wiring problem / question (Ultrastik 360 wiring harness related)

[isucamper]

Ok, so I'm having a problem with one of my new U360s.  I'm using the wiring harness sold by Ultimarc, and under cetain circumstances I seem to lose connection to my whole block of buttons connected to the stick. 

It is very peculiar because it is only during a certain sequence of movements.  In Street Fighter 2 or 3, if I jump (push up or up/diagonal) and then immedately press down (while I'm still in the air) and start rapidly pressing a button, there is a small chance that I loose all my buttons.  If I release the joystick or stop pressing the button for a few seconds, then the buttons come back.

I quadrupled checked all my wiring, restripped and recrimped the ground cable on the wiring harness, and I've had no luck. 

I don't know anything about wiring, and I was wondering if I could connect the "dead end" ground chain on the joystick buttons back to my IPAC in case the ground cable on the wiring harness is faulty and losing connection when I rock the joystick up and then down.  Is it safe to ground buttons from one source into another source?

My other option is to just connect the buttons to the IPAC, but I got the wiring harness to simplify my wiring task.

I hope my question makes sense, I'm a total novice at this stuff. 

EDIT:  I just confirmed that this is happening on both my sticks, and I don't need to do any complicated in game manuvers to cause it to happen.  I can see it happening if I go into the control panel, bring up the test screen for the joystick and do a hard down with a button.   Doing this repeatedly, eventually the button will stick (not physically, but I can see that it will either be constantly ON even though I'm not pressing it, or it will be off and pressing does not turn it on).

I can't believe that both my sticks are doing this and no one else has ever seen it happen. 

EDIT 2:  More info:  My OS is Vista32.  At first, I was going through a USB HUB, then I switched to a direct connection to the computer and the problem did not go away. 

[hms666]

You should post information about the OS you are using and is sticks hooked directly to usb or is there usb hub in the middle and so on.

[Ginsu Victim]

How many watts is your power supply, and how many other USB devices do you have hooked up to your PC?

Also, are your ports USB 1.0 or 2.0?

[isucamper]

Good Gravey!!!!  You guys aren't going to believe this, but I figured out what the problem was.  If this is common knowledge and I'm just stupid, feel free to let me know. 

As I said, I first noticed this issue when playing Street Fighter 2.  If I had been a little bit more attentive, I would have also noticed that the problem only cropped up after loading the "8-Way Easy Diagonals" map onto the sticks.  That map looks like this by default:



You see those splats?  Ultimarc's website defines those spots as:

"Sticky: This tells the PC that no change should be detected in the location of the joystick. This type of square is usually defined in between directions on a 4-way map to give some "hysterisis" or "play" between the directions."

Apparently, the "no change" status applies to the buttons wired to the stick as well!!!  I'm using a circular restrictor, and if I push the controller down, and I happen to hold it over one of the splat matrix boxes, then it won't register any button presses either!

I guess the solution is to either not use the "easy diagonals" 8 way map (even though it makes throwing dragon punches feel great) or fill in the splats.  Anybody else want to duplicate these findings so I know I'm not nuts?

[Ginsu Victim]

Come to think of it, I think I noticed having issues (not the same ones) when I was using the stickies. Got rid of them and haven't had any issues.

Glad you solved your own problem.

[Scottk]

Apparently, the "no change" status applies to the buttons wired to the stick as well!!!  I'm using a circular restrictor, and if I push the controller down, and I happen to hold it over one of the splat matrix boxes, then it won't register any button presses either!

Boy, that sure seems like a bug to me...
I would think that the stick and the buttons should be completely separate...

You should run this by Andy @ Ultimarc and see if this really should be the way it should act...