill, coin and credit card acceptors that close a circuit can also be used with a serial port to trigger the start command.
Related Articles
Arcade buttons using a serial interface
USB ports are a digital interface and an arcade button is an analog device so how do those two work together? The serial port. Once common on computer the serial port can be added inexpensively by an adaptor. Just do a web search for "serial to USB ...My touch screen buttons don't work
Darkroom Booth | Troubleshooting Guide Windows will interpret any touch anywhere on a touch ...Add Touch Screen Buttons
Darkroom Software | Instructional Video Here is a quick video on adding touch screen buttons to your ...Using Darkroom AI in Darkroom Booth 2025
Video Documentation Applying an AI preset to a template Check the box "Apply AI Effect" to select your AI effect from multiple different AI models and preset AI effects. Adding screen buttons to allow for multiple AI options This option will allow ...Adding Buttons to a Screen Template
Here is a link to download a pack of graphic buttons to help you get started Download Graphic Button Pack