Sounds like it might be a common high instead of a common ground. Leave the power and ground connections between the two boards, but get rid of any other cables connected to two boards. Take a Sharpie and mark the terminal that is for VCC to make sure you know at a glance which one it is so you never touch it on accident. Solder a wire to one of the common pads on the PSX pad. Plug in the Cthulhu, go to the stick properties, and tough the other end of that wire to the terminal at the other end from the VCC terminal (start). Check to see if the button reacts in the control panel applet. If it doesnāt react, its not a common ground.
Tried this. Having the ps2 pad hooked to the cthulhu (henceforth Cathy, because itās easier to spell) causes Cathy to not even show up. In fact, the entire hub that I connect Cathy to loses power (I know this because my external harddrive turned off). Miraculously, both pads still work. However, I plugged in the ps2 pad again, and now, buttons activate when touched to VCC instead of ground. This is odd to me, because I KNOW that touching a button with ground would activate it before (I have ground marked with a flag, so I know this). This switch happened once before, and it went back. What the HELL could cause the buttons to switch from being activated by connection with ground to connection with VCC? (note: itās never either-or at any time, if it wants power, you have to give it power, if it wants ground you must give it ground).
Iāve noticed one other thing; the power has a resistor on the other side of a value I canāt make out, hidden beneath the hot glue blob holding the cord in. The VCC Iāve been connecting to things is on the other side of this resistor, so I have been giving less than 5V when giving power to Cathy, and giving 5V to the PS2 pad, which is more than what it wants (since the 5V source should also be cut by a resistor). Would it be in my best interest to solder to connect the other side of the resistor to Cathy (obviously not to the rest of the ps2 board)? Also, Iād really like to know why the buttons are switching from ground to powerā¦
Thanks.
Whoa. Thatās a problem. The hub saw too much power being drained and cut it off. That means you have a short somewhere. Check the resistance between the VCC terminal and one of the ground terminals before plugging anything into anything. If you ever see a resistance less than 100 ohms (its usually MUCH bigger), do NOT plug it into anything until you have it fixed.
Disconnect the two entirely. Verify the Cthulhu works well on its own. Ditto for the ps2 pad. Then, use your multimeter to double check the pins youāre using for power and ground on the PSX pad. Plug the PSX pad in by itself to a playstation or PC via a converter, and use your multimeter to check the voltages on both halves of a pad, making sure you know which one is the ācommonā line.
The new MadCatz SFIV sticks are looking really nice, but I have a question about modding one:
From a picture of the inside of the new SFIV stick, it looks like the PCB they use doesnāt have a common ground.
Hereās the shot: http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.media/ars_stick1.jpg
Would it be possible to dual mod a 360 SFIV stick which doesnāt have common ground with a DS1 PCB that DOES have a common ground?
MarkMan has confirmed that the sticks have common ground; āCommon ground. Youāre welcome.ā
And oh, I have THREE PCBs in my stick :wgrin:
Okay, so Iām new to this, but for various reasons I feel a stick that works for 6 different systems (including PC) would be a good idea for me. Iām considering building one with FIVE PCBs, but before I go anywhere with this, I want to make sure I have this part right, regarding the incoming power lines from the cables:
http://midboss.eotmud.com/dia1.png
If I run the power wires through diodes and a PTC fuse, like above, then onto any one of the PCBs, which Iāve wired together from there, and put in a switch (also like above) for the data lines of the USB, it should work fine with 4 cables to support 6 platforms, while being safe from some random idiot trying to play multiple games at once, right?
Sure. Although I donāt know why youād want to mess with both a Wii and a GC controller when the GC controller does everything except maybe Samurai Shodown Anthology, but to each their own. The drawing looks good. SInce all PCBās have to be powered, try and guage the power consumption of each to make sure you get a PTC that can handle all of that power without tripping.
EDIT: Oh, and expect for the batteries to be drained QUICK when using the Wiimote connection.
Battery drainage isnāt much of a concern for me as Iāve got plenty of rechargeables to throw at it, though youāre entirely right about the Gamecube controller, I admittedly hadnāt thought too carefully about what I might actually play with it in my haste to sketch something up. Above all else, I just wanted to see if Iād understood what Iāve read here well enough to successfully build a multi-PCB stick at all without blowing something up.
Anyway, thanks for looking at it! Once I get this stick built (sadly itāll be a while before I can afford parts) Iāll be sure to head back this way and show it off.
Keep an eye out for the when teh multi-console Cthulhu gets done. Work is still underway, but if itās done by the time you start, youāll be able to take care of at least three of the consoles you have listed, plus Xbox1. Itād cut your work down significantly.
So you will be able to add a psx pcb to the 360 sf4 stick? I want to be able to use it for 360 and psx and just buy a convertor for ps3. But is anyone capable of doing this service for me(because im certainly not) when the time comes? I asked in Trading thread no one responded yet. 
Another option you have is that thereās an adapter for the 360 to the PS3.
How can we answer this if it hasnāt been released yet? Right now, the answer is somewhere between āmaybeā and āshould be able toā.
-Sorry, I thought you guys could tell by the inside of the stick pictures. My bads 
-And a 360 to ps3 convertor would be ok, but I wanted it for psx so I could play them too and just get a ps3 convertor. Unless there is a ps3 to psx convertor which I dont think exists.
Iāve been entirely unsuccessful so far trying to put a wireless xbox1 and wireless xbox 360 pcb in one stick. Both are common ground pcbs and Iāve tried powering both with there own AA battery packs while having them connected.
Has anyone managed to do this with 2 wireless controllers?
The first page of the SFIV sticks thread says that the PCB that comes in the 360 TE stick has a common ground, so adding a PSX PCB shouldnāt be an issue.
And Iāll do it for you if itās possible. I ordered a 360 TE stick for the same reason, and Iāll let you know how it goes when I try to mod mine.
Jollies FTW!! :lovin:
Yeah, I donāt want to be lugging around 2 sticks around if I could avoid it.
so i found out that the black wire (number 8) IS ground, and that the red wire (number 6) IS power. i have also succesfully connected this pcb with the madcatz arcade pcb and it works perfectā¦ iāll post some pics soon :lovin:
Okay, tried my first dual PCB mod about a month ago. I turned my HRAP2 into a 360/PSX stick but instead of reusing the HRAP PCB, I instead used an original PSX controller for the PlayStation portion. It worked for a while, but an attempt to fix a dead select button recently fried the Sony board. So Iām turning back to my HRAPās original PCB, something I shouldāve done in the first place. While Iām aware that the HRAP2 PCB is common ground, Iāve got a couple other questions about it:
- Whereās the 3.3v power on it?
- Each button has a ground and signal wire running from the PCB. Is there an easy way to tell which wire is which, or should it not matter?
Thanks so much in advance.
- Easiest way to find the power line for all PSX pads is use a multimeter with one end on the very middle pin of the plug, and use the multimeter to find out where that line goes into the board. On an HRAP, you should see a blue aluminum capacitor on the board. Check the two legs of it. One should connect to ground, the other is your power. Connecting a wire to there may be easiest.
- If you look at the pcb, it should be easy to see which is which. You can also use a multimeter; if two wires of different colors show no resistance between them, they are both ground. Use one of them to find the rest of the grounds.
If i want to put a db 25 connector on the back of my stick for use with a supergun and i already have a ps2 or xbox360 pad inside the stick do i still need to connect the grounds and 5vās together