Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

PCB problems and fixes
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bloodhokuto
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by bloodhokuto »

wigsplitta wrote:Mr bloodhokuto, what steps are you taking to get it working again?
After taking mine apart to update, I can no longer get it working again without garbled sound.
Reseated everything five or six times. Everything looks flush, the reinforcement boards are in place, so no pins are bent broken. I've never put the lid back on, so that isn't putting any pressure on mine.
Do you do some fiddling whilst it's running, to get it working again, or just reseat everything whilst it's off?
Yo!

Re the garbled sound, I check the smaller PCB pins and also the connection to the interconnect with the main board [If someone could replace that with a cable rather than a fixed rigid interface, i feel that this would fix 99% of the problems.

Because the way it fixes to both pcb's (rigid but floating connection which aint great), you may find that it sits a little bit off to one side, I then try to straighten it out, but at the same time keep the pressure on the contacts to the B Board, usually this fixes it.

When I was testing this, I must have done this at least a half a dozen times, and each time I managed to get it working (albeit outside of the case).

Sometimes the graphics would go off and that means that the contacts were giving bias to the smaller board, so I had to angle it back towards the main board, and this then either fixed it, or fixed the graphics but cause the garbled sound.

The wierd thing is that sometimes i would turn it on and try to adjust it 'on the fly' if it wasn't running properly, and nothing would happen whilst it was running, but upon turning it off and on it would then change.

So far I see the following;

Solid colour = bad connection with A Board.
Screwed Graphics = check pins from main Pcb & interconnect.
Garbled sound = check interconnect & also pins from the small pcb.

I have also found that crying and swearing helps too.
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by Braintrash »

bloodhokuto wrote:I have also found that crying and swearing helps too.
How come I never tried that before?
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by glossectomy »

funkycochise wrote:Due to some request, here is SSF2X training version (by Jed Possum) converted to MultiCPS2 format :
https://mega.co.nz/#!WRBRUKJI!zoKnM2oXp ... M5DXttEZkY
I'm having issues getting this to work. Is there anything I should be doing?
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by Kagaden »

I've received my kit and am looking to purchase a cps2 rev. 5, 6, or 7 PCB.

Are there certain games I should look for? :awe:

Thanks!
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by wigsplitta »

Finally got my board operational again :awe:

Quick recap on timeline, issue, and resolution FYI:

Rev 6 board, G Pal
Received CPS2 Multi, removed roms, plugged CPS2 Multi - all worked fine
Re-seated multi several times due to the crackling audio. Didn't resolve the crackling, but all still working fine.
Got the reinforcement boards - removed CPS2 Multi, applied, re-seated, all still working fine.
FrancoB kindly lent me his kit to upgrade the firmware for auto reset.
Removed CPS2 multi, upgraded firmware successfully, re-seated - sound suddenly garbled.
Re-seated and played about with seating at least 20 times, did the leg lifting, wire connection for the G Pal, even though it shouldn't need it - no change. Still garbled sound.
Visually inspected all jumpers (don't have a multi-meter to properly check) all looked good.
Decided to cut all open jumpers, just in case they had somehow re-bridged
Re-seated CPS2 Multi - all working good again.

For me - the garbled sound issue was definitely an open jumper that had worked fine for weeks, but then decided to somehow re-bridge. Shame I didn't have any testing kit to pinpoint which jumper(s) were the cause.

Bloodhokuto - how is your board performing with the case causing an issue when put on? I'm wondering if possibly it's a similar issue - an open jumper that has such a fine clearance, that when a bit of pressure is applied, it causes the board to bend very very slightly, but enough to bridge a gap on one of them?
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by bloodhokuto »

wigsplitta wrote:
Bloodhokuto - how is your board performing with the case causing an issue when put on? I'm wondering if possibly it's a similar issue - an open jumper that has such a fine clearance, that when a bit of pressure is applied, it causes the board to bend very very slightly, but enough to bridge a gap on one of them?
I was wondering how you were getting on. Nice one on your result!

Have to admit that I have taken a slight hiatus with fiddling with mine, I had thought about jumpers (because I did a few myself and I'm a **** with a soldering iron / desolder pump). But I didn't take into consideration the pcbs flexing.

You post therefore makes me think that you might be onto something! I do have a multimeter, but I might do what you did and just make sure that the open connections that I desoldered are properly isolated (this way also ensures that I don't set fire to the board) :awe:
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by darksoft »

OK. So I can confirm now that the problem of the crackling has been identified and is coming from Chip U40 located at the upper-center part of the Main PCB.

The 74LVC4245 used there are too fast for the bad power quality coming from the B Board. This makes that the chip reacts to small current fluctuations and creates clashes in the data bus.

The only solution that can be applied is changing the U40 for a new tiny custom PCB that I'm going to order today.

Once I receive them, they'lll be tested by me, Mitsu and others so we can confirm 100% it's working.

Once this is confirmed to work, Everyone who wants one replacement will get it completely for free. You should contact Darksoft for any location Worldwide except USA + Canada or contact Mitsurugi if you are based in USA or Canada.

As you can see by the size of U40, this is a tiny work not suitable for everybody ( check position and size of U40 to make sure that you can replace that)

You can source someone local to do the soldering or send it to us for a replace. You'll need to pay return shipping if you want us to replace it.

All kits from now on will already have the update installed.

I'll keep you updated.
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by dreday12203 »

Wow that's great news.
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by monouchi »

Argh, sending it out again?
Oh well.... :)
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by wigsplitta »

I am happy to confirm that I successfully went for the 8 wire fix :awe:

**** knows how it's possible to do it with individual wires...just too damn tiny for my shaky hands! I dug out and old IDE ribbon cable, and it was almost spot on with the spacing. It kept all the wires nicely together. Taped to the board, spaced, then soldered. I'm pretty damn surprised it worked tbh - you'd all laugh/cry if you saw the soldering iron I'm using.

Its a little 'rough round the edges' but my skills are not up to the task of making it look good.

It works, and that's all that matters to me, especially as I've spent the last few months get multiple qsound and normal amps setup in my cabs, to make the most of all boards that have stereo sound.

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Thanks to all involved for getting this issue resolved. Love y'all :fastlove:

(FYI It didn't work first time - a wire or two might've been bridged or not connected, and the result was the corrupt graphics below)
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by leonardoliveira »

This is my take at this fix:
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The wire used:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_wire
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by bloodhokuto »

Welp.

I checked continuity on the jumpers - all fine, but Ive gone backwards now with this.

The best I managed today was to get he picture working ok with garbled sound, then I adjusted it again and now am back to just having junk on the screen.

Perhaps I shouldn't have touched it when it was running careless but ok, but I'm sure I am not doing anything drastically wrong than everyone else, so why does it just not work, when all the pins are in nice?
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by MitsurugiW »

bloodhokuto wrote:Welp.

I checked continuity on the jumpers - all fine, but Ive gone backwards now with this.

The best I managed today was to get he picture working ok with garbled sound, then I adjusted it again and now am back to just having junk on the screen.

Perhaps I shouldn't have touched it when it was running careless but ok, but I'm sure I am not doing anything drastically wrong than everyone else, so why does it just not work, when all the pins are in nice?

Can you take some high res pics of the pcb itself?
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by bloodhokuto »

MitsurugiW wrote:

Can you take some high res pics of the pcb itself?
As it is, with everything connected up?

Update:

I have just got it intermittently working, which is pretty much how it was from since before.

Its seems to be a connection issue, but with everything seemingly in firmly I am not sure why that would be except for perhaps dirty contacts with the pins, although I did clean all the contacts when I stripped the original chips from the board.

I have taken some pics, in the album below, showing everything connected, and i know that they may not be much use, but for the time being I am having to keep it in situ while it is actually working. -As soon as I attempt to do anything with it, like plugging/unplugging the lead for the display etc I have to fiddle with it again, so I don't stand a chance of trying to fit it in the case.

Bear in mind this is exactly how it was with my progear board and I thought that there may be some issue with that one.

There can't be the same problem with both B Boards - could there be an actual issue with the multi board itself?

http://s62.photobucket.com/user/CHAOS_S ... lti_issues
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by darksoft »

We have now everything ready to provide the CRACKLE FIX to all those users who want to have it.

There are several options to fix the crackling problem as you can see here:

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthr ... ost3177729

The last picture in Mr. Jamma's post shows the mini PCB fix that we have done. This PCB will fix also the crackling issues.

As we have posted here:
http://www.arcade-projects.com/forums/i ... ackle-fix/

We'll fix everyone's kit one way or another. Notice that the crackling can be noticed or not depending if you are running it on a cabinet or on a Supergun.
PM or mail me if you are based in Europe. If you are in USA then PM Mitsu. If you are somewhere else, then you can decide wither one to get your kit updated. You'll need to send us the main PCB of the kit.

We'll post a video soon about how the installation is done.
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by MitsurugiW »

You can also choose the do the fix yourself and we can just send the fix pcb to you. You do it yourself at your own risk. If you break something while trying to do the fix yourself then we are not responsible. If you are unsure then arrange for one of us to do it for you.
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by darksoft »

Video about how to apply the fix. Thanks for Mitsurugi-w

https://youtu.be/TYbw-RjR53A

I repeat it again: We'll fix everyone's kit one way or another.

Notice that the crackling can be noticed or not depending if you are running it on a cabinet or on a Supergun.
PM or mail me if you are based in Europe. If you are in USA then PM Mitsu. If you are somewhere else, then you can decide wither one to get your kit updated. You'll need to send us the main PCB of the kit.
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by MitsurugiW »

Assist. (amateur....) :P

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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by darksoft »

Amateur? You want me to ban you from my forum or what? :)
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Re: Darksoft's CPS2 Multikit Tech Support Thread (No Killing B-Boards!)

Post by leonardoliveira »

I really lol'd with the sound bits at the start of the video. :awe:
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