IPac2 Button Troubleshooting: Solved

[dwilks]

Hi All,

Hopefully someone can help me with this.

I have a cocktail cab that I have built that has two control panels. One side of the machine has a player one and player two control panel for co-op games and SF.  The other side has a single control panel, which is used for traditional cocktail cabinet games such as Galaga.

Both of the two player control panels are wired in parallel into the player two terminals on my IPac and the single player is wired up into the player one terminals.  I have a dedicated P1 coin button and a P1 and P2 button, along with three joysticks and each player has six buttons (see attached photos).

Everything works perfectly, however every now and then the P2 SW1 input stops responding to presses of the button (on both of the player two panels).  I thought it was a short, but that doesn't appear to be the case because when I touch a wire from the ground terminal to the P2 SW1 terminal no input messages are being sent to the PC.  The strange part is that after a random length of time the IPac will start responding to the button presses again for no apparent reason.

The diagnostic LED flashes twice at power up and then remains solidly lit.  This means that everything is working correctly I believe.

I am running HyperSpin as my front end and using MAME 0.154. I have also connected the IPac to the PC's PS/2 port.  I plan on purchasing a PS/2 to USB adapter tomorrow and see if this fixes the problem.  If someone has some suggestions on what may be the cause of this I would be really appreciative.

Thanks
Dwayne

[AndyWarne]

I cant think of any obvious cause of this, maybe we can liase by email to troubleshoot.

Note that PS/2 to USB converters might cause problems, check the info on http://www.ultimarc.com/ipacusb.html

andy@ultimarc.com

[dwilks]

It turned out to be a faulty IPac, I've since received a replacement and it's all working beautifully again... With the exception that when you press 2SW1, 2SW2 and 2SW3 at the same time it causes the current MAME instance to minimise and I'm returned to HyperSpin.  I haven't changed any of the default mappings, so the combination is A, S and Q.

Is there a setting in MAME that I'm missing?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[DeLuSioNal29]

It turned out to be a faulty IPac, I've since received a replacement and it's all working beautifully again... With the exception that when you press 2SW1, 2SW2 and 2SW3 at the same time it causes the current MAME instance to minimise and I'm returned to HyperSpin.  I haven't changed any of the default mappings, so the combination is A, S and Q.

Is there a setting in MAME that I'm missing?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

It's because you're pressing A and Q together which is the "exit to pause" command for Hyperlaunch.  You need to edit the HyperLaunch.ahk file.  Read more here:  http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?19704-MAME-Minimizes-During-Gameplay&p=188330&viewfull=1#post188330

P.S. - I cheated and used Google to find the answer. I searched for the term:  "ASQ causes minimizing in Mame"   

Good luck!

DeLuSioNaL29

[dwilks]

Thanks DeLuSioNaL29.

I modified the INI file, in HyperSpin, there is a setting along the lines of

Code: [Select]

exit_key_code=~q ~s which I changed to codes that aren't mapped to any of my joystick or button codes and it seems to have resolved the issue.  I fixed it yesterday and meant to update this post, but forgot.  Your reply jogged my memory, thank you

[DeLuSioNal29]

Glad it worked out!

D