reassembled Spy Hunter cp, now half the buttons don't work

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reassembled Spy Hunter cp, now half the buttons don't work

Today was going to be the day I wrapped up the SH resto, but no such luck.

Today I reassembled the cp. Same yoke, pot, gears, buttons, microswitches, etc. All I swapped was the cp itself and gear shift. I didn't replace, recrimp, or re-house any wiring in the harness. It was working perfectly for 2+ years before I disassembled it for resto.

After re-installation, half the switches don't work.

Work:
weapons van/start button
pedal (accelerator)
steering (but calibration is off)
coin mech switches
credit switch inside coin door

Not working:
neither trigger switches (machine guns/missiles)
neither thumb button (smoke screen/oil slick)
test switch inside coin door

I took apart the grips and I have continuity from all switches and buttons to the molex housing. I must be missing something obvious, it seems unlikely that 4-6 switches would all fail.

I've heard that if the pcb is unplugged for the amount of time I did (2+ months), I need to replace the battery on the power board, but would that affect switches??

Thanks for any input....
 
sounds like you have the 19 pin connector on the ssio unplugged from the main harness.
 
sounds like you have the 19 pin connector on the ssio unplugged from the main harness.

That's the connector at the bottom, right? I plugged in a spare SH yoke and the same thing is happening. I think I'm missing something simple, but all the housings appear to be accounted for.

Here's the current set-up of ssio, anything appear to be amiss?
IMG_3624.jpg


IMG_3623.jpg
 
that looks right, but pull that bottom connector, and make sure there's not a pin bent down and not making contact. Fwiw, all of the buttons that aren't working are on that 19 pin connector - j4. There's only one ground that runs to them all. Its either pin 9 or pin 19, and it should be either yellow, or yellow and red. Not sure what to tell you other than that, it might be bad ribbon cables, but i kinda doubt it. I had a pcbset here last week that would do everything but steer and brake. Turned out to be a bad z80 ctc on the cpu. Don't ask me why, but replacing it fixed it.
Personally, i'd boot the game up, tie a lead to pin 9, go into test mode, and see if i could connect pin 9 to pins 5 10 11 13 and 15. those are all the switches. If those work, then you've got a broke ground wire somewhere - which isn't uncommon in the yoke.
 
pull the connector, and look right under the pins. its labeled on each end. 1 and 19. pin 14 is the key if that helps.
 
Since the test switch doesn't work, how do I get into the test menu? I can't use the Bally "tilt" trick because the tilt mechanism has been removed from the coin door. The test switch itself passes a continuity test, but it doesn't do anything.

I tested and I have continuity all the way from the 4 grip buttons and switches to pin 9 at the ssio board. It also showed continuity to pin 8, don't know if that matters.
 
8 is the test switch. 9 is the common. If you have continuity between pins 8 and 9, it should go into test mode when you boot the game. If its not going into test mode, then you've either got a bad ls244 at e2 or f2 on the ssio, or one of the cables between the ssio and the cpu either plugged in wrong, or bad.
 
8 is the test switch. 9 is the common. If you have continuity between pins 8 and 9, it should go into test mode when you boot the game. If its not going into test mode, then you've either got a bad ls244 at e2 or f2 on the ssio, or one of the cables between the ssio and the cpu either plugged in wrong, or bad.

If I'm doing this right, there is no continuity between pins 8 and 9 on that 19-pin connector.

With the power off, and with my dmm on the diode setting, I touch one lead to pin 8 at the board and the other lead to pin 9 at the board. I'm touching the pins themselves, not any connectors or wires. This test shows no continuity between the two.
 
are you testing with the connector hooked up, or unhooked? You should be testing with the connector plugged up. Or, alternately, remove the connector, take a piece of wire and short pins 8 and 9. Then turn the game on. It should boot into test mode then.
 
are you testing with the connector hooked up, or unhooked? You should be testing with the connector plugged up. Or, alternately, remove the connector, take a piece of wire and short pins 8 and 9. Then turn the game on. It should boot into test mode then.

Connector is hooked up, but I'm making contact with the dmm leads at the pins near where they connect to the board. I'll go run a jumper from 8 to 9, then boot up and see what happens.
 
A-ha! We have test mode! The jumper from 8 to 9 worked.

So now before I fry anything, I'm going to:

1. keep jumper connected between 8 & 9 so test mode stays on
2. connect another wire to 9 (ground)
3. touch the other end of this second wire to pin 10 (one of the thumb buttons) to advance to the user input test
4. one of pins 5 11 13 or 15 must be the weapons van button to select the user input test
5. touch the wire from pin 9 to pins 5 10 11 13 and 15 and see if they register

Do I have that right?
 
that'll work, but, i think your barking up the wrong tree now that you know its not a board problem. Most likely that wire on pin 9 is cut in two somewhere, or almost out of the connector. I'd start tracing that wire trying to figure out where your losing the ground in the harness now.
 
Looks like this may be all good. I had continuity everywhere, was about to give up, and decided for the heck of it, I'd just fire it up one more time.

Re-testing all the connections and continuity and re-attaching the 19-pin connector must have done something because all switches and buttons (including test) are functional. Maybe a dirty molex connection? I'll try it again tomorrow am and then re-attach all the cp parts if all is well.

Thanks for all your help, brother.
 
bad connector, wire loose inside that connector, or dirty pins, or all of the above.
I had a horrible time running down a glitchy steering problem on mine - turned out to be one of the wires in thec onnector had worked loose - not out, but just loose. It'd work most of the time.
Incidentally, a standard .100" molex connector and pins works fine to replace those poke the wire in types - i just replaced the 23 pin one on my cab, as every time i unplugged it another wire would come loose.
 
I always like following these threads up with the fix if one was found for folks searching the forums in the future. (There's some alliteration for ya!)

So here's what it turned out to be: I had all the buttons working in game and test mode. As I reassembled the yoke and grips they would stop working again - but I would always get continuity when I tested the ground line. So what I did was start a game, I taped down the machine gun trigger button with painters' tape, and started jiggling wires at every connector. Sure enough, at the 15 pin molex connector for the cp to harness, the machine guns would cut out when I slightly moved the ground wire. So looks like I have an iffy connection there.

Lesson learned: a test showing continuity doesn't mean it's DEPENDABLE continuity.
 
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