Strange issues with Kick Harness

Installing ARpiCADE for the first time? Having issues? Check here first for solutions and tips on installing.

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barryabrams
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Strange issues with Kick Harness

Post by barryabrams » Mon Jan 28, 2019 2:45 pm

I've been setting up my arpicade in a converted Smash TV Cabinet. I'm using 3.83 (or 3.82 can't exactly remember). My new control panel is a standard 2 player street fighter set up with a joystick and 6 buttons + 1 start buttons per player.

I'm having some issues with the Kick Harness that was included with my High Score Saves order.

Before installing the Kick Harness, I was able to get 4 buttons working per player. The harness for Smash TV includes 2 joysticks per player with no buttons other than a start button, so maybe not exactly standard. Arpicade recognizes them as button 0, 1, 2, & 5, skipping 3 and 4.

I installed the Kick Harness through trial and error, finding buttons 3 & 4 for player 1. I'm using the arpicade control remap menu to figure out what button is what. I was able to find button 3 for player 2 but not button 4. On the street fighter layout, this button is medium punch. 3 of the wires on the kick harness do not get recognized. I think the white wire is the one I'm trying to get working.

Also, for whatever reason all the buttons for player 1 get recognized as a combination with a non-existent joy2. "joy0 button0 + joy2 button3", "joy0 button1 + joy2 button 4". It doesn't make much of a difference while I'm playing stuff.

I've tried setting the dip switches to 1100 and 0011, but it doesn't change anything.

Takosuke
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Re: Strange issues with Kick Harness

Post by Takosuke » Mon Jan 28, 2019 4:16 pm

Looking at my thread, one advice I can give is to try to remove your keyboard if you have one plugged in. It was messing with how my buttons were mapped.

Still haven't found a solution for my buttons P1 6 and P2 4 not being registered, but maybe that can help your troubleshooting! good luck.

dee2eR
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Re: Strange issues with Kick Harness

Post by dee2eR » Tue Jan 29, 2019 2:21 am

I'd recommend checking the inputs using the test mode of Street Fighter 2 Turbo (or similar) rather than the Linux command line button numbers. As you have noticed the buttons are not numbered in a logical order when viewed from the Linux command line, not sure which menu you're describing as the ARpiCADE control menu (maybe Attract-Modes menus?).

The button numbering (from the Linux kernel perspective) will be changing at the next release to a more sensible numbering of each button. Functionally in MAME (or whatever other emulator) the button should be correct, at least to the JAMMA standard. (As an example of confusing button numbers the physical b3 is not on the kick harness at all). Unfortunately the kernel module that make the joysticks work uses a different naming convention again so until recently I hadn't worried about the actual numbers as seen by the kernel (I've now overhauled the 2p and 4p versions of the module so the numbering will be more sensible for the next release, on either 2 player or 4 player setups).

The non-existant 'joy2' and it's phantom combos with 'joy0' can be ignored. It's a side effect of the way the hotkeys system works. 'Joy0' is JAMMA player 1, 'joy1' is player 2 on JAMMA. 'Joy2' is virtual, it's produced by xboxdrv which is used by the hotkeys system. If you use the command 'hotkeys stop' on the command line 'joy2' will cease to exist (*and also the hotkeys will no longer work as you have stopped them).

The dipswitches only affect pins 27 and e on the JAMMA edge, if your harness has nothing connected here the dipswitches cannot do anything as they're not connected to anything. Depending on setup these pins are GND (normal JAMMA), not connected at all (often how new JAMMA looms come - this is nothing to worry about) or these pins are used as B6 for each player (6 buttons on JAMMA).

Hope that helps and doesn't make things more confusing.

barryabrams
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Re: Strange issues with Kick Harness

Post by barryabrams » Tue Jan 29, 2019 3:30 am

I did some further troubleshooting on the white wire with a multimeter and found that it wasn’t making a good connection in the connector attached to ARpiCADE circuit board. I reseated it a bit and it’s working now. I’m getting 6 buttons for player 1 and 2 now.

In Mame games, for what ever reason, I can’t remap any of player 2’s buttons, including the joystick and start button like I can with player 1. When I’m the tab remap menu it just will timeout while I’m clicking the player 2 buttons. However, if I’m in something like the mortal kombat switch test menu, it does pick up various buttons being pressed. They’re just not the right ones.

In FB alpha, none of the remaps seems to make a difference. I can set everything to none, save it, confirm it’s saved, and can still play the games without issue.

dee2eR
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Re: Strange issues with Kick Harness

Post by dee2eR » Tue Jan 29, 2019 4:11 am

It's not an answer to your question particularly but have you wired the cab up wierdly? I ask because the inputs should be standerd JAMMA wiring (and kick harness) by default. There shouldn't be any need to remap all controls (unless you desire to for some reason).

In MAME (actually varies between the individual versions of MAME a little bit too) player 2 inputs should be able to be set just like player 1. Which MAME version are you trying? I'll have to have a look, sounds odd.

FBA uses Retroarchs input system, it should be modifiable - but again you shouldn't need to do so. How are you changing the inputs and saving etc.? This definitely sounds weird too. FBA inputs would normally be changed from inside Retroarches menus, in the quick menu section not in the other input section. The way Retroarch does inputs is really confusing if you're not using a SNES style pad.... (and not much less confusing if you are, sometimes).

Had you already changed some settings while you were troubleshooting the inputs? It may be sensible to start again from the vanilla 3.83 release if you have already made changes you need to now undo.

barryabrams
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Re: Strange issues with Kick Harness

Post by barryabrams » Tue Jan 29, 2019 4:26 am

I wired the cabinet to be what FBA expects for a street fighter layout. Three punch buttons on top, three kick buttons on bottom. In Mame, for something like Mortal Kombat, I’d like to rearrange things so that it’s closer to standard. Block for the middle two buttons and punch and kick on the outside. So, without remaping in Mame, the buttons are all over the place.

dee2eR
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Re: Strange issues with Kick Harness

Post by dee2eR » Tue Jan 29, 2019 7:21 am

I'd strongly recommend to wire the cab to JAMMA standard or to 6 buttons on JAMMA. It will save you having to custom your controls each time you update as well as just make more sense. If you have standard wiring most things will be right without having to setup all the emulators. Plus if you get some other JAMMA boards they will work too.

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