Help, I have CP probs! (Doesn't everybody) :)

[PacManess]

Ok, my monster CP has been built, wired and we're ready to go. I'm having a few issues with it however, and I thought maybe y'all might have some ideas. Here we go:

First of all, my set-up is this: I have 2 players, with 6 buttons per player, 1 and 2 player start buttons, and 1 admin button. I am using an IPAC 4. I have 2 8 way joys and 1 dedicated 4 way Wico Leafer.

Here are my problems:

A) For some reason, I cannot program my IPAC. I am getting good responses from my button presses, so I know they are working, it just won't program. I think I know the answer to this one, and that is that I am trying to program with the newest software from Ultimarc...whereas this EBay special may not be the newest IPAC. So tonight after workie I'm going to try to program with the old program.

B) The real problem is this...the Pac-Man stick is screwing up the whole thing. First I had each switch wired directly to the IPAC with the 8-way stick...and it didn't work. Then I daisy chained from the 4-way to the 8-way to the IPAC. Still didn't work. However, if I unplug the quick discos from the 4-way, things work relatively well (see problem A). Any ideas on what could be causing this?

C) Not really a problem, but can I use electrical tape to secure the quick discos to the switches? Or will that cause big fire times? Just wondering.


Thanks for all of your help.

[crashwg]

Do you have the jumper set to alternate codeset?  There's 2, 1 which is deffault mame setup and the other is custom.  You can only program the custom one.

[PacManess]

I've tried both jumper settings, both of them give me problems. When it's on the MAME setting, and the 4-way stick is disco'd, it works great for Player 1. However, since I plugged everything for player 2 into the player 3 slots (to try and keep all the wires on one side of the board), I can't really use player 2 in MAME mode.
I've done some more reading at Ultimarc's site, and it looks like that old utility may just be what I need. Now if I can just figure out how to fix the Pac-Stick, I'll be set.

[GGKoul]

Check you ground wire.  Make sure all is connected.

[JamesS]

Get you a cheap Multimeter and check your ground first, like GGKoul says.