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Control panel problem
chris-Faribo:
Hello all, well after about 10 years i finally completed my first MAME cabinet. I'm using an iPac-2 and just fired it up and everything was working great for about 5 minutes. Now all of a sudden everything works great for player 1 but for player 2 the only controls that are registering are "Right Joystick" and "Down Joystick". I've gone into test mode on the iPac and only those two controls are registering there. Same thing in the admin menu of MAME. I've taken a quick look at my connections and they are all solid (soldered). My next step will be a more in depth look at the connections for player 2 but i was hoping someone else had run into this so I could get back up and running....the "kids" are anxious to play! ;D
PL1:
Welcome aboard.
Power your cab down, set the multimeter to ohms/continuity, and hook your multimeter leads to the ground on a functioning player 1 control and to the ground on one of the non-functioning controls.
If you don't have continuity (<2 ohms), the daisy chain ground path was broken somewhere.
Find a working input where the ground then goes to a non-working input. You'll probably find the fault somewhere between them.
Based on the symptoms you describe, best guess without a picture is the ground between P2 Down (functioning) and P2 Left. (non-functioning)
Another way to check is to jumper ground from a known good point on the daisy chain to the middle of the non-functioning ground. If the whole thing starts working again, it is definitely a break in the daisy chain.
Worst case scenario, manually short a non-functioning input to ground with a piece of wire -- If that doesn't work, the problem is definitely in the encoder.
Scott
chris-Faribo:
Thanks Scott, I'll give that a try. After I posted my problem I rebooted and checked the connections to my encoder and then everything worked perfectly. Then two minutes into a game the joystick controls on player 2 started going haywire and now again all player 2 connections are dead..... ???
I'll try your suggestion tomorrow, need to take a break from it for awhile. :)
chris-Faribo:
Well I just couldn't stay away....I took Scott's advice and checked for continuity on the daisy chain grounds and was finally able to locate one connection that had come loose (I guess my first time electrical solder job wasn't so stellar after all!!). I repaired that connection and bingo!! Everything working now.
Thanks again for the quick tip!
CoryBee:
"Pl1" should get an award for most helpful forum member