Help! Ipac4 troubles...

[johnnysmitch]

Has anyone here had any trouble with their ipacs?  Here's my problem - I've had my control panel wired up for a while now, but my p3up and p3start, as well as all my p4 directions never worked.  I assumed that it was simply my wiring, and shrugged it off as something I'd go over later on, after I got the rest of my machine done.  Now I've gone back and gone over all the wiring and connections very meticulously, and my wiring is sound, but these controls still don't work... My p3start and 4p directions still wont work, and my p3 up is triggering both p3up and p2 button5... some kind of crosstalk (one of my other controls is doing this too - can't remember which one specifically at the moment...) I also tried hooking these controls up to inputs that HAVE been working, and they work fine using those inputs, leading me to believe that I've got a number of faulty inputs on my IPAC... so anyone else had any problem like this?  How did you fix it??

[cdbrown]

How have you been testing these controls?  Notepad, WinIpac.

P4 directions don't work because they aren't mapped in mame as a default - start a game, press TAB and then check in Inputs (default) then check Player 4.  They are probably all set to NONE.  You should set up ctrlr file to suit your panel and this will force mame to recognize the settings you have chosen.

This could also be the problem with the p3up and p2b5 - they could be mapped to the same value.

So - run mame and check the default inputs for all 4 controllers including buttons - I recommend just writing these all down.
 - open up Winipac and make sure each controller and button is assigned a value and test them.  Move the joystick around and you will see the joystick graphic also move (hopefully in the same direction).  The buttons will be highlighted when pressed.
 - check the mame defaults against those in winipac - mark down on the paper the winipac mappings as these are the ones you want mame to read.
 - set up ctrlr file -  Some help can be found here and here and here - but remember this last one is for ini formate and not xml (which was put in place around  0.85 if you're using older version you should be fine).
 - depending on the version of mame you may need to run HowardC's converter which can be found in  here
 - set up the mame.ini file to use the ctrlr file
enable this line
ctrlr_directory         ctrlr
and then further down
ctrlr                   mine
I have my ctrlr file called mine.cfg located in the ctrlr folder.

Good luck
-cdbrown

[johnnysmitch]

Would my mame controller setting be the cause of the movements not showing up in WinIpac?  That's where I've been doing most of my testing after checking my wiring - none of the directions light on the controls that aren't working...

[cdbrown]

WinIpac is the place to test what each button/controller does.  This is the place where you can change P1B1 from being Ctrl to X if you wanted.  And mame reads whatever the Ipac is outputting.  I didn't realise that you had done your testing in WinIpac as most people just go straight into a game and realise things don't work the way they thought it would.

Next step - take a microswitch from a button you know works - ie you know that the microswitch definitely works - and remove it's wires (hopefully you've just used female quickconnects.  Do the same for the button that doesn't work.  Wire up the working microswitch to the non-working wires and push the microswitch.  If it registers then the other microswitch is broken in some way and needs to be replaced and you can try this on all the non-working controlls.

I have just re-read your first post and you say that you have hooked up the controls into known working inputs and they worked - so does that mean you moved the Player 4 wires from being in the P4 terminals on the ipac and put them in the P1 terminals and they registered.  If this is the case then it does sound like something is wrong with the ipac.  Did you also try and move the P1 wires and put them in the P4 terminals and try it out that way?

You just need to try different combinations to find fault - it may be that the terminals on the ipac aren't hooked up properly in which case a email to Andy Warne will be the next step.

[johnnysmitch]

I have just re-read your first post and you say that you have hooked up the controls into known working inputs and they worked - so does that mean you moved the Player 4 wires from being in the P4 terminals on the ipac and put them in the P1 terminals and they registered.  If this is the case then it does sound like something is wrong with the ipac.  Did you also try and move the P1 wires and put them in the P4 terminals and try it out that way?

yeah, i've tried a couple of the p1 controls in the p4 (nonworking) inputs, and they dont work, and I've done visa versa, getting the p4 controls to work on the p1 inputs, so I know the microswitches are fine.  And even if it was the microswitches, i don't think that would explain the apparent crosstalk (one button triggering 2 switches [like p3up triggering both p3up and p2switch5, while pushing p2button5 only lights up p2switch5, as it should...)  Also, the fact that it seems to be only affecting p3 and p4 controls, which happen to be on the same half of the encoder board, leads me to believe that it's something wrong with the board...

[cdbrown]

I would definitely send Andy an email - tell him your troubles and all the tests you have done.  He is very helpful.