Minipac keystroke problems

[jlfreund]

Hi,

I've had problems with all 3 of the minipacs I've used in my past 3 machines.  My most recent minipac (purchased last year) had a lot of problems with keys not responding, however by linking a bunch of common controls (ie 4way up connects with 8way P1 up), I was barely able to get my new CP wired up and working.

One problem that remains is my P1 joystick left switch almost always emits a ("J") key on both the press and release (whereas all other joystick directions only emit a key on the switch press). 

Does anyone know if there is a setting (in mame, minipac firmware or Windows 7) where I can make adjustments to timing or keyrepeat, to try to workaround the problem?

Thanks
Jason

[bluelight]

I'd like to know this as well as I was planning on ordering a mini-pac for my build soon but didn't know that people were having issues like this with them.

[what2be]

What firmware are you running and are you plugging in the usb cable to a USB 3.0 or 2.0 port on your computer? If i remember right, there are problems using it with usb 3.0 ports. Try a usb 2.0 and see if that fixes your problem. I have installed a Ultimate I/O and a minipac on 2 different cabs and both work great for me, as well as both having dual aimtraks, u-trak, spintrak (on the ultimateI/O) and servosticks connected to the UltimateIO and Minipac.

[JamesTKirk]

I assume your minipac is for a 2 player setup......

Odd that P1 joystick left emits a "J" key at all.  The default key mappings for the mini-pac and Ipac are identical. P1 left is supposed to be the left arrow key. The J keycode is the default for 2 SW 7 or it is the default P3 joystick left arrow key.

Have you triple checked your wiring?
Are you using the premade wiring harness or did you do your own crimps? (I know when I did my own crimps I had a few issues  )
Have you checked the mini-pac's programming in the Ipac software?
Does replacing the micro switch on P1 joystick left cause any changes?
And I agree with what2be, are you on the latest mini-pac firmware?

[AndyWarne]

As these boards dont give this type of problem, something is going on which is common to all the installations.

As someone already mentioned the "J" should not be happening at all. So is there any remapping software resident or any program which could interfere with or affect keystrokes?

There is something fundamentally flawed, some of the description of the problem and fix such as "by linking a bunch of common controls" doesnt really make sense.

I dont recall having received any email mentioning problems of this nature, if you are having problems with 3 boards this is curious, would you be able to email me as soon as possible so we can get to the bottom of it: andy@ultimarc.com

[jlfreund]

Hi - thanks for the replies.  For this problem I tried connecting directly to the computer's USB 2.0 instead of routing through a USB 3.0 hub to the computer's USB 3.0 port but that didn't help.  But in playing with it, I found that jiggling the wire connected to the NO connector on the switch made the problem go away.  So I think I just need to either tighten the clamp to the switch or examine one of the solder points where I "linked" this switch to the corresponding P1 Left of my other (4way) joystick.

By "linking" 2 controls, I mean I T'd a wire from a minipac input to have a second clamp sprouting out of it; both of which connect to the NO port of 2 redundant switches.  I did that for 7 redundant controls on the panel that should never be used together, so 7 inputs to the minipac are being controlled by 14 switches.

So now, it looks like all the controls are working well.  I don't know if the USB 2.0 vs 3.0 (or routing Minipac through a hub) could have caused those 7 dead inputs.  I could double check it if anyone is interested, but I tested those inputs pretty well before when they were on USB 3.0 and think that they were, in fact, dead.

Regarding my previous Minipac problems, I wrote about them in earlier posts 5-10 years ago on this forum, but I never got to the bottom of any of them (ie Minipac problem vs wiring vs computer).  The nature of the problems were that the USB disconnected intermittently, one switch would register 1 key on key release but not keypress, and more dead inputs.  I still have 1 of my previous minipacs and had tried to use it for this project when I found the dead inputs, but that one doesn't work at all now.

-Jason

[AndyWarne]

The 7 dead inputs would most likely be a break in the daisy-chain connection. Thats really the only possibility.

The other problems were 5-10 years ago?

Well, what I can say is "one input giving a keypress on release" is expected. This would be the Start1 button by default, or whichever button is defined as the I-PAC shift control.

If you have an older board which you want to use and suspect it has a problem we can have a look at it and repair/replace but I would suspect wiring is the most likely explanation for all the problems.

[jlfreund]

Just wanted to followup on one of the problems I had with my new minipac: sometimes I would get a double keypress.  The symptom was that 80% of the time I would get 1 correct keypress, and 20% of the time I would get 2 keypresses at the same time (the moment the switch is pressed in).

I tried all manner of jiggling and removing/replacing/tightening the connectors on the switches, jigging and re-soldering wires that had been split to go to two (redundant) controls, but I think I finally solved it by replacing the 4 switches attached to the joystick with new ones.  So far, after a couple hours of use, I reliably get 1 keypress event every time now.

Anyway, I never suspected that a switch could break, so I wanted to share that find.

Jason