Need some help with my dual-NES interface

[kcm3]

I'm having a problem, I assume a classic 'blocking' problem with the NES controller interface I've built for my cabinet. I mentioned this as a follow-up to my previous post about this adapter in Consoles, but I thought maybe my chances of being seen by someone else might be better over here.

I built a 2-player NES adapter, and each controller works perfectly when it's the only one hooked up. When I hook them both up, however they have one problem: both controllers cannot press the "right" directional at the same time. It causes them to both behave as if nothing is being pressed. Other buttons don't have this problem, nor does "right" block any other button.

Does anyone have an idea what might cause this, or how I can troubleshoot it? The wiring all looks right to me, and I assume if it wasn't, I wouldn't get so nearly proper behavior.

I built the parallel port interface that's documented here: http://www.dreamcliff.com/personal/daniel/jump/mport.htm , which is the basic directpad pro interface. I've got power and ground wired into the joystick port so that I can draw 5V. I'm using DPpro on win98, but I've tried other software with the same result, so it's definitely a hardware problem. The only deviation from the problem is that I used 2 RJ-45 jacks instead of the DB-9 connectors, so that I can just plug the controllers into a wallport on the side of my cabinet.

Thanks for any help or ideas you can provide.

[kcm3]

If nobody has any specific ideas, can someone explain to me in general what causes blocking problems with controls, electrically? That might give me an idea that will help.

Thanks

[allroy1975]

I've built 2 of those and had no problems....well, that's not completely true.  After I made the first one I thought I was the bomb and flew through the 2nd one.  I had all kinds of problems with the 2nd one.  Nothing I could really pinpoint...sounded kinda like your problems.

I went back and checked all my wires and everything and of course, I had horked a couple up.  and that was causing my problems.

My only real suggestion is to go over ALL of your wires again with the wiring diagram right in front of you and make sure that EACH wire is clean (not touching other wires) and all that.  

Also, (and I'm sure you know this) you need to make sure one is set up in the driver as controller 1 and the other as controller 2.

Hope that helps a little bit.  Prolly not though.  

Allroy

[kcm3]

Well, I decided to start over from scratch. This time I used thinner wire in the wallport jacks, thinking that a flaky connection in there was probably the source of my problems.

Since I'm using RJ45 jacks, I pulled apart an ethernet cable for the internal wiring this time, thinking maybe the wire I used the first time was possibly too thick.

Well, it works perfectly now, although I can't say exactly the source of my earlier blocking-like problem.

In any case, I'm now really psyched about this. I'm putting an ethernet wallport on the side of my cabinet, so I can just plug the controllers in whenever I need them. Not quite as cool as building in actual nintendo jacks, but I can plug either NES or SNES pads into the jacks, which is nice.