GunCon2 driver here!!! (Bacon is tasty)

[Flinkly]

nah, not all arcade monitors are single frequency.

[brandon]

nah, not all arcade monitors are single frequency.

[vibez]

Ok, vibez, this is how it goes:

The circuit pretty much replaces the pass-through box.

And you're thinking backwards. The gun isn't sending a signal from the RCA cable. It's receiving a signal.

The only signal it's sending is through the USB cable back into the PC.

Sorry, but I must be having a dumb day  . Doesnt the gun normally plug into a tv & usb port? So where on an arcade monitor do I plug it into? Is there a diagram anywhere to explain this

[MiKman]

Ok, vibez, this is how it goes:

The circuit pretty much replaces the pass-through box.

And you're thinking backwards. The gun isn't sending a signal from the RCA cable. It's receiving a signal.

The only signal it's sending is through the USB cable back into the PC.

Sorry, but I must be having a dumb day

[vibez]

that it my point. The monitor is plugged into the jpac, which in turn is plugged into the videocard. So there is no free slot on the card to plug in the gun.

[MiKman]

You need build the circuit board everyone is talking about on here and it kind of splits off the needed signal from the video card and outputs to the gun.  I think IntruderAlert's picture was pretty self explanatory, maybe not tho

[vibez]

Thanks! So its spliced into the existing vga cable. I understand now Do you think I should splice it into the monitor cable or the jpac cable?

[MiKman]

It seems like the right thing to do, to splice it in to the monitor cable.  But before you go hacking away. Talk to Smog to be absolutely sure.  He is the only one I know who has this working with an arcade monitor so far.  I only spliced in a composite lead on an S-video cable for my TV in the exact same manner...

[vibez]

thanks. I'll post over on blog.

[hulkster]

well i think ill just wait until someone comes out with a gun that already has all the hook ups and stuff built in it.

[vibez]

I doubt that will hapen for a while

[Billkwando]

well i think ill just wait until someone comes out with a light gun that already has the hookups and stuff built in it, and one that doesnt look like a friggin marvin the martian ray gun!

[vibez]

so has anyone who has tested this, used replica guncon2 compatible gun. The gcons are hard to find where I live

[Billkwando]

Yes, Smog himself doesn't have an original Guncon nor does Steveodevo, it pretty much works with all of them that have been tried....

[markb]

(and injection molding IS expensive.

Injection moulding itself isn't expensive however the tooling is. Something like the Act Labs gun would probably cost about

[Billkwando]

Injection moulding itself isn't expensive however the tooling is.

You said "tooling".

[markb]

You would think they would have a bunch left lying around if not how would they service any guns returned under warranty?

[AlanS17]

so has anyone who has tested this, used replica guncon2 compatible gun. The gcons are hard to find where I live

They're all over Ebay for about $15 to $20 plus shipping. I don't think it should matter much where you live. Shipping for a little plastic gun can't be THAT much.

[AlanS17]

BREAKING NEWS!!!

 I've been doing some research and talking to Andy down at Ultimarc (he's a great guy).

Now it's all theory, but his video amplifier ought to take care of everything that homemade circuit does AND costs only $16. It pulls in a VGA signal, boosts it, and outputs RGB and composite sync.

I haven't tested it yet so I can't exactly prove anything, but the theory is certainly sound.

[Billkwando]

I've been doing some research and talking to Andy down at Ultimarc (he's a great guy).

Now it's all theory, but his video amplifier ought to take care of everything that homemade circuit does AND costs only $16. It pulls in a VGA signal, boosts it, and outputs RGB and composite sync.

That sounds perfect. Awesome news.

[AlanS17]

There are very few actual details for the stand-alone video amp on his website, but here's the link.

http://www.ultimarc.com/JShopServer/product.php?xProd=12&xSec=2

It the same circuitry that's built into the J-Pac, though. If you want to see what the video does, go look at the video section of the J-Pac information page.

See? Told you I got tricks.  I'm currently working on a method to bypass the need for the circuit, altogether, but we won't know how that turns out until the weekend is up. I'm about to head out of town.

I will warn about one thing with my next idea, though. Even if my method works, it's won't amplify the signal to the screen or the gun. This wouldn't cause a problem for my PC monitor testing, but could pose a threat to those with arcade monitors. The picture will come out dark on the monitor, and that could make tracking difficult for the gun.

[XtraSmiley]

so has anyone who has tested this, used replica guncon2 compatible gun. The gcons are hard to find where I live

Check here:

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZbestsku

This guy sells them two at a time, new for only $17.

Thanks to everyone who didn't bid on my auction.  Someone raised the first auction to $20, so I waited and got the second one for $17.  Again, don't get into a bidding war with fellow BYOCAs, just wait until he relists the guns.  Anyway, now I have 2 Guncon 2s, so here's hoping this thing works out in the end. 

[Billkwando]

See? Told you I got tricks.

[vibez]

BREAKING NEWS!!!

 I've been doing some research and talking to Andy down at Ultimarc (he's a great guy).

Now it's all theory, but his video amplifier ought to take care of everything that homemade circuit does AND costs only $16. It pulls in a VGA signal, boosts it, and outputs RGB and composite sync.

I haven't tested it yet so I can't exactly prove anything, but the theory is certainly sound.

I have a j-pac. does that mean I can just splice into that somehow & therefore do not need the circuit?

[DaemonCollector]

Just hooked up my lightgun to my arcade monitor via the video amp, seems to work as well as everyone else is saying. Im getting huge dead spots and the cursor is an inch up and left of where i aim. Once smog adds in the manual calibration it should be able to work perfectly

[Billkwando]

Just hooked up my lightgun to my arcade monitor via the video amp, seems to work as well as everyone else is saying. Im getting huge dead spots and the cursor is an inch up and left of where i aim. Once smog adds in the manual calibration it should be able to work perfectly

Excellent! I think how far off the cursor is must depend on the size of your monitor. I was using a 36" TV and the cursor was like 4 inches off (give or take).

Glad to hear it's working for you.

[DaemonCollector]

Im using a 25" Arcade monitor, but the gun is only seeing a box in the top right thats about 10x10.

[vibez]

Just hooked up my lightgun to my arcade monitor via the video amp, seems to work as well as everyone else is saying. Im getting huge dead spots and the cursor is an inch up and left of where i aim. Once smog adds in the manual calibration it should be able to work perfectly

Can you provide details of how you hooked it up. Maybe I can translate your setup into my jpac to get the gun working.

EDIT::

do you think I can just splice into the vga cable from/to the jpac? I'm not sure If I would need to do this before or after the jpac

[MiKman]

Just hooked up my lightgun to my arcade monitor via the video amp, seems to work as well as everyone else is saying. Im getting huge dead spots and the cursor is an inch up and left of where i aim. Once smog adds in the manual calibration it should be able to work perfectly

Can you provide details of how you hooked it up. Maybe I can translate your setup into my jpac to get the gun working.

EDIT::

do you think I can just splice into the vga cable from/to the jpac? I'm not sure If I would need to do this before or after the jpac

I'm not super familiar with the jpac or the arcade vga card, but what sorts of outputs do these things have?  the arcade vga card at ultimacs website almost looks like it's got a VGA output and an s-video output. if thats the case I would almost hazard a guess you could get an svideo to composite and plug your gun into that, assuming it outputs signals on both ports at the same time...

[DaemonCollector]

To hook it up, I got a solder type female RCA connection, and soldered 2 wires to the signal point, and 1 to ground. One of each of the 2 signal wires went to the Vert Sync and Horz Sync on the AMP, if you never cut the trace to split the syncs you should just be able to hook it up to the normal sync. Than just connect the ground wire to the gnd on the board and it was good to go.

[vibez]

Just hooked up my lightgun to my arcade monitor via the video amp, seems to work as well as everyone else is saying. Im getting huge dead spots and the cursor is an inch up and left of where i aim. Once smog adds in the manual calibration it should be able to work perfectly

Can you provide details of how you hooked it up. Maybe I can translate your setup into my jpac to get the gun working.

EDIT::

do you think I can just splice into the vga cable from/to the jpac? I'm not sure If I would need to do this before or after the jpac

I'm not super familiar with the jpac or the arcade vga card, but what sorts of outputs do these things have?  the arcade vga card at ultimacs website almost looks like it's got a VGA output and an s-video output. if thats the case I would almost hazard a guess you could get an svideo to composite and plug your gun into that, assuming it outputs signals on both ports at the same time...

Mine has a rca adapter not a s-video

[vibez]

To hook it up, I got a solder type female RCA connection, and soldered 2 wires to the signal point, and 1 to ground. One of each of the 2 signal wires went to the Vert Sync and Horz Sync on the AMP, if you never cut the trace to split the syncs you should just be able to hook it up to the normal sync. Than just connect the ground wire to the gnd on the board and it was good to go.

Nice

I'm still not sure how to do that with a jpac as there are no connectors like on the video amp. Just for info, here is a quote from smog

Don't know how the JPAC works, but maybe that the act-lab gun was projected to work with specific signal levels ... the guncon2 does not work with separate sync and with non standard composite sync. Give it a try but I don't think it will work

Erm, does the jpac actually seperate the syncs? If so, then the jpac/video amp may not be the answer???

Don't know much about jpac, but I suppose it iutputs a xored sync out.
This means you could build just half of the conversione circuit and spill the signal out from jpac-monitor connection or build the circuit "as it is" and connect it directly to vga where the jpac conneccts too....
I am thinking of start selling those circuit ... just joking

[DaemonCollector]

to hook it up to the jpac your gonna need to tap the connection for video sync and the video ground off the jamma connector, that should work the same way my AMP connection works.

[Flinkly]

first off, someone already has tried the amp, so it seems to work, second, if you've got the arcade vga, we might be able to just tap into that extra output port and turn on dual monitors with the same thing being displayed on both.  that should work out awesome.  i don't have a guncon2 or the appropriate cabling or my monitor at home, so i can't try it even if i wanted to.

[vibez]

to hook it up to the jpac your gonna need to tap the connection for video sync and the video ground off the jamma connector, that should work the same way my AMP connection works.

that would be great. I wonder how we would get 2 guns working though?

[Flinkly]

well, since the gun is a mouse, smog just has to account for having two mouse inputs with his driver, and then mame has to allow for two mice to be used at once.

[vibez]

Thats a good point. But I ment how would we wire up 2 guns. How would we connect the 2 rca cables & usb ports.

[vibez]

To hook it up, I got a solder type female RCA connection, and soldered 2 wires to the signal point, and 1 to ground. One of each of the 2 signal wires went to the Vert Sync and Horz Sync on the AMP, if you never cut the trace to split the syncs you should just be able to hook it up to the normal sync. Than just connect the ground wire to the gnd on the board and it was good to go.

I've just cut up an old xbox rca cable. All there seems to be is a central core wire & a  silver braided outer core. How would I wire that up. Is the outer braid the ground & the inner the signal? Therefor rca cables only have 2 wires. Sorry but most of this is new to me

[DaemonCollector]

Yea, RCA only has 2, but on my AMP I had split the Horizontal and Vertical, so I needed to combine them again. For you your just gonna need the signal and ground.

[vibez]

Cheers. I might hook this up in minute