4player adapter help

[gt7766c]

Ok. Thank you for trying all that out. I ordered some pico fuses and will repair the board this weekend, reseat all connections making sure correct, and will try my current sd card running 3.84. If that doesn’t work I’ll do a clean install with 3.9 (there’s a good chance I messed up something somewhere causing me the issue) and report back. Appreciate the troubleshooting dee2er!

Kris

[gt7766c]

Still not working unfortunately...

I did a clean install with 3.9 and tried to replicate the steps you did. I got the same freezing problem at the game selection screen, so rebooted and the 3 and 4 player still didn't work. I went into Midnight Commander and looked at config.txt and the 4-player line was still #d out so I removed that and rebooted, still didn't work. I hit F4 and told it to go into 4-player mode and it rebooted cleanly and still didn't work...

I have all the dip switches on both boards off per the instruction photos. All connections are good. I think it's a software problem somehow. The Test and Service buttons on the adapter board aren't working either so maybe that's a clue?

1). Are there particular lines of code I need to look at that turn it on or is there a way to test that?
2). Since I have a Midway cab I'm connected to the Midway inputs but should I try moving my connectors to the Konami side and seeing what happens?

Any help appreciated as I'm completely stuck... Thank you.

Kris

[dee2eR]

The line in config.txt isn't needed anymore (I noticed it when I ran through it too - it's just a left over from older builds and can be ignored).

There's nothing you need to do outside of select 4 player mode in the service menu, not sure why it's not working. How are you testing it? If you're only using one version of MAME it may be worth trying another.

Also it may be worth testing the controls from the command line just in case it's an emulator config issue. (f4 out of all menus to get to the command line) Try the command

jstest /dev/input/js0

for player 1. For the other players change js0 to js1 (for player 2) js2 (for player 3) and js3 (p4).

If js3 exists we know the 4 player software change worked, which means the issue must be something else... If js3 doesn't exist we know the 4 player software change didn't work.

It may be worth having the RaspberryJAMMA dipswitches set with 1&2 ON, 3&4 OFF - if you have any GNDs wired to 27 or e on the JAMMA edge you will need the dipswitches set up like that. If there's nothing at 27 or e the dipswitches won't make any difference.

If you wiring is for NBA JAM standard you definitely want to be using the 'm' labeled headers. Midway and Konami are wired completely differently even though the connectors are about the same.

[gt7766c]

I did as you suggested. Here is player 4.

4E9D55C9-DE2B-4376-BA5E-4D873F3ED6B5.jpeg (134.49 KiB) Viewed 4767 times

It showed the same as players 1 and 2 but none of the inputs registered on 3&4. So I think the software worked.

However, I think there is a voltage problem coming off the adapter into the 3 and 4 inputs. What should the voltage be?

When I play the nba jam all 4 players read about 4.5 volts at the switches but when I have the ARpiCADE and 4player adapter running players 1&2 have about 4.5 but players 3&4 are only getting low 1volts. I’m sure that’s the problem.

What should it be getting at 3&4 player inputs?

Thanks,
Kris

[dee2eR]

Yeah the software is definitely configured for 4 player.

You're showing multiple inputs stuck ON though. Buttons 1 (0), 2 (1), 3 (2) & Start (7) are ON in your image. In the case of buttons 2 and 3 you can see they were off to start with but then get stuck in the on state, presumably from you testing them.

For RaspberryJAMMA all the buttons should measure around 3.3v, no matter which player. If you only have 1v at players 3 and 4 that could be the issue... you shouldn't have 4.5v at player 1 and 2 - that doesn't really make sense unless I'm missing something there.

Running jstest /dev/input/js3 if you press the 'test' button on the 4 player adaptor board does 8: come on and off again?

At this point I'm thinking either your 4 player board has an issue OR maybe it's a Pi firmware issue similar to an email I recieved this morning - (I hadn't encountered it before but a user had trouble with player 1 inputs that turned out to be related to the Pi firmware - they ran rpi-update and it fixed their issue. - this maybe worth trying) Before today I was under the impression that Pi4 was the first to have on board firmware, I thought the Pi3 models used whatever was on the SD card - genuinely not sure now...

Other than the Pi firmware I can only think it would be a hardware issue with the four player board. Sorry I'm not more certain - I haven't encountered this behavior before.

[gt7766c]

Thank you. I believe my setup is complicating matters that I didn’t realize until we ran those tests.

I’m running a 2board jamma switcher between the ARpiCADE and original NBA Jam boards. Works fine for player 1&2 inputs that go through the jamma edge connectors.

Part of my issue is I’m “Y” splitting player 3&4 buttons to go to the NBA Jam Boards and the ARpiCADE adapter. That’s messing with my signals. Didn’t realize this until I measured the voltages. If I disconnect a 3 or 4 player harness from one of the boards my voltages imcrease, therefore, I’m getting a voltage drop or short somewhere as indicated also by the test.

I have a lot more trouble shooting to do but have a bunch of ideas to explore for my particular setup. I’m going to bypass the jamma switcher first and endure the ARpiCADE adapter is working properly. Then, if so, I know I have to figure out a better solution for the signals between the boards.

Per your note, could be a firmware issue too but I’ll need to trouble shoot all my connections and hardware first. Can’t anymore this weekend so hopefully by next weekend I can report back with an update.

This new information may have been helpful at the onset, sorry, but I didn’t think there was an issue with the connections because the NBA Jam boards run perfectly fine with this configuration.

Thank you again for all the support and take care.

Kris

[gt7766c]

Diodes. The answer will be diodes. I’m sure the adapter is fine and it’s my multiple harnesses causing the issue. See here for future reference for anyone trying to run two boards through a switcher with one being the ARpiCADE:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.p ... 600.0.html

https://forums.arcade-museum.com/archiv ... 02083.html

I have not had time to install diodes on my harnesses yet, but once I do, I’ll report back with the results.

Kris

[gt7766c]

IT WORKS!!!!

Put in all the diodes and the adapter works.

Thank you again Dee2er for this amazing product and support.

Kris