Pelican real arcade question

[nasachusetts]

Hello I have hacked a pelican real arcade universal pl#961 with new buttons.  It works great and I love it except that the start and select buttons on the top do not work.  Has anybody successfully hacked on of these with success on that issue?  Can anyone help me out?

[Timoe]

I have hacked multiple Pelican REAL Arcade sticks.  Check the WWW on my profile.

Can you elaborate?  Whats wrong with the select and start buttons?  They dont work in MAME or on your xbox or PS2?

[Crowquill]

Usually when multiple buttons don't work it's a ground problem. Did you daisy-chain a new ground wire, or did you use the existing wiring with seperate grounds? Also check the wiring and crimps, and make sure those plugs are plugged in tight in the circuit board. There also might be something wrong with the ground wiring itself due to damage moving it around. Swap a ground wire from another button and try it. It also might be bad switches, but with two at the same time I'd doubt it. Once again, swapping some wiring would isolate this problem.

I like my RealArcade, and ended up swapping out the joystick for a Super and swapped out the bottom four buttons. It was screwed down to my MAME cab for a while while I was waiting for a new panel.

I'd think yours is the same, but I have the Playstation2-specific version

Here's a few pics of mine for reference. Since I didn't swap out the buttons, this is the original setup.

[Hellfromabove]

I actually remember. I used to mod these like 3 years ago. I know on these sticks there are like 2 or 3 different grounds which made this thing a piece of pelican ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---. I went through 3 or 4 just realizing that, "oh there's a different ground". Of course that's my own fault for being careless. I seem to recall that the Start/ Select buttons had their own ground as well. Just follow the copper strand road. Thanx.

-See Ya!!!

[nasachusetts]

First of all thanks for the tips and sorry I have been away on vacation.  I think it is the ground wiring you guys are talking about.  This is the universal joystick which works for XBox PS2 and Gamecube I am using it for MAMe hooked into my computer with a XBox usb cable (for some reason it didn't work with a PSX converter).  Now I am kinda a newb at this if you haven't already guessed.  But what I did was basically removed the crappy Pelican buttons, joystick, and all the switches and replaced them with happs switches buttons and joystick.  I resoldered all of the same wires exactly the way pelican had them.  So I'm sure pelican has those 2 buttons ground wired differently which is what is probably the cause.  So do you think I just need to solder those 2 buttons to some other button?  If you guys want I can upload some pics for you but its pretty messy looking I'm sure you guys know about pelican's wiring job;)  Anyways thanks again for all this good info I almost gave up on this thing.

[Hellfromabove]

Take a close up shot of the PCB and I can trace the different grounds and hots for you. Thanx.

-See Ya!!!

[Crowquill]

One other (possibly easier) thing to check on the wiring:

If you have a multimeter or continuity tester, check to make sure the wiring has continuity from the switch contact to the point on the circuit board under the plug the wire goes to. I made the assumption you were using quick disconnects. Soldering makes switching the wiring tough.

I bought the PS2-only version since I figured the universal controllers usually have problems with PS adapters. I already had PS adapters for PC, XBOX, and GameCube. It was also $10 cheaper than the universal.

[nasachusetts]

Okay I uploaded some pics at these sites
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/324/imgp01662tp.jpg
http://img313.imageshack.us/img313/2795/imgp01582lu.jpg
http://img424.imageshack.us/img424/7651/imgp01678qc.jpg
http://img310.imageshack.us/img310/2650/imgp01685xp.jpg
http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/2706/imgp01695kk.jpg
http://img310.imageshack.us/img310/227/imgp01702xs.jpg
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/4654/imgp01729jp.jpg
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/6249/imgp01731qt.jpg

Sorry if they are blurry our camera sucks that why I had to take them outside.  I hope this helps.  I looked at it and there is the ground wire chained to the other buttons so I am confused again.

[struby]

I don't know if someone already said this, but i had 2 of each of the different kind of pelican joysticks...the smaller ones with no cord compartment and the larger ones with a cord compartment, both of one of the kinds, not sure which, start and back buttons did not work, and I am not sure why exactly.  Mine were the universal kind.  one kind my computer recognized as an "integral symbol"b, or squiggly line b, whatever, and the other it recognized as a 4 way wheel or something.  Hope that helps some.