Sega Megadrive Arcade Power Stick

[Big al]

So i have set this stick up on Snac and for Megadrive and it works great, apart from for Sonic and Shinobi games and probably more there's issues with the left and right, its as if its trying to go left/right all the time,it works with Sms games fine, and 32x great and most other Megadrive stuff, just some games i cannot control the player, also using just the Megadrive pad everything works, i could understand if all games wouldn't work, but most do, has anybody tried this stick before ? Cheers.

sega arcade stick.jpg (657.96 KiB) Viewed 1610 times

[jd213]

My Genesis version works fine via SNAC, but it needs a level shifter. How is yours connected? Yours looks the UK version, I assume that one also uses membranes for the stick instead of microswitches, so the membranes might need cleaning. But if it works fine in some cores but not others, I'm guessing it's a problem with how it's connected.

[Big al]

I have stripped and cleaned, i should have said its a duel ram set up, whats a level shifter board ? i saw them on the website.. cheers. I did put it back to a single ram, I'm sure its better on some games but Sonic just tries to left and right and most of the other games work great, so i think the Stick is good, mines connected with the Snac to the snac cable to the mister.

UPDATE.. it seems the Db9 plug is faulty, if i move it, it works, still strange how some games did though, so do i need a level shifter ?

[jd213]

Hmm, hopefully it's just the connector, maybe try cleaning it with some isopropyl alcohol or something.
You'd probably only need a level shifter if you got one of the SNAC adapters that cost less than $10 USD off of Aliexpress, but if you paid a lot more than that, I assume it's built into the adapter. Otherwise the SNAC adapter won't send the correct voltage to the controller.

[Big al]

Hmm, hopefully it's just the connector, maybe try cleaning it with some isopropyl alcohol or something.
You'd probably only need a level shifter if you got one of the SNAC adapters that cost less than $10 USD off of Aliexpress, but if you paid a lot more than that, I assume it's built into the adapter. Otherwise the SNAC adapter won't send the correct voltage to the controller.

It was from Mister fpga i bought them all, minus Atari 2600 , i got confused when i saw level shifter and wondered if that would cure it, it does work on some games, otherwise i will just use the pad, Thanks for the help as well.

[jd213]

Ah, misterfpga.co.uk? Looks like their adapters don't include the level shifter, so you would indeed need one, it's sold as a "SNAC Adapter For MiSTer USB":
https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mister ... apter-usb/
I'm guessing the pad works without it since its chip might work OK with 3.3v, but it's probably a good idea to get the level shifter so you're feeding it 5V like the original console.

[Big al]

i did email them and they confirmed i would need a the level shift adaptor with the ones they sell, shame they hadn't mentioned this before as i had purchased all of them, so it looks like i use the Shift adapter on all the Snac ones, although i haven't had any issues only with the Sega stick, Ill let you know if it sorts the issue with the arcade stick out or not.

[Big al]

Ah, misterfpga.co.uk? Looks like their adapters don't include the level shifter, so you would indeed need one, it's sold as a "SNAC Adapter For MiSTer USB":
https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mister ... apter-usb/
I'm guessing the pad works without it since its chip might work OK with 3.3v, but it's probably a good idea to get the level shifter so you're feeding it 5V like the original console.

Had a 6 button original pad come for it and it does the same thing as the arcade stick, just waiting on the shifter level board now.

[jd213]

Yeah, most consoles' controllers ran off of 5v. N64 and PS1 use 3.3v though, so you wouldn't need it for SNAC adapters for those systems.

[Big al]

Yeah, most consoles' controllers ran off of 5v. N64 and PS1 use 3.3v though, so you wouldn't need it for SNAC adapters for those systems.

so i have Snac for
N64
Ps1
Nes
Snes
Pc engine
Atari 2600
Master System
Megadrive.

is it only N64 and PS1 that wont need the board ?.. Cheers

[jd213]

Yeah, I believe that's correct. Looks like the descriptions on misterfpga.co.uk also say not to use a level shifter for those systems' adapters.

[Big al]

Yeah, I believe that's correct. Looks like the descriptions on misterfpga.co.uk also say not to use a level shifter for those systems' adapters.

Had this email from them today

All SNAC adapters which do not have a built in level shifter, basically
all of these addon adapters
https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mister ... -adapters/
require the level shifter board to function correctly
(https://misterfpga.co.uk/product/mister ... apter-usb/) For full
SEGA functionality you also need the latest IO board as well, either a
Digital v1.2 or Analog v6.1

All very confusing.