Grounding solved... New issued with utrak wiring..

[aldub516]

Edit: My new problem. Im wiring my utrak to the io board. I cant seem to get the ball to work right.. im rolling it around and getting somewhat sporatic movements. The mouse is certainly not moving where it should..
Referencing the ultimarc site, it gives the wiring break down as follows:
Conn A Red   5 Volts
Conn A Black   GROUND
Conn A Purple   X1
Conn A Blue   X2
Conn B Red   5 Volts
Conn B Black   GROUND
Conn B Yellow   Y1
Conn B Green   Y2

My issue is, on my utrak harness, the red/blue/purple is fine.. BUT, on the other one, the yellow and green wires , if according to that list should be how they are, are backwards. The yellow and green wires are switched in the black pin sleeve, with the yellow going to y2 and green to y1, and dont properly correspond to the spots on the board. Is this a mistake in manufacturing? Or is it set like that for other hookups, and i have to switch them by default for the ultimate io? I tried switching the wires, and switched them back.. either way, i cant get the utrak to spin right. the mouse is just kind of going wherever..

rolling it straight up makes my cursor go left..straight down makes it go right, left is down and right is up. I switched the axis in ipac since it seems they are just reversed, but still nothing. Im concerned about that yellow and green wire



OLD POST::

Ok, so i can already expect certain answers and suggestions. But before i go ahead and "waste" a ton of time, i figured id run it by you. So my panel is about done and i started programming. I wired everything up to the ipac.. and grounded everything with the included daisy chain.. So here goes

Ground wire goes from ground on the board, to P1 Button 1.. then chains to button 2, 3, then loops around the first joystick u,d,l,r, and onto P1 Button 4 etc.. Now, last night i had a problem with joystick left . I ended up determining that the ground on that one was somehow messed up. I clipped the crimp off, re connected the wires and recrimped them, plugged it into the ground on the button, works fine. So i guess somehow that one crimp on the chain was busted, even though it seems like pretty simple science, for those connections.. NOW, That i fixed button, onto button 4 and five work fine, and then onto button 6.. which.... now doesnt work either. I took the switch off, used a ground from BUTTON 1, And it now works! So my question is.. Am I about to re-crimp a whole damn pre made daisy chain? Is there something simple im overlooking? I dont really want to re-crimp button 6 ground, just to find out the next button doesnt work now.. And fyi, NO buttons work after the 1st one not working. Meaning, yesterday nothing from joystick left and on would work.. now that LEFT is fixed, same with button 6 and above. Im at the point where im just staring here flustered.. Do i just rip out the entire daisy chain and spend my day crimping my own ground wire? Is it actually possible for multiple crimps on a daisy chain to just not work??? Am i just being stupid and missing an obvious problem? Very aggravating as i was hoping to have this programmed and test runnning today..

[BobA]

Sounds like you have more than one bad crimp in the chain.   Also looks like some may make contact now and open up later.  To be safe redo the chain with new connectors and a positive crimp.   You did not say what tool you used to crimp the wires but it sounds like it was insufficient to properly crimp the connectors.

[benarcade]

A multimeter set to continuity (ohms) can help you narrow down your problem.

[Malenko]

and now you know why I buy cheap jamma harnesses on ebay and cut the jamma connector off and use the wiring.

[aldub516]

Im just wondering how a pre-made daisy chain from andy can have to many bad connections? I guess im basically going to end up wiring this by hand.. which really defeated the purpose of the daisy chain.. I wouldve just save the money on the extra daisy chain and bought connectors/crimps.. As for the tool, i read below in the other grounding thread about using right tools. I sadly seem to be using the worst one, although ive never had a problem with it. I push the wires through the connector terminal, and just crimp/crush the crap out of the end.. wires arent going anywhere. Im going to cut and re-crimp this button.. If the next one fails, i shall be somewhat upset as i wish i didnt bother with the daisy chain. A lot of tedious work added

I am new to electronics so to speak in terms of using multimeters and such.

[aldub516]

I just want to make sure im not doing anything stupid to cause each next crimp in the chain to fail somehow..

[BobA]

Didn't realize it was a purchased harness.   I would contact andy about it as he is really good re customer service.   Have to +1 to Malenko.  Those cheap jamma connectors are a great source of colored wire and ground harnesses.

[aldub516]

Ok, first off thank you all very much. I went ahead and clipped and recrimped the 2nd problem ground, and now, EVERYTHING WORKS! I didnt want to seek help prematurely before i tried recrimping the second problem, but i didnt want to find out there was a different problem and end up destroying the daisy chain for nothing. I still would like to know why the harness had 2-3 bad connections already :\ Im happy with everything from ultimarc as always so no real gripe. I ordered 500 bucks worth of stuff almost in one shot, and all was fine, so im not too hurt about this. I was just looking forward to a relatively pain free process of what was once a mess of wires, crimps and tools. I guess the worst that ended up is i recrimped 2 connections. No biggie, but andy, you may want to look into this just to make sure your manufacturer or whatever isnt making any mistakes.. Consider me happy either way, because the other 20 buttons are now working fine after that one.
Thank you all for prompt help!! Ill be back shortly im sure with more problems. For now, we are cruising

[Malenko]

same here, I read it as if you made the harness , not as if you bought it.  I guess the good news is, it was only 2

[AndyWarne]

My issue is, on my utrak harness, the red/blue/purple is fine.. BUT, on the other one, the yellow and green wires , if according to that list should be how they are, are backwards. The yellow and green wires are switched in the black pin sleeve, with the yellow going to y2 and green to y1, and dont properly correspond to the spots on the board. Is this a mistake in manufacturing? Or is it set like that for other hookups, and i have to switch them by default for the ultimate io? I tried switching the wires, and switched them back.. either way, i cant get the utrak to spin right. the mouse is just kind of going wherever..

Can you try swapping over the 2 black connectors.

Do you have the connections as in the picture on http://www.ultimarc.com/ipacuio.html ?

Andy