Ridge Racer 5/V Questions

[ruralcollector]

Long time lurker here and finally pulled the trigger on this beast (not my picture, but it looked EXACTLY like this when I picked it up)

It came with only one System 246 Board, dongle, ect. Both STR-PCB's were still intact with wiring. I was able to boot up and play blind. Both monitors are non-working. They are Neotec NT-500's.

I would love to get the CRT's working, but that's a question for another day. My question is, is there a way to interface the STR PCB with a PC? It appears that the STR PCB connects to the 246 in two ways. One being directly through the the JVS/JAMMA harness and the other a small 3 pin connector to the main board. Interestingly, the daughterboard (correct me if I'm wrong) connects to the mainboard through a USB. I can take some pictures if that would be helpful, but I just thought I'd start a thread as there isn't a ton of documentation on this rig.

Thank you

Edit: I may have jumped the gun on this post as I reviewed other methods of hacking the HAPP wheel. I guess my further question is, would I be able to retain force feedback by interfacing the STR PCB with a U-HID or would I have to hack a FFB wheel board along with an amp to retain that option.

[isamu]

Hi ruralcollector.
Good to see another hardcore Ridge Racer fan in here!

Very nice find. These machines from what I understand are extremely rare. I can't help with your technical issues but I'm hoping someone here reads this and can assist you. When you finally get the monitors and the controls working, please update us and let us know how the force feedback is, and whether or not it's true push/pull torque ffb, or just a simple rumble.

I play this using my DD wheel in PCSX2 using the NeGcon plugin and the controls are great but the lack of FFb sucks. I'm hoping someone will implement compatibility for the JoGcon within the Lilypad plugin, since the game fully supports it, and that should then allow it to send proper FFB to my wheel.

[ruralcollector]

Hi ruralcollector.
Good to see another hardcore Ridge Racer fan in here!

Very nice find. These machines from what I understand are extremely rare. I can't help with your technical issues but I'm hoping someone here reads this and can assist you. When you finally get the monitors and the controls working, please update us and let us know how the force feedback is, and whether or not it's true push/pull torque ffb, or just a simple rumble.

I play this using my DD wheel in PCSX2 using the NeGcon plugin and the controls are great but the lack of FFb sucks. I'm hoping someone will implement compatibility for the JoGcon within the Lilypad plugin, since the game fully supports it, and that should then allow it to send proper FFB to my wheel.

Did we just become best friends?!

Thanks for the reply. I will be posting my restore progress with pictures when I get it out of the garage. The Namco 246 has a PS2 controller port which can be used IIRC. As for the cabinet, it’s strange that there isn’t a lot of information or official advertisement from Namco. The closest thing I could find was on this flyer
But even this one isn’t the same as mine. Maybe this is common practice for Racer arcade cabinets?


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[shaolindrunkard]

Hi ruralcollector.
Good to see another hardcore Ridge Racer fan in here!

Very nice find. These machines from what I understand are extremely rare. I can't help with your technical issues but I'm hoping someone here reads this and can assist you. When you finally get the monitors and the controls working, please update us and let us know how the force feedback is, and whether or not it's true push/pull torque ffb, or just a simple rumble.

I play this using my DD wheel in PCSX2 using the NeGcon plugin and the controls are great but the lack of FFb sucks. I'm hoping someone will implement compatibility for the JoGcon within the Lilypad plugin, since the game fully supports it, and that should then allow it to send proper FFB to my wheel.

If he takes pictures of the back of the control panel from the inside, you should be able to tell what kind of FFB or lack of it has...