Pole Position #2: I knew better. 😫

Hi Jason!
I just bought a PP cabinet with a wiring harness and other things covered in mouse pee. I would love to trash the harness and eliminate the ARII's, big blues, and original power supply in favor of a Jamma setup with your new board kit. I am attaching a pic of a product that could make that happen in theory, but I wanted your input before I ordered it. Please let me know what you think about this adaptor and your board, with a Bob Roberts-style power setup and a quality Jamma harness.
Thanks!
P4 position is designed to plug into the original harness. I am not a fan of multi boards with jamma plugs. I think upgrade PCBs should plug into the original harness rather than encourage people to convert something to jamma. I suggest you fix the original ar2s and harness if possible. @andrewb can repair those here on klov if you want.

If this adapter you speak of can work with the original PCB it should in theory work with p4 position.
 
Hi Jason!
I just bought a PP cabinet with a wiring harness and other things covered in mouse pee. I would love to trash the harness and eliminate the ARII's, big blues, and original power supply in favor of a Jamma setup with your new board kit. I am attaching a pic of a product that could make that happen in theory, but I wanted your input before I ordered it. Please let me know what you think about this adaptor and your board, with a Bob Roberts-style power setup and a quality Jamma harness.
Thanks!
Oh crap, I need to know about this too. I just realized that my PP (running a PiPosition today) has a repro PP harness for the controls, but does NOT have the AR2's or original power supply. I feed the Pi with USB power and I use the audio out jack from it to a small 12v powered amp.

Jason, can you provide some detail about what voltages the P4 Position needs and also whether the jack at the top that looks like audio out can be used? If I can get line level audio out either from that jack or from the harness, and if I can connect a switcher power supply up to get the P4 the voltages it needs I can make it work without mounds of hassle. If I'd have to hunt down AR2s and an original power supply it may not be worth changing my PiPosition setup.

Thanks!
 
P4 position is designed to plug into the original harness. I am not a fan of multi boards with jamma plugs. I think upgrade PCBs should plug into the original harness rather than encourage people to convert something to jamma. I suggest you fix the original ar2s and harness if possible. @andrewb can repair those here on klov if you want.

If this adapter you speak of can work with the original PCB it should in theory work with p4 position.
Ok. I may try it just for grins. I just wanted to try to prevent all the usual failures and for once have a bulletproof machine. I said I'd never own another PP but this setup might change things. How much current does your board pull? I suspect very little. And for clarification about my reason for doing this, the rodents ate many of the wires in this cabinet.
Thank you for your response.
 
If wanted you could power the P4 with a cell phone charger as it only needs 5v. Yes the audio jack can be connected to amplified speakers but this jack is only 2 channel stereo (upright cabinet) If you have a cockpit cabinet you will need to get all 4 audio channels from the edge connector.
 
Ok. I may try it just for grins. I just wanted to try to prevent all the usual failures and for once have a bulletproof machine. I said I'd never own another PP but this setup might change things. How much current does your board pull?
Thank you for your response.
About 350ma. (.35amps) So you could power over 50 p4 positions with one 20A power supply lol.
 
About 350ma. (.35amps) So you could power over 50 p4 positions with one 20A power supply lol.
Wow. I may need to run the coin door lights off the new switcher's 5V line to get closer to 1 amp and keep it happy.
 
If wanted you could power the P4 with a cell phone charger as it only needs 5v. Yes the audio jack can be connected to amplified speakers but this jack is only 2 channel stereo (upright cabinet) If you have a cockpit cabinet you will need to get all 4 audio channels from the edge connector.
Awesome, thank you! I can work with that.

Appreciate the quick response and your awesome arcade products!
 
I guess the audio signal coming from your board through the Jamma adaptor would be line-level and require a small stereo amplifier or a mono unit with the speakers tied in series…
 
Guess I'll need a small amplifier for the speakers—does your board have a line-level audio output?
Technically it's a hair over line level audio (1v pp). It's somewhere between a standard headphone jack on your phone and line level. But this will be fine.
 
I guess the audio signal coming from your board through the Jamma adaptor would be line-level and require a small stereo amplifier or a mono unit with the speakers tied in series…
Pole position is stereo (upright) and quadraphonic (cockpit) you really want at least stereo for that cool panning effect in the music
 
Well great. My experiment will have to wait, not only for the availability of another batch of Jason's boards, but because the Jamma adaptor from its Canadian vendor is currently subject to a 34% tariff and shipping to the U.S. is "suspended". <sigh>
 
Well great. My experiment will have to wait, not only for the availability of another batch of Jason's boards, but because the Jamma adaptor from its Canadian vendor is currently subject to a 34% tariff and shipping to the U.S. is "suspended". <sigh>
Reading the description of the adapter board, it states that it is designed to interface a standard jamma cabinet with joystick and buttons to a pole position board. It has a microcontroller to emulate the steering and pedal controls... this would suggest to me that it's not going to work the way you would like it to. I read the description to mean there is no provision to interface the steering signal or the pedal signal from the original controls... the inputs of that adapter are tailored to accept a joystic and buttons as the input devices.

Dylan
 
Reading the description of the adapter board, it states that it is designed to interface a standard jamma cabinet with joystick and buttons to a pole position board. It has a microcontroller to emulate the steering and pedal controls... this would suggest to me that it's not going to work the way you would like it to. I read the description to mean there is no provision to interface the steering signal or the pedal signal from the original controls... the inputs of that adapter are tailored to accept a joystic and buttons as the input devices.

Dylan
I am not on the technical level that some KLOVers are, so I just assumed someone smarter than me figured out how the adaptor took the inputs from the steering and pedal and sent them through the on-board chips to make everything work, based on the adaptor's pinout as shown in the attached pic.
If y'all don't think this arrangement will work, I'll abandon the experiment. But my curiosity abounds.
 

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What state is the original harness in? Is it far beyond saving?
No. But the thought of a fresh Jamma harness and getting rid of the 43 year-old edge connectors, AR boards, big blues, power brick, and most definitely the original board set for a current-day, bulletproof configuration makes me all warm and fuzzy. If it won't work, then I'll still use Jason's board. And while I wait for it, I'll repair all the wires, bypass the SENSE circuits, overhaul the AR's, order some blues, and maybe slap a fresh rectifier in the brick just for fun.
 
No. But the thought of a fresh Jamma harness and getting rid of the 43 year-old edge connectors, AR boards, big blues, power brick, and most definitely the original board set for a current-day, bulletproof configuration makes me all warm and fuzzy. If it won't work, then I'll still use Jason's board. And while I wait for it, I'll repair all the wires, bypass the SENSE circuits, overhaul the AR's, order some blues, and maybe slap a fresh rectifier in the brick just for fun.
Well then, sounds like you've got your Pole in the right Position!
 
I mean, I'm a purist at heart and love to see old stuff work again, but in the case of PP (Problematic POS) Pole Position, when Jason's board only requires a third of an amp to run, I can buy a small stereo amplifier from the Jungle site for $6, and I have plenty of isolation transformers laying around, why do I need all the other crap? Heck, I might even be able to leave the thing plugged up while I'm away without worrying about the house burning down. It'd be a win win!
 
I mean, I'm a purist at heart and love to see old stuff work again, but in the case of PP (Problematic POS) Pole Position, when Jason's board only requires a third of an amp to run, I can buy a small stereo amplifier from the Jungle site for $6, and I have plenty of isolation transformers laying around, why do I need all the other crap? Heck, I might even be able to leave the thing plugged up while I'm away without worrying about the house burning down. It'd be a win win!
Factual
 
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