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What is your favorite car to use in Initial D?

  • Toyota AE86 Trueno

    Votes: 3 17.6%
  • Mitsubishi Lancer EVO

    Votes: 3 17.6%
  • Toyota Supra

    Votes: 1 5.9%
  • Mazda Rx-7

    Votes: 3 17.6%
  • Mazda Rx-8

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Honda S2000

    Votes: 3 17.6%
  • Other

    Votes: 4 23.5%

  • Total voters
    17

Beyond666

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Hey, I work at an arcade that has two Initial D Stage 6 AA Cabinets. Today I went to see if any Card readers exist in the game and they do, however, looking at working models online I noticed a few pieces were missing and the card reader wasn't showing any function during test mode in the game. Can anyone point where I can find how to maybe emulate the card reader?
It is possible that they may work or I may have to remove the existing readers and do an inspection however I can't because I work during busy hours and I don't have the time.
There are people who want to use their cards here and I'm trying to get the readers to work because i'm also organizing a group on facebook similar to our pinball league on Tuesday night so I can host tournaments.

Thank you for reading my thread. cheers
 
I'm currently doing a restore/update on my V4 to V8. I have one card reader working, one non-functional. When you power on the machine, do you hear or see the motors on the reader engage? Which serial ports are they hooked into? All else failing with mine, I'll be buying one of the NOS ones on eBay. I'll let you know what I'm able to diagnose with mine though!
 
As far as emulation goes, there is an emulator/simulator for Initial D 1-3 Magnetron cards. Some people have expressed interest in figuring out the Initial D 4-8 IC cards but to my knowledge, no one has tried anything yet.

I do not know much about the IC cards, but I know the older card readers for 1-3 got dirty and needed to be cleaned every once in a while.

Just a side note, Initial D 6 is Ringedge not Lindbergh.

To answer the topics question Nissan Skyline 6 Gear all the way!!
 
Hey, I work at an arcade that has two Initial D Stage 6 AA Cabinets. Today I went to see if any Card readers exist in the game and they do, however, looking at working models online I noticed a few pieces were missing and the card reader wasn't showing any function during test mode in the game. Can anyone point where I can find how to maybe emulate the card reader?
It is possible that they may work or I may have to remove the existing readers and do an inspection however I can't because I work during busy hours and I don't have the time.
There are people who want to use their cards here and I'm trying to get the readers to work because i'm also organizing a group on facebook similar to our pinball league on Tuesday night so I can host tournaments.

Thank you for reading my thread. cheers
If you have access to open the card reader enclosure, check for two sets of wires. One set plugs in to COM2 on the RingEdge PC. The other set plugs in to a 24V power supply next to the coin door area.
If you do not have access to the enclosure, just turn the switch off to the cab, then plug it back in. If the card readers have proper power, you will hear the motors initialize. This will at least indicate the 24V power supply is connected.

How are you running test mode? If you have access to the test menu, make sure the card reader flag is set to ON. It could just be that the operator disabled the card readers by default.
In the Test menu, run the initialize command to see if it reports 'OK'.
 
I purchased one of the readers on eBay and am not sure it's even fully functional. I can get it to pass all tests in ID4 and 5 test menus except for print test and erase print test. The reader won't even do anything except pull the card in and eventually gives error 400 unknown error during these 2 tests.

I'm hoping to make an emulator for this, btw.

I'm assuming something is either messed up on my unit or maybe the DIP switches are not set correctly. There are 2 banks of DIP switches on the unit to the front right. How are these DIPs set for others?
 
The card readers on eBay are a scam. They are not compatible with Initial D, are from another game. Request a refund, the seller knows what they are doing.

Side note, I've seen a set of 6 of these readers on YaJ for $100 total, they are from Derby Owners Club. Soy has more info about it
 
The card readers on eBay are a scam. They are not compatible with Initial D, are from another game. Request a refund, the seller knows what they are doing.

Side note, I've seen a set of 6 of these readers on YaJ for $100 total, they are from Derby Owners Club. Soy has more info about it
Well that's just great...

Seems like the correct model number. Maybe a different firmware revision?
 
Is that the one with the black front plate? The one that is flat and does not stick out like the white one normally used?

I have one of these with the black flat plate on the front and it works with no issues with ID 4&5. On ID8 it works but gives an error when it writes to the card on player exit. Hitting start+view change ejects the card and it still successfully writes data. I've been using it on one side for a long while and still saves correctly..just has that error on eject. I don't have 6 to try it on however.

Guessing it could be firmware since part numbers the same and the only difference I see is the front plastic piece. Maybe someone can figure out how to update with that CF card slot in front?
 
Is that the one with the black front plate? The one that is flat and does not stick out like the white one normally used?
That's how mine is. I also had to adjust the stocker slot to allow for thicker cards. ID cards were not fitting originally.

It seems like it will work except for face printing/erasing, though I was originally assuming I had a faulty unit or DIP switches weren't set correctly. Would you be able to confirm how the DIPs are set on your unit?

Does yours print the images on the card faces for all ID versions you tried?
 
Sure thing, later I will take a pic or drawing of the DIPs so you can compare. It does print and erase on all versions I have access to. I just have no idea what game this reader came from, and I am pretty sure it wasn't ID since the front face plate is different and all the cabinet pictures I have seen for 4-8 always have the white face plate that sticks out.

Edit: pics!

DIPs are DIPSW1 OFF, OFF, OFF, OFF, OFF, ON, ON, ON | DIPSW2 OFF, OFF, OFF, OFF
Card reader DIPs.jpg

Card Reader Front.jpg
 
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Is that the one with the black front plate? The one that is flat and does not stick out like the white one normally used?

I have one of these with the black flat plate on the front and it works with no issues with ID 4&5. On ID8 it works but gives an error when it writes to the card on player exit. Hitting start+view change ejects the card and it still successfully writes data. I've been using it on one side for a long while and still saves correctly..just has that error on eject. I don't have 6 to try it on however.

Guessing it could be firmware since part numbers the same and the only difference I see is the front plastic piece. Maybe someone can figure out how to update with that CF card slot in front?
Ah, I've only run it on ID8. I'll try the Start+View thing, that wasn't in the error message. If that works I'll just put a note on the cab since I'm stuck with this for now.

The firmware is different, and the reader is designed to use .35mm cards from Derby Owners Club, not the .7mm cards from Initial D. That's why adjusting the stocker works, but there's not much you can do to get around the rest. You can't just swap parts from an Initial D reader onto it to get it to work. Initial D readers are SG or SG-I, these readers are SGT.

Will try the Start+View, see how it goes!
 
The firmware is different, and the reader is designed to use .35mm cards from Derby Owners Club, not the .7mm cards from Initial D. That's why adjusting the stocker works, but there's not much you can do to get around the rest. You can't just swap parts from an Initial D reader onto it to get it to work. Initial D readers are SG or SG-I, these readers are SGT.
You are totally correct about the part number. The ID8 reader that I KNOW FOR SURE came from ID8 is SGI.

ID8 Card Reader.jpg

Good luck! The start+view change cleared the error on player exit for me and it saves every single time.
 
Thanks!

Unfortunately my switches are set that way, so I guess I have a faulty unit.
Dang sorry to hear that. Maybe something is wrong with the thermal head. Not sure that would actually throw an error however.
 
I issued a return request to the seller on eBay and got an offer of refund minus shipping and I keep it. I'd have paid the shipping price for a junk unit to play with, so I'm happy with this outcome. :thumbsup:

If I can spoof the print commands, this unit still works for everything else (so far) and I can probably still use it for analysis for emulation purposes.

Note to anyone else taking this risk, the seller says the item is located in Ontario, Canada, but ends up shipping from Hong Kong. Seller is ai.amusements. They keep posting new listings anytime one sells, so who knows how many they have.
 
I was playing around with issuing commands to my reader unit, just sending unknown commands to see how it would reply.

The "7B" command that seems to come from the Print test gets a reply of "15" which I believe is an error reply. What I don't know is if this is an error reply in that the unit doesn't know the command or that the unit cannot fulfill the command due to an error.

An undocumented command I just happened to try is the "F0" command and I got an interesting reply legible in ASCII that may be something about the software version on my unit: AP:H5541-0102,OS:H5540-0102
 
at least your getting the money back,shame it doesnt work as intended....

a mate of mine has just got the same reader by the looks of it ( with the black plastic on the end of the reader)

he did plan to use it on his ringedge with initial d8.....ive sent him a link to this thread to have a read......

cant wait to see your progress on this , ive got a ringedge on loan with initial d 7.....gets a bit boring doing the same races over and over haha
 
I'm the guy that Terminator2k2 mentioned bought one of these readers off the Chinese seller in mid July.
It was Chris who helped me with the wiring for my ID8 project.

Last night I used a JST VH connector plugged into the power socket underneath the unit to get 24v power to the reader.
The unit cycles OK and the shutter closes and opens, but, my shutter stays in the open position. When I first powered on the reader I put some cards in the reader and it drew the card from the hopper and it then stayed over the grey rubber rollers which didn'tt seem right to me.

Even with the error I tried connecting it to serial port 2 on the RE but I can't get it to communicate in any of the tests.

On these types of readers you should be able to clear the nvram on them, on some readers I've worked on it's either switches 3+8 or just 3 by itself. I tried a combination of different switch settings on both jumper packs. The shutter still stays open after it opens and closes but now the card reader stays in the hopper which I think it should do.

I contacted the seller this morning after trying for hours to get it to work.
He offered a refund minus the shipping which I accepted.

I'm going to try again with a different serial cable.
Can someone verify what pinout they are using on the serial cable pins please?

Thanks.
 

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I don't know much about Ringedge, but Lindbergh has DIP switches on it and I had to set them per the ID4 manual for it to receive communication on com2. I used the same manual to figure out relative pinout and then a lot of guess and check:

5 pin on card reader to 9 pin dsub:
1 - 2
2 - 3
3 - 8
4 - 7
5 - 5

Pin 5 is ground on both. On the reader, looking at the connector from the back, pins go 1-5 left to right.

Edit: the behavior you're describing with shutter is how mine acts. Shutter defaults to open after power on. It has to be told to close by whatever is sending commands. I think the idea is that you'd be able to clear a jam without the main board being on.
 
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