PLEASE HELP. Arcade panel (JAMMA, PSX, DC)

[anubis333]

I'll describe this as best as possible.  I am building a cabinet for my brother for xmas.  I have been working on it for a while.  The control panel of the cabinet detatches, allowing him to take it to a friends house and use it with consoles.

When unplugged from jamma, the control panel will be able to plug into PSX and DC.  There are two PSX and DC PCBs inside wired to the buttons. Each button wire branches off to a PCB.  below "O" is a button.  All the player 1 grounds are grounded on a metal plate.  That's player 1 psx, dc, and jamma.

      /------- PSX
O --------------- JAMMA
      \------- DC

I wired up a psx pad, and it worked fine.  I then branched the joystick and two buttons and it continued to work, i finished all of P1 and it doesnt work at all.

Here is an image:

http://ChrisEvans3D.com/temp/control_panel_inside.jpg

One odd thing is that all controls work perfectly if both consoles are on.  I accidentally turned the DC on while the PSX was on and all buttons worked fine, i switched vid to the dc and all its buttons worked fine too, if i turn one console off, the controls die.  It was never made to have two hooked up at the same time, i think that might wreck a pad anyway.

I have been trouble shooting this for hours.  My brother comes home in under 48 hours, I would like to have this done, I cant really work on it while he is here.  I have an inkeling that maybe the power is dissapating.

Can anyone please help me?  This should work, I don't know whats wrong.  I dont have the time to order a huge rotary switch online that can change all buttons over from psx to dc etc..  whats the best option and whats the problem?

CE

(Heres a pic of the oputside as well http://ChrisEvans3D.com/temp/control_panel_outside.jpg )

[anubis333]

I drew up a better diagram:

[NFG]

We've covered something similar to this recently.  It has to do with interference between the logic, something I believe was resolved by disconnecting the unused Ground?  Give that a shot, you may need only add a switch.

[anubis333]

I'll try it, but I don't know what an unused ground would screw up, can the pcb's have crosstalk problems if only one has power?  Is there anyone who has done this?  Do you have a link to the post?

I just wired up the P2 side to psx, it works fine.  Apparently the DC P1 side works perfectly wired how it is.  It's only the psx pcb that's problematic, and it works fine when the dc is on.

I tried putting the P1 psx controller on the panel ground by itself, and it didnt work; it might be hosed.

I need to figure this out fast.

7:30 am i need sopme sleep, lucky i dont work much this week.

oh and can other unused grounds screw things up, as you can see i have yet to add two buttons, but i have grounds for them.

[hemphacker]

These are similar to what you're doing PS2 & DC, DC & MAME, more DC & MAME. I hope these can help you some.

[anubis333]

I did it with two 50 packs of diodes from radio shack, i looked and looked, couldnt find a diode tutorial.  Lots of people using printer switches and rotary switches.

I dont understand, a printer db25 cant even carry two psx controllers. (10 buttons, +D pad x 2)

Anyhow, I guess I'll put up a tutorial on it soon, unless you can show me a good one.

CE

[Scared0o0Rabbit]

What about some kind of hard drive switcher.  Don't know if they really make those, but something that would switch like an ata66 cable?  That would give you a lot more pins to work with.

[anubis333]

They're very expensive, and onvolve switching.  And much more difficult soldering.  My way, there is no switching at all.  Plug it into a console and it works.