Naomi 2 Card R/W sit down cab inop

[Genma]

Hi Everyone,

1st post here hoping to have much more experienced people assist my as I restore a childhood Cabinet back to its glory days.

I picked up an US version Initial D Stage 3 twin linked cabinet for a steal. Currently i'm having issues where suddenly the card reader stopped working, when we brought the cab home the reader failed to work. After spending a good afternoon we cleaned the card reader slapped it back into the machine and BAM reads and prints cards.

Most recently my buddy and I were playing on the master cab (slave is inop waiting for a new DIMM but thats a story for another day) excited as I just recently acquired brand new Sega Initial D players cards. We finished the night playing on a Car waiting for the card reader to spit it out when it had an error "unable to save" displayed on the screen and spat out the card. We thought it odd so we booted up another game and inserted the card with no avail. "Error occurred while reading
card. Card will be ejected without saving data. Please press the Start and Change View buttons.". Naturally we tested a 2nd known good card we've played in the past and same issue. Card reader would take the card cycle it back and forth in the reader and spit it back out again.


Following this we went into the test menu under C/W test.
Initialized: ok
Check R/W: this would get to SAVE then fail
"CAN'T SAVE NG"

So far i've tested..

-Cleaned the Card R/W sensors of dirt and dust
-Harness from card reader to master harness (Continuity good no breaks)
-Checked Card R/W PCB for breaks (Continuity good no breaks)
-Swapped harness from card reader from Slave machine
-Swapped Card reader from Slave
-Transferred over components to Slave (same error occurs)


I'm stumped as to what it could possibly to suddenly fail Is it possible that a "official Sega cleaning card" is the cure all? what I understand its just a phelt card. Can anyone suggest where I should continue diagnosing my issue?

Best Regards,
Genma


**Update 1**
Tested harness to confirm 5V on yellow wire, 12V on both red.
Performed manual cleaning on Card R/W test (had to burn 1 new card to confirm step)

Issue still remains, While in game read will take 7-8 attempts to read and 90% wont read the card. IF it does read the card 100% of the time will not save. Any further suggestions?

 

[the Goat]

I just recently acquired brand new Sega Initial D players cards.

Where did you get the blank cards?

I don't know what to tell you about your card reader. Mine hasn't had any issues (knock on wood). So I've never had to do any work on it.

Edit: Where in Canada are you? Montreal? We might be neighbors.

 

[Genma]

I ordered them from Coinopexpress, it was last of their stock (original japanese version cards) they have 3rd party cards but I have not tested as i wanted the "originals". Japanese cards do work for US machines, while i was waiting for the cards to arrive from hong kong i discovered discard/voided cards will work as it will rewrite the information on it cards like Maximum tune also you may get away with Club racer cards but never confirmed. You can also stick the card in backwards and hold 2 cards on 1 card.

edit: I live in Alberta

 

[the Goat]

I ordered them from Coinopexpress,

I've seen them on that site. It is a 100 card minimum order at $1.75 per card. I don't think I need that many. Thanks anyway.

 

[slickam]

edit: I live in Alberta

I can't help with your problem, but we might be neighbours. I'm in Edmonton.

 

[Genma]

edit: I live in Alberta

I can't help with your problem, but we might be neighbours. I'm in Edmonton.

We are in fact neighbors