Signal issue with A-Pac and pedal controls & a 4th unknown wire...

[immortalsoule]

I have a Crusin USA cab hooked up to a PC via the A-PAC (because the I-PAC2 isn't made for POT cotrols). I wired it in and the following happened:

Steering: Works FLAWLESSLY.
Buttons: Works decently (needs replacement parts).
Accelerator / Brake pedals: BIG PROBLEM.

The problem is this: With steering, you've got 3 wires. Left signal wire, right signal wire, and the ground (which can be wired together).

This one has 4 wires for the pedals...

The Accelerator/Brake unit is wired a BIT differently:

Yellow Brown: Accelerator
Yellow Red: Brake
Black (looped to both): Ground
Solid RED Wire (also looped through both controls): This part is the mystery/Complication

The problem it's causing is: It's all working as one signal (either up or down, depending on the wiring): Brake serves as %25 on calibration and the accelerator goes to %50 (with both pressed). I can't begin the calibration centered nor will it calibrate right.

I've gone though this and there are ways, with Model 2 emulator to "trick" it into working but MAME is proving difficult.

Any ideas? Which does the red wire goto and how best to calibrate it?


I attached a photo

[Malenko]

No expert, but I believe they are wiring the pedals as a combined axis. If I were in this situation, I would just pull the factory wiring off the pots, and run new wires from the pots to the APAC.

[immortalsoule]

No expert, but I believe they are wiring the pedals as a combined axis. If I were in this situation, I would just pull the factory wiring off the pots, and run new wires from the pots to the APAC.

Yeah but wire what to what? I tried removing the red wire out of the loop and it totally kills the signal with all the others wired up. I found an old post where Andy talks about cross-wiring from P1 to P2 side but i'm not 100% sure on his instructions.

This is what he wrote and it seems very close to my situation:

There are two ways to do this on the A-PAC. I have tested both. The first way is to use a double-pole changeover switch. I can draw a diagram of this if interested but this second way is better I think:

Wire the pots as normal to the P1 side of the board.
Then connect the following wire links:
1 Right to 2 Up
1 Down to 2 Down
1D to 2D

Then, the P1 side behaves as two independent gas/brake pedals and the P2 side behaves as combined pedals on a single axis. So no switch needed. The other advantage of this method is that you can calibrate each variant independently. This will almost certainly be necessary because pedal pots don't normally go right to the end of the travel.
Andy

[Malenko]

I'll have to defer to him then, Id not want to give you any bad advice. I had no issues wiring pots on my APAC , but none were wired like yours. The RevX guns had a common ground and the Faster Than Speed had completely separated pots.

[immortalsoule]

I'll have to defer to him then, Id not want to give you any bad advice. I had no issues wiring pots on my APAC , but none were wired like yours. The RevX guns had a common ground and the Faster Than Speed had completely separated pots.

I've been talking with him but it's 24 hour wait for every reply and Andy isn't too direct sometimes so it's taking a long time so i thought i would ask here. I still have yet to hear, from him, what the RED wire is even for.

[Malenko]

power, signal, and ground   

That's what the 3 wires are for on pretty much every potentiometer (for our applications at least). The ground is self explanatory, but the pot basically gives the difference between the signal and the power. If you have a negative reading (ie things go left when they should go right) you just flip the wires.  That makes me believe that the black wire is your common ground, the red is your common +voltage and the yellow is your signal.

If you remove all 3 wires from the gas pedal pot, and wire them to an input on the APAC does it work?  Black wire to P2 ground, yellow wire to P2 Right, red wire to P2 left.

[immortalsoule]

power, signal, and ground   

That's what the 3 wires are for on pretty much every potentiometer (for our applications at least). The ground is self explanatory, but the pot basically gives the difference between the signal and the power. If you have a negative reading (ie things go left when they should go right) you just flip the wires.  That makes me believe that the black wire is your common ground, the red is your common +voltage and the yellow is your signal.


Sorry about that, i was thinking i was quoting another forum. The red wire might be a common. I don't have a negative reading, it's just both pedals give the same signal. Break pressed = %25 down, break + gas = %50 on the calibration chart and it stays (depending on the wiring) at a constant "up" or "down" signal when left untouched. I just don't know "exactly" where the red goes in the equation, i've tried it on the "up" and "down" and all the same result.

I think that whole cross-wiring deal Andy mentioned might have some change in signal. It never centers or goes to a null reading if untouched...it's constant...but if i clip the RED, it just goes dead so i'm lost on how to get it to stop the signal as well...

[immortalsoule]

Either way, Andy will tell me something tomorrow morning....I just hope he's got what i was trying to say. I asked him to explain it to me in laymen terms....

[immortalsoule]

Either way, Andy will tell me something tomorrow morning....I just hope he's got what i was trying to say. I asked him to explain it to me in laymen terms....

Okay, i'm calling it, Andy's not telling me anything helpful. He just keeps generalizing about what "could" be going on...

I need some real help....

[Malenko]

have you wired the pot directly to the apac with new wires?

[immortalsoule]

have you wired the pot directly to the apac with new wires?

You mean physically un-soldered them and replaced? No, i haven't. I'm actually doing all of this with short down-times at my business so i will try that to see if anything radical happens.

[immortalsoule]

I finally decided to try a version of Andy's cross-wiring technique.

i wired the following:

Gas to P2 UP
RED Constant to P2 DOWN
Brake to P1 DOWN
Ground ro GND of course

I'm getting some better results but now that i've had to involve the P2 side in calibration, it's sending a wilf P2 Left signal when i assign buttons on MAME. Basically, i think i'll have to wire a 2nd steering wheel to P2 left/right and leave it centered to avoid any headache while calibrating MAME controls.

This is something of a jury-rig and i've read others have had to try this kind of solution, the cross-wiring.

Still, i've got an arcade guy so i may consider buying other pedal controls to avoid this issue because i shouldn't have to go this way, the A-PAC should have been wired for the use of the extra "constant" wire and this all should have been worked out years ago in the design.

[BadMouth]

Why not just disconnect everything and wire them like in the A-PAC picture?  (like Malenko suggested)


Looks like it's ok for them to share a ground, but not +
Also note that there are no ground shared between sides.


There is another way to wire them so both pedals show up on one axis with each of them being responsible for half the axis, but Model 2 emulator doesn't work with a combined axis.

[immortalsoule]

Why not just disconnect everything and wire them like in the A-PAC picture?  (like Malenko suggested)


Looks like it's ok for them to share a ground, but not +
Also note that there are no ground shared between sides.


There is another way to wire them so both pedals show up on one axis with each of them being responsible for half the axis, but Model 2 emulator doesn't work with a combined axis.

Because it's a 4 wire , with a constant, and not the standard 1 signal per pot with ground. Actually my Model 2 emu  works perfectly with the method i described but MAME is a whole different story. That design isn't anything like mine.

[AndyWarne]

Either way, Andy will tell me something tomorrow morning....I just hope he's got what i was trying to say. I asked him to explain it to me in laymen terms....

Okay, i'm calling it, Andy's not telling me anything helpful. He just keeps generalizing about what "could" be going on...

I need some real help....

I would dispute this. I have replied quite rapidly to all your emails and have advised exactly the same as several of the replies on here, to wire the pots exactly as per the picture/diagram on our A-PAC page.

I am not really clear on why you dont want to wire the pots as our product requires.

Yes it is possible to wire in such a way as to provide a single axis from the 2 pots, but as I have also explained in my email replies, whether or not this is an acceptable solution depends on the software requirements of the game you are using. For Mame the best way is exactly as per our instructions, each pot to its own axis and let Mame configure the axes.

Wiring as one axis raises all kinds of issues with calibration as well, as most pedals dont travel the entire rotation of the pot. Again, with separate axes this can be catered-for in Mame.

[Malenko]

Because it's a 4 wire , with a constant, and not the standard 1 signal per pot with ground. Actually my Model 2 emu  works perfectly with the method i described but MAME is a whole different story. That design isn't anything like mine.

I dont see 4 wires (earth ground to pedals has nothing to do with the pot). if you mean 2 common wires and 2 signal wires as four, then you have to understand that just because the game PCB was wired that way doesnt mean the APAC has to be wired that way.

Your pedals are wired as a single axis, which works in DEMUL well enough. If you were to wire them the way everyone is telling you to, they would work in both DEMUL and MAME. You dont want to listen to us, so Im not sure why you even bothered to post. Andy is the defacto expert on his products, and he's helped me enough that I know the right way to wire pots to an APAC. The advice he gave to you is the advice he gave to me AND IT WORKS.

[immortalsoule]

Because it's a 4 wire , with a constant, and not the standard 1 signal per pot with ground. Actually my Model 2 emu  works perfectly with the method i described but MAME is a whole different story. That design isn't anything like mine.

I dont see 4 wires (earth ground to pedals has nothing to do with the pot). if you mean 2 common wires and 2 signal wires as four, then you have to understand that just because the game PCB was wired that way doesnt mean the APAC has to be wired that way.

Your pedals are wired as a single axis, which works in DEMUL well enough. If you were to wire them the way everyone is telling you to, they would work in both DEMUL and MAME. You dont want to listen to us, so Im not sure why you even bothered to post. Andy is the defacto expert on his products, and he's helped me enough that I know the right way to wire pots to an APAC. The advice he gave to you is the advice he gave to me AND IT WORKS.

I'm not here to quibble the math of the wires. I'm not here to get into some debate with you about defending Andy's honor. The suggestions, that have been made, i tried even before i came to the forum and asked.

The deal is, every Answer i get from Andy, he assumes i know more about wiring design that i actually do and i asked him to describe the layout in "laymen", this color wire to this screw.

What has been told to YOU works in YOUR case....in mine it doesn't. I was looking for a fresh perspective in this and you're getting agitated because i might have a situation that someone, here, may not have dealt with and you're taking the fact of what i said about Andy, which is in no way false, personally.

I think it's better i just walk away...

[Malenko]

And i'm sorry you can't see the 4th wire in my photo, the big red one, but it, the ground, and the 2 standard signals make 4...just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there. When you click on the attachment...it's pretty hard not to see it.

Doesnt look like 4 wires to me. The pot on the gas pedal has the red wire going to it, then leaving that pot and feeding the pot on the brake pedal. Its 2 pots on a single axes. The fact that both pots dont have 4 wires going to it proves my point.  You say you tried every standard form of wiring, does that include unhooking the factory wiring and running it to the JPAC per the instructions from Andy/Ultimarc's site?

For some reason it feels like you are scared to wire it up without using the factory wiring. If that's the case, good luck, because it'll never work the way you want it to.

[BadMouth]

From the pic OP posted, it doesn't look to me like they share an axis.  It looks like they share power and ground which isn't how the A-pac is supposed to be wired.

4 wires = power (to both), ground (to both), wiper from gas pedal, wiper from brake pedal
....not that it's relevant.

immortalsoule, just cut the wires and wire it like in the a-pac picture.

First you were trying to wire these controls to an I-Pac which only posts keyboard keys.
Now you have the correct interface, but refuse to wire it correctly. 

[Malenko]

From the pic OP posted, it doesn't look to me like they share an axis.

I thought sharing the power and ground is what made it on the same axes, but like I said, Im no expert. I have wired more than 1 game's pots to an APAC without any issue though!

[immortalsoule]

Let's just close this. A local arcade guy showed up and is going to work on it.

[Malenko]

Let's just close this. A local arcade guy showed up and is going to work on it.

your diagram is exactly what I said already. Then badmouth confirmed it. 

Hope the local guy doesnt charge you a brazillion dollars, if you get it wired up using factory wiring and not the way the three of us suggested, Im sure we'd all like to see how you did it.

[immortalsoule]

Let's just close this. A local arcade guy showed up and is going to work on it.

your diagram is exactly what I said already. Then badmouth confirmed it. 

Hope the local guy doesnt charge you a brazillion dollars, if you get it wired up using factory wiring and not the way the three of us suggested, Im sure we'd all like to see how you did it.

Well, i just got off the email with Andy, stripped all the wires down and wired it exactly like he said.....it killed the signal as in "none", dead, nothing.

Dude, i hate to say it but you all talk about Andy like he's some sort or dude who's seen everything and i don't buy into that particular point of view. I'm sure Andy's really experience and yes, he's made his own component, but do i believe he's seen and done it all when it comes to arcade control....and doesn't matter, his way didn't work. That's really all the proof i need to answer that question. Could Andy eventually figure it out? Sure. But for right now, with the hardware i've got, Andy's way doesn't work....and the dude i've got over isn't charging me anything, it's a friend deal.

For my problem, his diagram and his way do not work, period. In point of fact it kills the whole thing. And when i wired it up the way i told you, i at least got most of it working. So stop beating the "Andy is right" drum because it's just pointless.

I'm gonna just take notify off and stop replying because you've made it pretty clear, a couple of replies ago, that you're not interested in fixing the problem, you're interested in being "right" through a method you didn't even invent.

Let it go, man, you look like a pissed off cheerleader for "team Andy"...

[Malenko]

I'm gonna just take notify off and stop replying because you've made it pretty clear, a couple of replies ago, that you're not interested in fixing the problem, you're interested in being "right" through a method you didn't even invent.

Let it go, man, you look like a pissed off cheerleader for "team Andy"...

Its a shame you took it that way. I'm not interested in being right, I'm interesting in helping you get it to work. When you were trying to hook this thing up to an IPAC I tried to be helpful and steer you towards the right piece of hardware for your goals not because I wanted to be right but again because I was trying to help you.

"if you get it wired up using factory wiring and not the way the three of us suggested, Im sure we'd all like to see how you did it." Doesn't sound at all like I don't want you to be able to get it to work but that if you get it to work by other means I'd like to know about it, in case anyone else has the same issue.

You arent giving me anything to work with, "wired it up like Andy said" is insufficient data. Did you try to wire up both pots, did you just try the one? how did you test in? in windows control panel or in MAME? But i digress.  If you get it fixed with your arcade guy just share the fix if you want to try and help the community.  All I ever said was that Andy is an expert on his own hardware, and he supports his hardware, odd of you to take offense at that.

Best of luck with it. 

[immortalsoule]

I'm gonna just take notify off and stop replying because you've made it pretty clear, a couple of replies ago, that you're not interested in fixing the problem, you're interested in being "right" through a method you didn't even invent.

Let it go, man, you look like a pissed off cheerleader for "team Andy"...

Its a shame you took it that way. I'm not interested in being right, I'm interesting in helping you get it to work. When you were trying to hook this thing up to an IPAC I tried to be helpful and steer you towards the right piece of hardware for your goals not because I wanted to be right but again because I was trying to help you.

"if you get it wired up using factory wiring and not the way the three of us suggested, Im sure we'd all like to see how you did it." Doesn't sound at all like I don't want you to be able to get it to work but that if you get it to work by other means I'd like to know about it, in case anyone else has the same issue.

You arent giving me anything to work with, "wired it up like Andy said" is insufficient data. Did you try to wire up both pots, did you just try the one? how did you test in? in windows control panel or in MAME? But i digress.  If you get it fixed with your arcade guy just share the fix if you want to try and help the community.  All I ever said was that Andy is an expert on his own hardware, and he supports his hardware, odd of you to take offense at that.

Best of luck with it. 

Nice try, but a load of BS. This was you:

"You dont want to listen to us, so Im not sure why you even bothered to post. Andy is the defacto expert on his products, and he's helped me enough that I know the right way to wire pots to an APAC. The advice he gave to you is the advice he gave to me AND IT WORKS."

Words of a man who thinks he, and Andy, are right. Basically, this is you telling me i should just shut up and listen because "you" (and the people here commenting) & Andy were right.

But what you don't know, which is obviously quite a bit, is even "Andy", the "defacto expert"  has emailed me and admitted that my situation was more complex that he originally thought and, "give a few hours", he could find a way around the problem.

I gave you a photo, i gave you a diagram, i explained how i wanted it to work. I explained (and SHOWED you) how it came wired.  If there was any more info, there would be a seminar being held.  I laid the whole thing out for you and even your "defacto expert" (which you were implying already had the answer) DID NOT WORK.

It's more complex of a harness than you figured. There's probably a piece of hardware in there causing it to work differently. Even the guy who made the APAC said so.

Say it with me "I don't know".   

Learn this phrase. Believe me when i tell you that it will set you free if you just look beyond your ego and your assumption that Andy has seen it all before. You "assumed" WAY too much about this situation and well, you know what they say about assuming

The bottom line here, and even the defacto expert agrees is that the situation is not what everyone here assumed it was and the "generic" way, that YOU are preaching about......does....not....work.

I'm done with this situation and done with you but to be honest, i just came back once more to set you straight and maybe educate you a little about assuming things.

Have a nice day

[Malenko]

My posts are up there and unedited, I know what I said. You gave no specifics that would help me figure out how to further assist (ie exactly what you wired, how you wired it, if you cycled the wires, if you tested in an emulator or windows control panel, if you only had wires going to and from 1 pot at a time, etc)

I already said I didnt know how to make it work. If me saying it again makes you happy, then so be it, I still dont know how to make it work with what you have:

No expert, but I believe they are wiring the pedals as a combined axis.

I thought sharing the power and ground is what made it on the same axes, but like I said, Im no expert.

You have this perception that I'm "getting agitated" (your words) and I'm not. I cant shake that perception and I don't care enough to try. Its obvious you are mad at me for trying to help, so I'll be sure to not ever do that again for you in the future, but like I said , good luck.

[AndyWarne]

Can we call a halt to this thread.

I have a long email trail with the OP, and the latest is that he does not want to wire the pots up as separate axes despite them originally being wired as such and the A-PAC, and MAME expecting separate axes.

I have sent him a diagram of how to wire them in series so as to provide one axis. This will be fraught with calibration and other issues but thats the way he wants to do it, for reasons which are not clear.

So I will deal with the rest of this by email with him.