Panther DC woes

[hawkzer0]

Hi all!

I just picked up a panther DC from eBay for a decent price. Have been looking for one of these for awhile now and was super stoked to finally get one!

However, after some testing, it seems to be malfunctioning. The triggers and buttons on the joystick only work when I pull the joystick all the way to the left. This is true for panther mode and standard mode, and for every game/ menu I have tested so far.

Hopefully someone on here has some experience with one of these and would be able to tell me if this is normal or if I need to do some rewiring

Thanks for any responses!

[Anthony817]

What is Panther? A controller by the sounds of it?

[hawkzer0]

Yup! It is a combo flight stick and trackball more infor can be found here https://segaretro.org/Panther_DC

I really hope someone can chime in on this with some advice or a wiring guide haha

[Anthony817]

Ah ok I remember now! I saw this like almost 9 years ago back in the day when Adam Koralik did a video on it. Pretty cool controller.

https://youtu.be/WR6QKXMf19w

[DCGX]

I just bought a "new" in box (we'll see) Panther off eBay too, but it hasn't been delivered yet. It might be the wiring, it might be the switches underneath. I know people have had issues with Panthers just not working over the past 10-15 years.

I realize I'm no help here, but it's a 20 year old MadCatz product. These things fail, unfortunately.

Did the listing you purchased it from list any issues/condition? Is it too late to return your Panther?

[Ian Micheal]

prolly fix it i doubt it's that complex

[hawkzer0]

DCGX: yea I got this one for $35 plus shipping so I think I'll try to fix it. I have had really bad luck with madcatz Dreamcast stuff. The madcatz memory card that came with the panther will stop my gdemu from ever reaching gdmenu after the Sega screen when it is plugged in lol. The seller said it was working perfectly, and I really think he thought it was. It works great other than the above described issue with some of the joystick buttons.

Ian: I *might* have narrowed the problem down to a break in the wires in one spot where the cable goes from the base up into the joystick. I'll have to do some continuity tests later today. It's just a pain to work on. But totally worth it!

Thanks for all the responses!

[DCGX]

For that price, yeah might as well try to fix it.

[DCGX]

I got my Panther yesterday, brand new in box. I understand the clean look and having already had a PC variant, but I wish they had labeled the buttons that corresponded to the DC pad's buttons. Remembering them, or just plain figuring them out because I didn't read the manual first, is quite a frustrating process and not very intuitive.

It takes a lot of tinkering with the controls, and I don't know if it's worth it for FPSs if someone already has a mouse and keyboard.

The Panther definitely works better with the flight games, but some default controls just don't make sense. Like not having the otherwise mapped firing button to the Panther's triggers. Most of the time they're defaulted to the buttons on top of the stick.

I don't know. One day I'll sit down and really mess with it. For now, it looks good sitting next to my DC Twin Stick.

[hawkzer0]

That's good to hear! I definitely bought it for use in cockpit style games. Yea at least it looks good as a display piece!

Any chance you could make a scan of that manual for me?