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So i got a molex splitter figuring I could just grab 5v and ground from there - nope... :( no 5v on the wire.

@BladeZX - where did you grab power off the board to power the pi?
 
On the 246/256 you can grab it from the power cable for the DVD drive
Just splice into it and solder it and tape it up good
 
that is the molex connector.

that connector should 100% have both 12V and 5V... both of those are needed to run the original DVD or HDD and the ODE uses 5V from there too.
 
Boy - I just don't know.... can someone else check? I check my molex connector (that works when plugged into the IDE card, or drive) and its only got 12v on the yellow wire, nothing on the red wire.

Matt
 
So strange - I tested another one that I have - and 5v is coming fine out of it..

@electric_monk - does your ODE require 5v to operate?

Matt
 
Just curious does anyone know if you leave the memory card for SoulCalibur 2 in the second slot if it interferes with any of the other games or runs a risk of being corrupted?
 
Well - I don't quite know what the hell is going on. I pull out my second 256 board - check to see if 5V is on the molex connector - yup!

I strip another microusb cable (after verifying it does indeed power the Pi), and this cable only has a black and red wire - great! Can't mess this up. I solder them the respective black and red wires on the molex splitter... plug it all in - fire it up, no lights on the rpi, I unplug everything and power the rpi off the wall wart - fire it up, and everything still works, but now I have a second 256 that doesn't have 5v off the molex - what am I doing wrong?!

Edit: Verified that if I plug the DVD unit in - it doesn't power up at all. So - I somehow blew the 5v going through the molex, w/o harming the rest of the system? And it seems as if the ODE only needs 12v, not 5v to run.

Matt
 
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Well - I think I solved part of the question. I didn't see any sort of stepdown regulator on the ODE - so was really scratching my head.

Then I thought - what if the Rpi is powering it via 5v over usb? So I unplugged the molex from the ODE, and bingo - it all works as expected. I am not sure if I just missed this, or if it wasn't known, but no need (with this setup and the Rpi) to use Molex power into the ODE.

Since I had the Molex power plugged in AND usb power from the Rpi plugged in at the same time - I must have blown a fuse on the 256 motherboard? Does anyone have a schematic that I can look through - hopefully there is a dedicated fuse for the 5v going to the molex plug.

Ideally - I can fix that fuse, and then just power the whole rig off the molex->microusb into the Rpi.

Matt
 
So i poked around again on my (now 2) 256 motherboards that don't have 5v going through the molex (but otherwise seem to work just fine).

On one of my boards - FL3 definately isn't normal - it beeps right at the beginning for continuity and then builds up some resistance. But - when i looked at my second motherboard, FL2 was fine... so there goes that theory... :(

I tried to find Namco 256 schematics out on the interweb, but couldn't find them. Trying to figure out the components between the 4 pin molex on the motherboard and the power input - they are pretty close on the board.

I will probably pull 5v and ground from under the board right at the power input to power the RPi.

WARNING - in case I wasn't clear before - do not have your molex plugged into the ODE while having your Rpi plugged into the wall wart, and usb connected to the ODE - I am fairly confident you will blow a fuse (or something) like I did (twice).

Attached is a picutre of FL3 on one of my256 motherboards that looks visually wrong, and doesn't hold continuity.

Matt
 

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how they hell are you guys getting these so quickly. I ordered some of the original selector boards before the DVD slot ones were even designed and I'm STILL waiting on those. :-/ due to be delivered Saturday and the new PCB design is still in the manufacturing queue despite having ordered it minutes after it was posted.
 
how they hell are you guys getting these so quickly. I ordered some of the original selector boards before the DVD slot ones were even designed and I'm STILL waiting on those. :-/ due to be delivered Saturday and the new PCB design is still in the manufacturing queue despite having ordered it minutes after it was posted.
JLCPCB they are fast :D I ordered these on the 20th and they were cheaper than oshpark.

Edit: If you want any of the ones I have, I can send you some with the cps kit I have to send back to you, just let me know.
 
how they hell are you guys getting these so quickly. I ordered some of the original selector boards before the DVD slot ones were even designed and I'm STILL waiting on those. :-/ due to be delivered Saturday and the new PCB design is still in the manufacturing queue despite having ordered it minutes after it was posted.

I got totally lucky on mine - I had ordered from oshpark - but it got upgraded to "super swift service" because I lucked out and it was the right size to fit into a panel.

Matt
 
@BladeZX - on your setup - did you have both the molex power plugged into the ODE as well usb power into the Rpi?

Trying to figure out why mine caused an issue on my 256.

Matt
 
@mathewbeall
On my 256 I have the molex plugged into the ODE simulator. I have USB plugged into the Rpi but I got the 5v from the motherboard on my 256 - I will update this post with a picture of my 256 and where I tied into 5v and GND for the Rpi usb cable - ** picture attached
On the 246 I could not do that so I tied into the molex cable 5v and GND

*** This picture is for the 256 ONLY
 

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