Virtua Racing Fiber Link Cable Questions

Michael Roma

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I picked up a second VR so I can link both together. I thought that you could link them with just a generic SC to SC fiber jumper but when I checked it looks like it needs some proprietary, funky-keyed fiber cable.

Does anyone have any more info on this cable (Pics, is there a source for this, can i modify an SC jumper to fit, etc)?

Any info or help finding this cable will be greatly appreciated.

- Mike
 
Thanks for that info. After some further research I found that the TOSLink cables plug into the communications board on the main pub stack and not the I/O board as I originally thought. Both of my uprights didn't have the communication boards but luckily I got four complete board sets from a fellow KLOVer a year or so ago and two of those had them.

So after moving quite possibly the two heaviest freakin' cabinets and some board swapping I have two linked VRs.

- Mike
 
Bought two uprights and using toslink cables but cannot get them to link! I set one to master and the other to slave. Upon exit the screen flashes and says "cancelled" on both units. Any ideas of what to do? Both communication boards have red light on.

Steven
 
Bought two uprights and using toslink cables but cannot get them to link! I set one to master and the other to slave. Upon exit the screen flashes and says "cancelled" on both units. Any ideas of what to do? Both communication boards have red light on.

Steven

I had a sega wingwar where I had to connect the red to the black. On my Daytona USA, it's red to red and black to black. Did you try swapping the connectors?
 
It is a generic toslink cable used for home theater / audio. You can get them at best buy if you are in a hurry. Think I ordered mine from monoprice.com ....cheap.
 
Here's a screenshot. Everything appears to be hooked up correctly. Is there a dip switch setting that needs to change on comm board or something? Seriously out of ideas...
 

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Figured out that I am trying to plug into my Filter I/O board and not the communication board. I don't have communications boards on my uprights! Argh...now I must search for those. Let me know if you have one that I could buy from you...
 
Once you get those boards... if you're still having problems you can test the cables by shining a flashlight into one end and looking into the other for the light to come through. It should be a bright light coming out of the tiny fiber in the cable. If one or both sides are dim then you have breaks in the fiber somewhere.

RJ
 
Well, it's a toslink setup so there isn't a "red" and a "black." Just a simple rx and tx

the official cables that come with the Sega stuff usually includes black and red cables to help tell which one is which without having to trace it back to the PCB, that's probably what he's referring to.

It sounds like you're doing it right but you should be hooking RX on one to TX on the other and visa-verse.

The only other thing I can think of is to make sure you're not hitting a "cancel" button instead of a "Save" button when you leave that menu... some games require you to push a specific button on exit in order to save the settings.

I don't know if the Model 1 VR boards fall into this category but some of the sega stuff require an additional link board in order to run in linked mode, even if the filterboard includes the optical ports... NAOMI is like this, despite the fact that it has the optical ports on the filterboard you still need to install a link board between the cart and the rest of the unit. I know later Model 2 and 3 stuff also have a link board inside the cage that is required for networking, though I believe that any Model 2 or 3 game that was network capable shipped with the link board... I would suspect that Model 1 stuff was the same way.

EDIT: oops didn't see that you'd figured it out already... at least you know what the problem is now.
 
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Hi guys, I am uploading two photos of two comm boards aquired from a twin machine, guy who gave them to me said one of them is not working.
As you can see, the jumpers 2, 3 and 4 are connected differently on those two boards. Now I wonder, should it be like this, or is this the reason the guy thought one of them is not working... Is there a way to test these boards somehow?
I bought a twin system without these boards so I am going to connect them and test them. But do I need also to connect CN4 and CN5? I cannot see those connectors in the schematic from the manual.
Thanks!
 

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The jumpers around the ROM have to do with the type and size of the ROM installed.
 
All you need to know about Fiber Optic comm on Sega Games

Our design team at the time wrote in a nice feature for link testing shared with other games such as Daytona. You can loop it back to itself with a single cable and test link capability. Just make set a master and loop directly at Comm Bd transmit to receive. If its capable of linking, it will fully boot to attract mode. If not, verify jumpers from to known good unit. People play with these for whatever reason and even lose them. If its not booting to itself, try another Comm Bd. All the software I know of from Dx to UR would allow for link if Comm Bd was in place unlike say Daytona Dx or F355 Dx since it was not written into software to allow those to link at all. Now Indy 500 did not have this "loop to itself" feature so trying to troubleshoot a comm issue on these without having spares was impossible. As for colors on end of cables, they don't mean anything other than the end is red, black grey or whatever. Oh and we never enabled the FO ports on I/O Bd for anything. All the cables from Outrunners to Ourun 2 or probably even newer than that were same type. Though ports may have different part numbers on them and are not interchangeable, they basically worked the same as far as the cables were concerned.
 
Thanks for the replies!
Indeed, connecting the optic cable in a loop helped to identify the working board. It was the left (in my previous post) one. So the correct jumper setting is (looking at the board from component side, connector connecting with the other boards on the bottom, counting from the left side!!! 1,2,3...):
JP1 open (not installed)
JP2 2-3
JP3 2-3
JP4 2-3
JP5 1-2
JP6 open
JP7 open
JP8 2-3 (this one has marked number 3 on the left side, I ignored this)

Anyway good news is that I pinpointed the faulty component on the nonworking board, it was the Z80 processor, luckily I have spares so now I am fully LINKED!

I love this guy!!! (attached!)
 

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Important thing - when you are connected and enter the service menu on one of the machines, they won't be able to connect again untill you restart them both. So Off and On again, to let them boot together, and reestablish the connection link.
 
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