Blitz joystick stick help?

I bought a spare "untested" i40 off ebay this weekend. It'll be two weeks till it arrives but ill try this in the meantime.
 
Need to get back to this. I bought two more i40 boards about 5 or 6 months ago and another spare PCB about 2 months ago. I just never got around to trying it all out.

If these don't work, I'm chalking it up to wiring and going to pull my hair out and probably smash one of the cabinets with a baseball bat.
 
I would start by confirming your wiring.

Make sure all of the connections are good.

Get your volt meter on continuity and start checking headers to headers to make sure the wiring connections are good.

Stating that you have grounding problems has me leaning toward some worn out wiring.
 
Ok so I am back looking at these two machines I have. I have bought more parts since my original go around last year and I am convinced somehow, somewhere, there must be a good working set. I have three PCBs, four hard drives and about six i40 boards.

Let's tackle these games one at a time. For the machine I call "blitz 1" here is my issue:

The game boots fine all the regular buttons work fine but in the test menu I see this:

Player 4 has all the directions lit up.

Now let me back track a bit. To even get into the test menu, I have to plug in and unplug the one cable going to the i40 board in the first place because the menu is continuously scrolling (probably due to player 4)

Can we at least confirm that my i40 board is plugged in correctly with the right cables going to the right spots? I noticed one empty space, is that normal or am I missing a plug?
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May I also add that this initial test was done with one of my new i40 boards as well and if I recall properly my previous issues were similar in nature leading me to believe once again it is not my i40 boards but rather the wiring is screwed somewhere.

Both machines were working when originally purchased by me. I had to remove the control panel to be able to fit the machine through the door to get into my house. Like an idiot I didn't actually label any of the wiring and just randomly started unplugging things and now I'm in the situation with neither machine working properly. when I couldn't get the first machine to work and couldn't figure out the wiring that is when I bought the second machine. It was also working when I was only bought it but when I got home I once again did the exact same thing and didn't label any of the wiring and now it also displays similar symptoms.

The problem has gone on for so long that I don't even remember where any of the wiring originally went so I'm pretty much starting from scratch on both these machines. I have all the parts I have plenty of spares I just need a bit of help on what to look for to get these both off and running.
 
So to summarize current situation. All buttons work, all directions on p4 are stuck, and no player directions work for p1-p3? The wiring looks correct when compared to mecha's pic.

Have you verified +5 to all joysticks?
couple of suggestions YMMV. Unplug player 4 and what do you get? plug player 3 into player 4 and see if problem (directions stuck on) follows to p3.
 
So to summarize current situation. All buttons work, all directions on p4 are stuck, and no player directions work for p1-p3? The wiring looks correct when compared to mecha's pic.

Have you verified +5 to all joysticks?
couple of suggestions YMMV. Unplug player 4 and what do you get? plug player 3 into player 4 and see if problem (directions stuck on) follows to p3.

Unplugging player 4 still left all the lights lit up. I haven't tried swapping p3 and p4, but judging by the fact that p4 stayed lit when unplugged, I don't see the issue jumping over to p3 in that instance. I will try though tonight.
 
Swapping p3 and p4 still leaves p4 joystick all lit up. In fact the only way to NOT have them light up is to unplug one of the three smaller connectors on the i40 board.
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I also bought a manual for blitz 2000 gold as well (this dedicated manual is nowhere to be found online btw. All the manuals are for the sportsstation ones)

Does this mean anything to anyone?
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So to summarize current situation. All buttons work, all directions on p4 are stuck, and no player directions work for p1-p3? The wiring looks correct when compared to mecha's pic.

Have you verified +5 to all joysticks?

You never confirmed the above. If all p4 directions locked on even with it unplugged, I would suspect main pcb or i40 issue personally. However, take that with a grain of salt as I don't have a cabinet to test or reproduce anything for you.
 
I have tried 4 different i40 boards. I have 2 more to test. If they all show the same symptoms I would almost rule that out as the odds of me having 6 faulty i40s seems low.

I will also try my other PCB which was supposed to have been working when I bought it several months ago
 
How exactly would I check if the joys are getting the +5?

Just unplug the connector, test there and assume the joys are good? Or is there a way to test while they are plugged in?
 
Yes, unplug the connector or just probe the back side of connector.

Looks like you have it wired up correctly. However, when I am not certain about connections, I verify which pin is gnd by probing/continuity checking known gnd (like a chip or gnd pad) to the pins and known +5v point to pins. Just to be certain.
 
Yes, unplug the connector or just probe the back side of connector.

Looks like you have it wired up correctly. However, when I am not certain about connections, I verify which pin is gnd by probing/continuity checking known gnd (like a chip or gnd pad) to the pins and known +5v point to pins. Just to be certain.
Ok, so I checked the i40 board, it's getting 5v.

But the joysticks are getting 1.12 - 1.15v...

Where is the power going?
 
is that with joysticks connected or not connected? I am guessing but maybe one of the joysticks has a short. I would try measuring with all joysticks disconnected at the joystick. do you get +5v at the harness that plugs into the joysticks. If so, then plug joysticks in one at a time and verify you still have +5v etc. If not, and the i40 is putting out +5v to the joysticks on its headers, then you have a wiring issue or fuse issue getting +5v to joysticks.
 
is that with joysticks connected or not connected? I am guessing but maybe one of the joysticks has a short. I would try measuring with all joysticks disconnected at the joystick. do you get +5v at the harness that plugs into the joysticks. If so, then plug joysticks in one at a time and verify you still have +5v etc. If not, and the i40 is putting out +5v to the joysticks on its headers, then you have a wiring issue or fuse issue getting +5v to joysticks.
The i40 measured 5v with all joysticks connected.

Measuring the joysticks for the 1v was done by unplugging one joystick while the other three were connected.

Unplug them all and retest the connectors?
 
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