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Ok - so I think I have come to an important conclusion at this point. A Sega Type II gun setup cannot be used in a cabinet setup for multiple gun games (NetBoot) because there is not a universal harness and each game uses a different gun connection. So even though the gun sense board can be used for any game going back to Jurassic Park and the gun hardware is all backwards compatible - that doesn’t mean different games can be played with that setup without a major hassle and certainly not plug and play with a single gun by any imagination. I had assumed an authentic Type II setup would be the ultimate for a gun cabinet with net booting; however, it looks like the S-JIHP (Thunderbolt gun) and the JVC core (USB) would be the ONLY options for net booting different games in one game cabinet. This all sounds correct? That was a big misconception on my part that the Type II setup would be easily compatible with a net booting setup because the hardware is capability with all games. The gun connections, however, is the problem and the guns would not work properly with a variety of games with one standard cabinet/setup and changing out specific harnesses for each game. Correct? Thanks for the patience to get that concept understood. I need to move on from my Type II aspirations.
 
An almost universal gun shooting setup should definitely be achievable. It doesn't matter if the harnesses are different between the games. What matters is what inputs are used on the JVS IO, and I think (twistedsymphony can confirm) the inputs are mostly the same. Also, you could easily place switches before the digital inputs, if you want something like slowdown in VC3 on a pedal, and that input is normally used for gun switching in Ghost Squad which you want on the gun (I don't know if this is true).
 
This all sounds correct?
nope, not at all.

I have a net boot setup in my gun cab. using Lost World Guns and this can play:
-Confidential Mission
-Death Crimson Ox
-House of the Dead 2
-Lupin the Shooting
-The Maze of the Kings

That's EVERY Naomi gun game except for Ninja Assault (because it doesn't support the Type II Guns) no rewiring, or swapping of anything required, just load up the new game and play.

you WILL need to re-calibrate the guns after loading a different game on a net-boot setup though.

You can probably drop a Model 3 Board in there for The Lost World, but you'll need to build a custom model 3 harness, and that's only because Model 3 doesn't have the same Pinout as a JVS board used on NAOMI.

LITERALLY there is no difference in compatibility from using this to using a mounted gun with S-JIHP you have the SAME EXACT problems with both setups because they wire to the game the same exact way.

If you want to expand to Chihiro you have other problems:
-Ghost Squad - Requires 2 extra buttons on the gun controller (also optionally supports kickback)
-House of the Dead 3 - Requires an extra button on the gun controller
-Virtua Cop 3 - Requires an extra button on the gun controller and a foot pedal

Similar problems if you want to expand to Lindbergh:
-Ghost Squad Evolution - Requires 2 extra buttons on the gun controller (also optionally supports kickback)
-House of the Dead EX - Require an extra button on the gun controller and a foot pedal
-House of the Dead 4 requires an extra button on the gun controller and an Accelerometer (also optionally supports shaker motor)
-Prime Evil Hunt - Requires an extra button on the gun controller, and a touch-screen (also optionally supports a speaker on the gun)
-Rambo - Requires an extra button on the controller (also optionally supports kick back and shaker motor)
-2 Spicy - Requires an extra button on the gun controller and 2 foot pedals (also optionally supports kick back)

When I said every gun has different wiring I mean that NONE of those guns I listed above will just plug into the Gun sense board, they're also designed to plug into some other gun harness or PCB first. So you can build a setup around HOTD2 guns and then expect to buy HOTD4 guns and have them just plug in, you'll need to build a custom harness. With that said you can buy HOTD4 guns and still play everything on NAOMI using those guns.

Compatibility problems all come down to the unique extra features that the new games have added.
 
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As long as you have the right harness for the gun, it will plug into and work with any type 2 BD gun sense. E.g. If you buy an HOD3 shotgun, you need an HOD3 harness to connect the gun hose to the BD gun sense without making your own custom cables.

As far as mods go, adding extra buttons to a gun when needed is no big deal imo. You just need to make sure you have all the right back-end hardware for games that use additional parts. Games like Ghost Squad, for example, use an extra gun fuse board and I have no idea if it will run without it. After that, I'm sure you could achieve a lot with switches to use one gun set up with multiple platforms. You just need the will to take on a project but that's no different to any non-jamma multi game arcade set-up.

Personally, once you get to the PC based arcade era, I'm fine running those games through Teknoparrot. It's original hardware for all intents and purposes, just with the added convenience of being able to map your controls to your own hardware. If you're playing the arcade version of Hod4 on a PC using an Hod4 arcade guns hooked up to a real type 2 gun I/O, what's not to like?

So, a Naomi net boot plus a Teknoparrot PC would make a very decent multi-game shooting cab once you buy or make a gun with enough buttons.
 
You show the opposite order in your pic on page 2 of this thread so I assume one is an old pic. I'm a little paranoid about getting the wrong order as a bunch of people describe frying their boards like that.
If you're talking about the header picture it's just a picture of the board when I first took it out of the box. Whoever had owned it before me had plugged in the wrong end of the cable. which doesn't matter because in doing so it still reverses the order of the pins on the other side, it just doesn't mach the original pin coloring.
rule #1 of wiring is you NEVER trust the wire colors and always confirm from the pinout or with a multi-meter.

wire colors are only there to help you tell the wires apart in a bundle and give you a starting point when confirming the other end with a multi-meter. many MANY OEM harnesses don't even follow their own wiring standard from the manual or even consistently in manufacturing.

for all I know that backwards LED cable on the gun sense board was plugged in wrong from the factory and no one ever corrected it.

I've changed the title image to a picture from my Gun Pedestal with correct wiring color if that eases your anxiety.
I thought that was the case. Just seeing you confirm it eases any anxiety I had. I trust you. It's just that these cost a lot (as you know), so it made me feel better to ask. I'm turning it on today.

Out of interest, how do you confirm you have it right with a multi-meter without powering up the board first? I bought a 0-5v analog volt meter to test the X Y output from the board but I figured that, if it was wired wrong enough to blow the PCB, it would probably happen as soon as I turned it on.

That's what usually happens if I make a wiring mistake anyway. You see the magic smoke escape as soon as you turn it on, just before the wires start to melt and set your carpet on fire.
 
Out of interest, how do you confirm you have it right with a multi-meter without powering up the board first?
generally as long as you have the power and ground pins correct you can mess up the data wires without letting out the black magic smoke.

So if I'm checking the pinouts of a board I'm unsure of I will first confirm the ground pins, by checking the power input pins against known ground points such as large ground plate, or any labeled test points then I will verify the VCC pins against known power input pins on chips (such as the power and ground pins on a 74 series ICs or CPUs). In the case of the Gun sense board we have a 12V input going to a 12V to 5V DC-DC converter so that gives us a great reference point for verifying all of the 12V 5V and Ground pins on all of the connectors.

on something like a game PCB you have to be weary of video and amplified audio pins as you can damage PCB if you hook those up wrong. So if I was trying to determine the pinout for a board I had no pinout for, after verifying the power Pins I'd simply power it on with JUST the power pins connected, then I put a scope on the other pins to see if I could make educated guess for video sync and audio pins. In the case of the gun sense board you could use a multi meter in DC voltage mode to verify the analog output pins.

as for A,B,C,D, pins on the sensors and LED boards. we simply don't know what these do so we have to simply trust that the pin-outs in the game manuals are correct, though as long as you're not crossing these with the power and ground pins there is low risk to damaging the PCB if they're wrong.

EDIT: I should also mention caps hold a charge and as such you can get false positives in continuity mode for a second.
So for instance you can touch a 5V pin to a GND pin and your meter will beep confirming continuity even though there is none, but you just need to hold it there for a second to verify that it continues to show continuity.
 
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That makes sense. I'll try turning on the board without the led modules to check for correct voltage before plugging in the expensive stuff. I'm guessing the gun sensors would be somewhat protected by the register array on the gun protect boards but can't hurt to be sure there too.

BTW, I just received a UHID nano from Ultimarc to connect the Sega guns. It has all the functionality of the regular UHID except with just 8 inputs or outputs. It costs $35 instead of $70 which seems more reasonable. I was going to use my Apac but these UHID devices can handle outputs as well, so I may be able to drive my recoil circuit directly from it. Always good to have another option for analog and optical controls.

I'm hoping to get this set-up working on an original Xbox. I know a modded Xbox with a 128mb ram upgrade can play Virtua Cop 3 but with no gun support. As the original arcade is basically an Xbox with a Sega type 2 gun, there should be a way to use my Sega arcade guns on the home console.
 
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I turned mine on and nothing blew up which is a good start. The red lights on the gun protect PCB lit up (which I assume is meant to happen) and no magic smoke escaped. Phew!

I checked the power output from the gun protect PCBs expecting it to register as 12v on my meter. It showed it as DC voltage but the 12v light stayed off. I then tried it on my 0-5v analog meter and the needle moved to just under 5v. Is it possible that the through hole gun sense board outputs 5v to the gun from the gun protect PCB due to the resistor array? I.e. Did you measure 12v from the board directly or from the gun protect PCB?

My HOD4 gun is obviously Lindbergh era and I don't know how to tell if it's gun sensor is the kind that works with my (older) gun sense board or the kind that gets broken by it? I think my other one is from a Ghost Squad gun so hopefully it works with 12v or 5v.
 
Holy f*ck it works!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT3PtGAS49E

I used a Uhid nano as it has outputs for recoil. It was fairly straightforward once I found a working BD gun sense board.

It seems like it has the potential to be accurate if you stand at the right distance (and don't move). The UHID has additional adjustments and offsets to help you calibrate it so crosshairs line up with iron sights. I was able to play Time Crisis without visible crosshairs on-screen. It's not as good as real light guns but maybe it could get close with a little extra calibration effort.
 
This is one of me playing Time Crisis in mame with the type 2 HOD4 gun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB-n8Qe25Ww

I'll make another video soon to show a comparison with playing Time Crisis with real light guns using my USB2gun board and SuzoHapp guns. Both set-ups seem to work in a similar way on the back-end. I.e. They convert coordinates to a standard 0-5v analog signal.
 
The next phase of my gun cab project is to make my Sega Type 2 gun output as a mouse instead of an analog joystick in Windows. I'm finding it very limiting when it can only output as an analog controller. For some reason a lot of gun games on the PC only work properly with a mouse which sucks. I'd rather not play at all than use a mouse as a gun.

There are various software options that apparently let you use analog controls on emulators or games that don't natively support them but I can't make any of them work right with my UHID or Apac. So... I'm going to try a hardware solution.

I'm going to connect the BD gun sense X Y outputs to this Arduino thing I bought:



Then I am going to follow these instructions and borrow their code:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwCzx7UhOd0

Except, instead of connecting the X Y wipers from the analog joystick, it will be from the BD gun sense.

If that all works, I'll use this hack to change it from a regular relative mouse to an absolute mouse which has at least some chance of being accurate:

https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=94140.0

Then, I'll install a switch allowing me to choose between mouse or analog controller.
 
I've heard GlovePIE is good for emulating a mouse with analog inputs, though I've never tried.
 
I've heard GlovePIE is good for emulating a mouse with analog inputs, though I've never tried.
Is that one of the joystick to mouse software solutions?

I found a whole bunch of free software that let's you move a mouse pointer with an analog (or digital) joystick. My problem has been making any of them work well enough for this purpose.

Most of the software I found was limited to relative mouse control. I.e. moving the analog stick controls how fast the pointer moves, not it's location. I found one called JoysticktoMouse which has an absolute mode (I.e. Where 5v is one edge, 0v is the opposite edge and 2.5v is the center of the axis) but I can't figure out how to adjust the settings to make it feel right. Maybe you'll have better luck with that one.

The other common issues I found was limited compatibility with my devices (I.e. They only work with Xbox 360 controllers, not Apac or UHID) or poor compatibility with the software I wanted to use.

I like the idea of setting something up to work right once with hardware and then being able to use it easily with all current and future games and emulators. I also want to try it with a PS3 keyboard and mouse adapter to maybe use the type 2 guns on consoles.

If you have any luck making one of the software solutions work right for this then please let me know. This seemingly easy to solve problem is starting to make me tear my hair out... I could use some good news from someone who understands what is needed.

I ordered a Titan one and Two to try with type 2 guns as well. I'm hoping it will let me use my Hod 4 arcade guns on my PS2, Wii, PS3 and Dreamcast. I have a lot of homework...
 
Anything that requires writing code is out for me. I have zero programming capabilities. Anything I use has to either use drop-down menus, be plug in n play or be configured by somebody else.

The Titan One and Titan Two devices seem to be a hardware version of what you described. In addition to plug in n play crossover gaming peripherals, they allow users to create custom scripts for each game or console for various purposes. I'll only get basic functionality from mine with my skills but someone with coding experience would have a field day with one.

I wish I would have spent more timing with the nerds at school now instead of smoking pot with the cool kids. Who knew programming would eventually become useful ....
 
https://github.com/samuelballantyne/IR-Light-Gun/tree/master/Samco_IR_Light_Gun_M0

This project does absolute mouse movements if you still need that.

Always seems strange to me people pay lots of money for these APAC things, when you could get a $2 arduino to do the same thing - but I suppose not everyone knows how to program or wants to make that sort of effort!
That's basically it. Arduinos are not user friendly or convenient and it's a level of excess hassle that a lot of working people don't have time or patience for. An Apac is easy. You just connect the pots to convenient screw terminals and you can start using your arcade controls in minutes.

Arduinos have gotten a little better with all that recently. Now you can flash new code via a simple USB connection to a PC and there is an ever increasing library of ready-made free code you can download and tutorials aplenty. There's still a learning curve though and nobody to ask for arcade controls help.

UHIDs are in a whole different league to Apacs or Arduino. They are amazing. There is no better device for hooking up all your arcade controls and outputs to a single USB port. Their configuration software is fantastic.

On the link, I'm not sure what you sent. It looks like the files for that diy Samco "light gun". I'm trying to hook up my Sega type 2 arcade guns to my PC as a mouse instead of an analog joystick. Is one of the Samco files the Arduino code to convert analog X Y wiper signals into absolute mouse instructions?
 
Yeah I totally get that - really makes you realise how useful being able to program is, if you ever get the time I'd deffinately reccomend learning!

I can see that the Samco gun code I sent you is messy and incomplete, so I've made a version for you that'll hopefully do what your wanting and commented on it, its available here:

https://github.com/bobbydilley/ArduinoAnalogueMouse

You need to plug your guns into A0 and A1 and then a trigger into digital pin 5.

This will only work for an Arduino Due or Zero or one of those Teensy devices that support HID out.
 
I really want to learn to program at some point. I have so many ideas and things I want to do. It's frustrating to know something is possible and probably easy but out of my reach.

It's worse because I'm a light gun fanatic. If you want to use your fav racing wheel or flight stick or fight stick on a certain console, there is always tons of off-the shelf options and adapters. But... If you want to use your Guncon 3 on a PC, or in my case, use my Sega Type 2 arcade guns on a PS3, PS2 or Dreamcast, there is not a single off-the-shelf solution anywhere on earth. I'd love to be able to write my own drivers or a custom Arduino code to make a diy crossover device etc.

On the code you posted, would it work on an Arduino Leonardo? That's the one I bought as I was going to copy the YouTube video. I'm not really sure what makes code work with one Arduino device but not another.

Thanks for helping me on this. I really appreciate it. once I get it up an running you should post it as a sticky. It's info that will be useful to a lot of home arcade fans....
 
Honestly learning to code for something like Arduino is very easy. it's far less complex than trying to write a program for a computer. and honestly it's a good universal language that gives a good foundation for other platforms.

Here's a good tutorial for people who don't know anything about code at all: https://www.programmingelectronics.com/tutorial-3-arduino-ide-and-sketch-overview/

The best way to learn things like this is to have a project in mind and start by learning what you need to get the project done.

It can be easy to look at a project and feel overwhelmed, but just break it down into tiny little parts and then break those parts down into even smaller parts and tackle each part one at a time.
 
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