ipac4 sending multiple button presses once every few presses

[KenToad]

Just to clarify, while I'm using an ipac4, I don't think that it is defective. This is why I haven't contacted Andy at Ultimarc.

I've been troubleshooting this issue where every 3-5 presses of down on player 1 registers twice. So it will go down, down, down, double-down. So you'll randomly skip a game or wheel while browsing. No one has ever noticed any weird behavior in-game, but I can easily replicate it in notepad or word. I've physically checked the connections, but I'm kind of stuck at the moment.

Has anyone experienced this kind of issue before?

Possible issues:

1. Defective microswitch? It's a cherry on a Happ Competition purchased new in 2005.
2. Ipac4 issue? I bought it new last summer. I have a new, unused ipac2 that I could test. It would be a minor pain to set up, which is why I haven't done it yet.
3. A Windows 10 software issue or something else that I haven't considered?

So far, this isn't a huge deal. it is slightly irritating skipping games in Hyperspin once in a while, but I haven't noticed any gameplay issues, which would be more troublesome.

Thanks in advance for any advice regarding testing or troubleshooting.

[loupg]

should be easy to troubleshoot, move the switch and see if the issue follows it.

[KenToad]

That's a good idea. I may even have some leftover cherry switches, so I could try just replacing it first.

[AndyWarne]

We get quite a few reports of this issue.

Some microswitches have a very long contact bounce time which exceeds the de-bounce timer in the IPAC firmware. Although we can supply firmware with a longer time if required.

The Cherry brand which are made in Mexico have always been especially susceptible to this.

This does not affect gameplay because the games have de-bounce logic as the original game boards would also be subject to this issue.
It would be good if Hyperspin also had the same de-bounce logic, but it does not unfortunately.

If you need the longer de-bounce firmware let me know: andy@ultimarc.com

[KenToad]

Thanks so much for the information and offer, Andy. Ultimarc's products, service, and support have been top-notch.

Just to follow-up on the original issue, I swapped out the switch for another one. As I did so, the ground wire also fell out of the quick disconnect. However, I'm not sure if that's because I had messed with it earlier, when the problem originally manifested. However, I can confirm that changing to a different cherry switch completely fixed the problem.

So I guess either the physical connection was tenuous due to the ground wire being insecure or I had a rotten cherry switch.