FGW Converter Thread - Roll your own converters

Tech Talk
41

Okay so I’ll start from the stick end and work to the JAMMA harness. Starting with the PS2/PSX adapter I first found the pinout which the one I found said (I put the line colors from my continuity tests next to it):

1 - DAT - Brown
2 - CMD - Orange
3 - N/C - Grey
4 - GND - Black
5 - VCC - Red
6 - ATT - Yellow
7 - CLK - Blue
8 - N/C
9 - ACK - Green

But I was just looking at a different one and it lists 3 as a vibrate line. I think my issue may lie here. My adapters had a grey line going to pin 3, no line going to pin 8. Because I originally thought they were both just N/C lines, I soldered grey to the pin 8 N/C on the FGW converters. In case this is not the issue, I’ll continue on with my process.

As I mentioned before, I based my DB-15 pinout on proximity between female solder cup to FGW board. Here’s the pinout I decided on for ease of soldering:

1 - VCC
2 - GND
3 - Select
4 - Start
5 - Right
6 - Left
7 - Down
8 - Up

9 - R2
10 - R1
11 - Triangle
12 - Circle
13 - Square
14 - ---------
15 - X

The translation I used for buttons to harnesses is:
LP - Square
MP - Triangle
HP - R1
LK - X
MK - Circle
HK - R2

I used buttons 1, 2, and 3 on the JAMMA harness for LP, MP, and HP respectively. On the harness side the male DB-15 pinout works out to (the third part of each entry is <player 1 pin>/<player 2 pin>, assume JAMMA harness except where kick is specified):

1 - +5v - 4/D
2 - GND - 27/Ae
3 - Coin switch - 16/T
4 - Start - 17/U
5 - Right - 21/Y
6 - Left - 20/X
7 - Down - 19/W
8 - Up - 18/V

9 - HK - 15/9 kick harness
10 - HP - 24/AB
11 - MP - 23/Aa
12 - MK - 17/23 kick harness
13 - LP - 22/Z
14 - ---------
15 - LK - 19/21 kick harness

I stripped and crimped the grounds for each player line of the kick harness and I have those going to the ground on the power supply because I couldn’t figure out a better way to do it. The only other option I could think of was soldering it to an open GND pin on the JAMMA harness but I didn’t feel like pulling out all of the soldering stuff when I was putting the last parts together yesterday so this was the quickest way for me to do it, and is easy enough to change later.

Below are some pictures of one of the converters and one of the controller ports from the harness. The converters both have the same issues, and I couldn’t get a decent picture of the other player slot coming off the harness because the wires are too much of a mess. If it’d help to get a nice organized picture of them I’m running to the store in a bit to get some zip ties, so I can post more pictures once I get them cleaned up. Thank you guys so much for taking the time to help me.

42

First verify that you have the FGWs wired correctly: you should get +5v between each button (eg, R1, start, select, etc) and GND. When you press that button on the psx controller, that voltage should drop to 0. If that is fine, then something is wrong between the FGW and the jamma harness.

43

Ah yes, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. Results are as follows:
FGW 1: all buttons have 5v across them both pressed and not pressed
FGW 2: all buttons have 5v across them both pressed and not pressed

I double checked the resistors on both boards and they are correct, 10k ohms in the R1 and 1.5k ohms in the R1 and R2. As far as putting them together I soldered in the IC holder, soldered the resistors then caps and then popped the IC into the holders. What can I do from here to further narrow down the culprit? Thanks again for all of the help.

44

First off, remove the wire going to the N/C spot. It definitely wont help anything, and that spot shouldnt be used with a PSX end.
Secondly, get rid of the Kitty sticks and use a digital, first party Sony playstation dedicated controller or stock Hori branded PSX arcade sticks (including Namco, T5, T4, etc.). The problem is insurmountable if you dont break it up into pieces. Test those controllers on a real PSX or PS2 first. Yes, you already tested the Kitty on a PSX or PS2, I know, use a first part controller anyways.
Third, use the Test button on your arcade board to go into the hardware test section. You should be able to see the results of any or all of the buttons and directions being pressed. This is where you should be testing if you dont want to check voltage on the pins every time.
Fourth, if there’s no response in the hardware test screen, solder a wire into an unused GND spot. Touch the other end to the outgoing points on the FGW converter going to the rig, like ‘triangle’. You should see the button or direction matching it activate on the rig. This includes ‘Select’ for Coin. If this doesn’t work, you’ve got wiring issues that need address first.
Fifth, if the lines to activate when shorted to ground but not with the controller being used, disconnect the db-15, and short the solder jumper next to the L2 point. Unplug the PSX controller from your extension cord. When you plug the stick in, it will think its in SNES mode, so dont have a PSX plugged in. Instead, go into the hardware test screen on the rig, and you should see nothing activated (unless you rigged L2 to a button, in which case it will show as active). Using that wire connected to ground, touch the other end to the pin labeled ‘DAT’ where the PSX cord is. You should see all of the buttons and signals activate when you do that, and stop when you untouch the wire.

Verify all of that please.

45
  1. Done
  2. I’m using a standard dualshock 2 now, tested on a PS2, confirmed working.
  3. I totally missed this. This menu is helping a lot. There are a number of issues here so I’ll end the tests and outline what I’m seeing.
  • In the test menu all buttons respond on both JAMMA players and in both converters
  • One converter seems to be dropping inputs steadily, when I hold a button down the 1/0 flickers very quickly, went into a match and the walk speed stuttered just like the test mode showed. I did isolate this to the converter by trying it in both JAMMA outs.
  • Neither stick shows any inputs on the test mode menu.

So I guess that narrows it down to two issues, the stuttering in the inputs of the one converter and why the pads work but not the sticks. Also I seemed to have mixed up the P1 and P2 kick harness wires so I’ll have to resolder those, whoops! D:

46

Stuttering issue is almost certainly a loose wire or poor connection on the extension cord soldered to the converter.
As for the sticks not working, you’d probably have to get dirty to get it handled. What I’d do if I were you is open the stick with the base MC Cthulhu, whip out the meter, and check continuity between each of the columns and the end spot on the FGW.
From the instructable:
Pin -> Column
DATA - 1 - C
CMD - 2 - B
GND - 4 - G
VCC - 5 - V
ATT - 6 - D
CLK - 7 - A
ACK - 9 - F

Go through each one, and verify continuity from the G column to the pin labelled GND on the converter, A to the CLK pin, etc. THen also go through and verify that there is no continuity between any pair of columns.

47

For the stuttering I’ll double check all of the solder joints and if that doesn’t yield anything I’ll de- and re-solder the female PS2 end to it.

Continuity tests between MC Cthulhu solder joints and PS adapter on FGW look good, there seems to be continuity between every pin. It doesn’t look like there’s any continuity between any columns on the Cthulhu board.

48

Got an issue with a FG Widget Converter, set for Saturn mode, I am not getting Left, and X and Square on the converter board isn’t working.
Any incite whats going on?

49

Connection between converter and pad.

50

For the stuttering problem, I’d verify it with a standard digital pad (sony or generic) before re-sodering a lot of stuff. I’ve had the same problem with a dualshock2 and a dualshock1, but digital pads have always worked fine for me.

51

I don’t have any other controllers at all, could you send me an example of one? I might be able to pick one up if it’d help debugging.

Does anyone have other suggestions for troubleshooting the stick issues? I guess maybe I should take this into the respective threads for the Cthulhu and Kitty but it’s odd that it’s happening with both.

EDIT: Is there any way that there’s a logic issue going on? Like do the pcbs expect some sort of handshake from the console to determine which console it’s hooked up to that isn’t happening in this situation? I’m not super experience with the wiring/electronics side but I feel like I’ve ruled out most wiring issues at this point (not including the stuttering issue of course, strictly speaking to the sticks not working).

52

I meant the original (non-analog) ps1 pad here http://slagcoin.com/joystick/pcb_diagrams/ps1_diagram1.jpg. It wouldn’t even have to be sony brand, just not analog. I was just suggesting trying it because it’s been the most reliable in my experience, so you could possibly rule out a wiring problem before undoing a lot of the work you’ve done.

53

Hi
i can use this for PS3 to MAK?

54

Oh okay yeah, I don’t think I have one laying around anymore but I can almost definitely borrow one from a friend. Thanks!

55

Toodles, is there any way for me to test if it’s something like a console recognition issue? Can I force PS2 mode on either the Kitty or MC Cthulhu?

56

No, both are entirely autodetect.

57

Hm, alright. I mean in theory this should all work, right? Sorry, I’m kind of grasping at straws here. I’m just trying to figure out what the possible set of issues would be that would cause what I’m seeing. Is it possible that it’s still a wiring issue since the sticks work on a ps2 and the pad works with the converter? I’m inexperienced with this kind of stuff so to me that seems to rule out wiring but I could obviously be wrong. If anyone has suggestions I’m completely open, I really want to get this to work. And thank you very much again to both toodles and deepthoughts for helping me out with this. I know I’ve been asking a ton of questions and you’ve been incredibly helpful.

58

So just to re-cap, you tested mccthulhu on both converters and neither works; and you tested dualshock2 pad on both converters, one converter fine and one converter stutters?

If so, focus on working with the pad first to make sure the wiring is correct. Try swapping the chips out in the converters to see if the stuttering is related to the chip or something else. If the stuttering remains with one converter even after swapping the chips, there is probably a wiring problem on your part with that converter. Also, I do recommend borrowing a digital pad from a friend (or buy from pawn shop) to confirm for sure whether it’s just the pad—even though it works on ps2, it may still not like the converters; this happened with me.

59

I’m not sure if it changes anything (I don’t think it does) but extra data is always good. I had a PS2 to USB adapter laying around for using a dual shock 2 on my PC and I tested the sticks through that and they register inputs in the game controller control panel exactly the same as my dualshock 2 does.

More or less yes. I also have a kitty stick which is suffering the exact same fate as the MC Cthulhu. I think I traced down the stuttering issue though, it was the pad. I forgot to isolate the pad I was using for those tests and that pad is stuttering on both converters. Current status is:

One converter functional (see below)
Both sticks work on PS2 and in computer through PS2 -> USB adapter
Neither stick works through FGW converter
Official dual shock 2 works through FGW converter.

EDIT: As I was moving around the PS2 female adapter on what was the “stuttery” converter (trying to ensure that the IC was pushed down into the holder securely), one of the wires kinda broke, it seems. Guess I’m going to have to re-solder a bit on that converter anyway. In any case, that’s something I don’t want to worry about for the time being. The more important issue is getting a stick to work with the known working FGW converter.

60

It should definitely work, but there’s a ton of pieces all working together, it makes it hard to spell out a simple way to troubleshoot it with what you have available. So, if you have an oscilloscope handy, that’d help, otherwise things get tricky.

Here’s something that may help some, it’s a custom firmware for the TE Kitty, and should ONLY be used for troubleshooting. Please flash a real version when you’re done with all of this.
http://www.godlikecontrols.com/download/kitty/TEKittyTroubleshooting.zip
Move slider to RS, other slider to ‘unlocked’, hold down Start, and plug it into the converter. Take a picture, with start still held down.Then release Start, and take another picture.
I also need to know the exact model of TE you have.

The firmware will show via the LEDs what it’s seeing on the RJ-45 lines, and what console it thinks is there.