Asteroids cocktail control panel diodes

debaser138

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I've got an Asteroids cocktail that I just brought back from the dead and I have a question regarding the control panel wiring. The wiring coming from each of the leaf switches (5 of them) goes to a male molex pin which connects to nothing on the female molex connector. For each of these 5 pins, there is a diode attached to each one which then connects it to another male pin which does connect to a female pin which then goes back to the game board. Hope that makes sense. I can take a picture of it and post it if needed.

Does anyone know why the control panels are wired up this way with the diodes? The manual doesn't mention anything about it.

Each of the 5 buttons on the player 1 control panel connect to the corresponding button on the player 2 control panel which then go to the edge connector as Asteroids doesn't use separate player buttons.

The problem I'm having is that the fire button on both player 1 and player 2 does not work and the thrust button on player 2 doesn't work (tho it does on player 1).

I've tested the connection from the game board to the buttons and it's good. Leaf switches have been cleaned and tested good. I've also tested the Asteroids board in my Asteroids Deluxe upright and it works fine.

Any ideas what is going on here?
 
Voltage spikes. Test them with a meter. You should read .5 on the one side. Nothing in the other direction if it is good. Diode test on a meter is like using an ohmmeter or continuity test. You will see continuity in one direction but none in the reverse if good.
 
Does anyone know why the control panels are wired up this way with the diodes? The manual doesn't mention anything about it.

Unlike the JAMMA standard, or even Williams games of the era, in which both P1 and P2 had their own sets of controls, Asteroids has only one set of control panel inputs. In a cocktail cabinet, it needs a way of shutting off each control panel in turn.

In Asteroids, check the wiring diagrams/schematics for the PLAYER1 and PLAYER2 pins, as well as the COCKTAIL pin on the wiring harness. In the cocktail cabinet, the wiring (and those diodes) help the game board figure out (a) whether it's installed in a cocktail cabinet or not, (b) whether to flip the video output depending on whether or not player 1 or player 2 is up, and (c) which set of buttons to accept for input.
 
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