Ipac, Estik, and continuous movement to left

[ddoyle1996]

I've got an Ipac4 wired to an E-stik and to the computer through USB. When I play games, the Estik works fine for a few seconds. Then, whenever I move left, my player on the screen continuously moves left even after the Estik returns to center. If I try to move right, my player stops moving but won't move right. When the Estik returns to center, my player starts moving left again. Then, if I move left, my player stops moving left and the Estik acts normally again for a few seconds.

This happens for player 1's Estik. For player 2, the Estik works fine. I've swapped the player 1 Estik for the player 2's Estik, and the player 1's Estik acts like this even after I swapped them.

My only thought is that somehow the Ipac is outputting a continuous stream of left arrows (the character associated with the left direction for player 1). Has anyone had this problem? The fact that this happened even after I swapped the Estiks makes me think it's not a problem with the Estiks.

Any help would be appreciated.

[rhoelsch]

forgive me, but is your joy shaft properly aligned with your cp hole?  (THAT didn't sound good...)

No crossed wires or switch issues, I'm assuming

[paigeoliver]

You have a bit of a ghost signal jumping around in your wiring somewhere.

First make sure there are no loose wires anywhere. Then redo the connection to left on your joystick. THat will probably take care of it.

[ddoyle1996]

I've checked it out some more.  Apparently, for at least one game, the problem happens when I am pressing a microswitch button repeatedly.  If I play without pressing a button (Estik only), there is no problem.  This is just for one game, though.  There is at least one other game where I can press a button once or twice and it starts.  Also, for still other games, the problem continues even after I stop pressing the button.  

The Estik fits into a standard 1 1/8" hole, so there is no need to align the joystick.  Thanks to Andy for that little piece of hardware.  

[MinerAl]

If it happens regardless of which stick you put in that position, it probably isn't the switches on the joysticks.  That narrows it down to the wiring or the IPAC.  

The most likely thing is that your wire for Joy1-Left is grounding out somewhere inside your CP.  It might have frayed insulation somewhere, or it could be that one strand of the stranded wire (if that's what you used) is not all the way inside the quick-disconnect or terminal block and is causing the grounding.  

Either way I'd completely rewire your Joy1-Left with a different wire.  See if that solves it.  If you rule out the wiring then you can worry about the IPAC.

That's what I'd do anyway.

Good luck.

[Frostillicus]

I had the same trouble with one of my joysticks - it was constantly pushing south in most games.  The problem was compounded because I have 3 different joysticks going into player 1, so I was really confused.  Turns out there was so much wiring gathered near the base of one of the sticks the pressure it was putting on the switch when the CP was closed was enough to close a contact.  I kept it as neat as possible, but still that was a problem.  

So it could be a mechanical problem  

[Smittydc]

I'd double-check the wiring very closely.  Every time I've put a CP together I somehow manage to either set up a connector as normally closed, or reverse the ground and positive -- it led to some odd behavior similar to what you are describing, especially when I managed to do it to the "shift" ipac button.

[gtjoe]

open up notepad or the ipac tool in windows and start pushing buttons or moving joysticks on your control panel.

for each button press you should only get only one character.

[Cue-Ball]

Do you have an analog stick of any kind plugged into your machine?  I had a problem similar to this when i was first experimenting with analog sticks for games like Afterburner.

[ErikRuud]

I had problems with continous up and left key presses after I upgraded to ver 0.66.

It even happened with the Ipac Disconnected.

I uninstalled a whole bunch of stuff that did not need to be on the the PC anymore and the problem went away.

I'm not sure which software was the culprit, but the two prime suspect are McAfee Anti-Virus or the MS Sidewinder driver.  One of these days I will re-install the Sidewinder and see if the problem comes back.