Need Help: Connect Suzo Happ guns to Ghoul Panic v218

[EhmSii]

I didn't know if this was the correct forum to ask this question. Mods, feel free to move this if needed.

I'm in the process of swapping out my Point Blank 2 System 12 PCB for a Ghoul PanicPCB set, and I’ve run into an issue with the light guns not functioning.


When I plug the Point Blank 2 JAMMA connector directly into the Ghoul Panic PCB, everything works except the guns — video displays fine, audio is good, coins register, start buttons and test switch all function correctly. But the guns are completely unresponsive, both in-game and in test mode.


From what I’ve gathered, Point Blank 2 reads gun inputs directly through JAMMA, while Ghoul Panic appears to rely on an extra I/O board — specifically a Namco V218 filter/gun sense board — for gun signal processing.

My questions:​

• Is there a schematic or manual for the V218 board or Ghoul Panic wiring layout? I am not finding anything online.
• Is the V218 board absolutely required for gun functionality with Ghoul Panic, or is there a way to wire the Suzo Happ guns directly to the PCB like with Point Blank 2?
• The V218 board has 3 output connectors: a 12-pin, a 15-pin D-sub, and a 20-pin JST-style plug. Does anyone have documentation or a working pinout for wiring standard Suzo Happ guns (which work perfectly with Point Blank 2) to this board?
  

Any insight or reference material would be greatly appreciated! Pics of working setups or wiring guides would also help a ton.


Thanks in advance!

 

[nem]

Ghoul Panic should just drop in place of a Point Blank 2, so I'm not sure what the issue is.

The V218 is a filter board, it is completely passive. It just consolidates all the wiring into a set of connectors. My Japanese Point Blank cabinet does not have a jamma connector, everything plugs into these connectors.

Can you show how you have Point Blank 2 set up in your cabinet?

V218 should have the same pinout as V147 below. It's just missing J106, which is only used with Point Blank 1.

Post in thread 'Namco JVS I/O pcbs documentation list'

Jan 26, 2024

Namco V147 EMI PCB
I/O board for Point Blank 2. I couldn't find much info on this online, so here are the pinouts that I reverse engineered or otherwise scrounged together:

J103 (Parts Side) (Connects to J3 on Point Blank 2 PCB)
1 N/C
2 N/C
3 N/C
4 J3 Pin 1
5 J3 Pin 2
6 J3 Pin 3
7 N/C
8 J3 Pin 6
9 J3 Pin 5
10 J3 Pin 4
11 J3 Pin 7
12 N/C
13 J3 Pin 10
14 J3 Pin 9
15 J3 Pin 8

J105 (Solder Side) (Gun/Lamp connector)
1 +24v
2 +24v
3 +12v
4 +5v
5 +5v
6 Solenoid 1
7 Trigger 1
8 GND
9 Sensor 1
10 Lamp 1
11...

• Srayer

• 
• 

 

[EhmSii]

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post! Much appreciated

My Point Blank 2 setup connects directly to the JAMMA harness without using a consolidation or filter board. This setup was custom-built for me by a professional arcade service years ago (they’re no longer in business).


I’ve attached pictures of the fully functioning Point Blank 2 PCB, showing the JAMMA connection and how the guns are wired. The entire setup works perfectly with Point Blank 2 — video, sound, controls, and both guns are fully functional.


However, when I connect the exact same harness and connectors to the Ghoul Panic PCB, everything works except the guns. They don’t respond in-game or in test mode.


Could this be due to a missing or faulty gun input/filter board on the Ghoul Panic setup? Or could it be a bad gun sense circuit on the Ghoul Panic PCB itself?


Thanks again for the help — I really appreciate any input or guidance!

 

[nem]

You can put away the V218 filter board as you do not need it.

So let me just confirm the following:

You have swapped the "PB2 gun harness" connector over to the Ghoul Panic board?

From what I’ve gathered, Point Blank 2 reads gun inputs directly through JAMMA

It does not. The gun inputs are on the gun harness. Ghoul Panic uses the same harness as Point Blank 2.

Now if the guns don't work even though the harness is connected, then it sounds to me like the gun daughter board is faulty.

EDIT: is the gun daughter board the same between these two games?

 

[EhmSii]

I should clarify — both the Point Blank 2 and Ghoul Panic PCB sets (excluding the V218 board) have identical connectors in identical locations, so I simply moved all cables from the Point Blank 2 board to the corresponding ports on the Ghoul Panic board.


Everything works except the guns — video, audio, coin, start buttons, and test switch are all functioning.


After that, I checked the gun I/O boards on both sets and noticed they are not identical — different model numbers and different chip markings (photos attached). So even though I have a working gun board on the Point Blank 2 set, I'm hesitant to swap it into the Ghoul Panic setup.


My concern is:

• If something on the Ghoul Panic board is faulty and caused its gun board to fail, I could risk damaging my good Point Blank 2 gun board by testing it there.
• If that happens, I'd go from needing one working gun board to two, and I’m already having trouble sourcing even one.

Question:​

Is it safe to test the known working Point Blank 2 gun board on the Ghoul Panic PCB, or could that potentially damage it if there’s an issue on the mainboard side?

Also, if you know anyone with tested functioning versions of these gun boards I have $$.

 

[EhmSii]

Observation on System 12 Stacks – Missing Gun I/O Layer in Tekken/Soul Calibur Sets


While browsing eBay, I noticed that several Tekken and Soul Calibur System 12 board sets use the same daughterboard model number as the one found in my Ghoul Panic setup. However, there’s a key difference in the stack layout.


Both Point Blank 2 and Ghoul Panic use a 3-board stack:

• The main board connects to an intermediate board,
• And that intermediate board connects to the top daughterboard (the one pictured earlier).

What’s interesting is that most of the Tekken and Soul Calibur sets I found are missing the middle board entirely — they go straight from the main board to the daughterboard.


That middle board appears to be critical — it’s the one that has the header for the gun harness connection.


(See attached pics for reference.)


Maybe the intermediate board is the one that is malfunctioning.

 

[nem]

After that, I checked the gun I/O boards on both sets and noticed they are not identical — different model numbers and different chip markings (photos attached).

The board you have pictured is the CPU board. There's nothing wrong with that as the game is running.

The gun daughter board sits below the CPU board. I assume they are the same, but I don't own a Ghoul Panic to confirm.

If they look the same, I would try swapping them.

 

[EhmSii]

Im gonna test this out this evening. I APPRECIATE YOU SO MUCH!

 

[EhmSii]

I tried installing the PB2 gun board on the Ghoul Panic jamma board but it didn't work. It only resulted in gray screen. I guess my only hope is to find a ghoul panic gun board or maybe have this one repaired. Can boards like this be repaired?

 

[nem]

Oh, I know what's likely wrong.

I think it's because the triggers are normally on the auxiliary edge connector, not the jamma connector. That's why you have jumper wires on the Point Blank 2 board. They're the blue wires. Would explain why the guns don't do anything.

Start by copying these two to the Ghoul Panic board:

The other three wires are for P1 & P2 start and maybe the coin signal?

 

[EhmSii]

Interesting... I hadnt noticed. I will give that a shot.

I have attached the pictures of the Point Blank 2 Gun board and the Ghoul Panic 2 gun board. They look identical but the chips markings and model number are different.

 

[nem]

Those should be interchangeable. They're the same board.

Try to get the game booting again and then do the jumper wires. I'm almost certain it will fix your issue.

 

[EhmSii]

Over the next few days, I’m going to try tackling these tiny solder points in my free time. I’ve attached images with the two wires in question highlighted — note that the red wire is soldered to two points on the board on one end.

I don’t believe the blue wires are entirely to coin, music, or button inputs, since all of those work perfectly when I swap the JAMMA cables over to the Ghoul Panic board. The only thing that doesn’t work is the guns.

When I enter the test mode on the Ghoul Panic board and go to the gun test screen, it doesn’t register any gun input — there’s no on-screen marker to indicate where I am aiming or trigger response. So it seems like both the gun position (sensor) and the trigger signal aren’t being detected.

Given that, do you think I should try replicating all the blue wire solder points on the GP board? I'm not sure I’ll be able to pull it off — I’ve never soldered anything this small before.

 

[nem]

I don’t believe the blue wires are entirely to coin, music, or button inputs, since all of those work perfectly when I swap the JAMMA cables over to the Ghoul Panic board.

Well, you can verify what they are by comparing to the jamma pinout:

https://wiki.arcadeotaku.com/w/JAMMA#Jamma_connector_pinout

Are there wires on the underside of the PB2 baord too?

Do the triggers work in the input test on Ghoul Panic?

If you don't feel comfortable soldering to the board, you could get a System11/12 kick harness connector. Then wire that up to the guns.

 

[EhmSii]

After weeks of searching, I cant seem to find a kick harness anywhere. I am going to have to perform the solders

Also, the link you posted of the Jamma pinout is for the right side of the board(J102), but I need a pinout for the left side of the jamma (J101) to see what was transferred to the right side(j102) via the blue wires.

Answers to your questions:
1: There arent any wires on the underside. The blue wires from the pics are the only ones.
2: The triggers/solenoids do not work on ghoul panic when going into test mode, or anywhere.

Questions:
1: Do you know where I can find a pinout to the left jamma slot (J101)
2: How would you go about identifying what pin each of these blue wires is connected to? I ask because the Ghoul panic board has different architecture so I cant just 1:1 copy the solders. (see photo)

 

[EhmSii]

Update from today:

I noticed that the white wires exiting Z22 on the J102 Jamma side went to the happ guns, and that they were likely the trigger. So I connected a wire from this to each of the leads on the J101 pinout while watching the "Switch Test" screen and discovered that two pins (A6) caused the p1 trigger to show ON. I then went to the "Gun initialization" menu and found that IF I held down the trigger on P1 gun I could see the red marker dot on the screen, BUT not without holding the trigger down. Also, i was unable to initialize the gun because the game senses that the trigger is always pulled so any attempt to enter the initialization process was immediately stopped. As in, if I click p1 start to initialize then it would immediately kick me out of the initialization process.

From here I tried connecting a ground to the same wire that was connected from A6 to Z22 and discovered that the gun switch would show on or off depending on if I clicked the trigger or not, like a normally function gun, BUT ONLY if I was ALSO holding down the p2 trigger. IF I wasn't holding down the p2 trigger, then nothing would happen when clicking the p1 trigger. From here I was able to fully initialize the p1 gun(only while holding down the p2 trigger). I started the game up and found that if I held down the p2 trigger, the p1 gun would fire AND the solenoid would trigger too! However, when I was in game, about 1 in every 20 shots would actually interact with the screen. To get a bullet to fire at a target you would have to click both triggers at once while aiming at the same target.

I am unsure of what to make of all of this, but it is still progress.

Should I make a video of my findings so they are easier to understand?

 

[nem]

Honestly, I'm kind of lost with your findings.

After weeks of searching, I cant seem to find a kick harness anywhere. I am going to have to perform the solders

https://www.zax.com.au/product/9843-48-pin-namco-harness-connector

30 bucks, not cheap, but it's there if you want it.

Also, the link you posted of the Jamma pinout is for the right side of the board(J102), but I need a pinout for the left side of the jamma (J101) to see what was transferred to the right side(j102) via the blue wires.

The left side connector is not jamma. It's Namco's own proprietary connector. I'm not sure there is a pinout available for it, but I am sure the pinout is the same between the two boards. Ghoul Panic was meant to drop in place of Point Blank. Point Blank 1, 2 and 3 are all different hardware too, but the edge connectors are all compatible with each other. Same thing.

Anyway, you need a multimeter. Then check which pads are connected together between J101 and J102 and then bridge them on the Ghoul Panic board as well.