I haven’t seen any threads discussing this so I thought I’d write about my experience so far…
It’s a pretty straightforward setup, all the hard work has been done by @Brook_Engineer.
ribbon cable & breakout board not connected, excuse the crap flex tubing:
as you can see everything is wired through the retro board and connected to the back of the stick by a neutrik rj45 connector.
everything works as advertised, holding start + select when connecting the stick to a console prioritises the correct pcb depending on jumper positions. if you hit the guide button while using the retro board it will turn on your PS/4 by the way i have a lockout switch to stop this.
however there are some differences in the wfb’s behaviour compared to another stick I have which is just purely a Wireless fightboard setup.
with the dual mod stick, I always have to hold 2P and mash guide 3-4 times to turn on the PS4 - compared to the wfb only stick, I just tap the guide button and it turns on the ps4 instantly. this also applies when just connecting to a console that’s already on.
when the wfb only stick is turned off or disconnects via timeout, I only tap the guide button once to reconnect, and it remembers what console it was connected to. with the dual mod I have to hold the appropriate button (2P = PS4, 1K = Switch) and mash guide again.
And lastly, If I am charging the dual mod stick (external battery/usb plug/connected to retro console), it behaves exactly like the wfb only stick
I can only assume these differences are due to the fact all the buttons are wired in via the retro board or the power acts differently… I haven’t gotten around to testing it, but I will try wiring up the guide button to the wfb and see if that makes a difference.
I would like to round this off by saying thanks to Brook for making the retroboard and making it so easy to dual mod with, classy work. Also shoutouts to buttercade for the wfb + antennae + battery caddy, and allfightsticks for the case.
PS: as awesome as the wfb is I can’t understand why the share key is mapped to (-) on the switch, and tpkey is mapped to capture?!
also i’d love to be able to swap A & B when connected to the the switch
hopefully this makes it clearer - it really is quite a simple setup, i’ve just highlighted where the boards are connected and the rj45. all the buttons are wired into the retro board except tpkey (the red wire).
I was wondering, if I understand correctly the buttons need some power to work - which would mean the wfb is always drawing a small amount of power from the battery? I’m going to quickly try wiring up the guide button directly to the board and see what happens.
That’s not what I meant but thankyou.
I mean following every wire to its connection.
Buttons don’t need power (except for the rare optical or hall effects buttons), they just need signal and ground.
are both boards wired to the Ground and VCC at all times?
Typically with the non-wireless boards you want all boards wired to VCC and Ground at all times.
Powered up boards with no data input from the console typically goes into a idle state.
If one board is powered and not the other, you get missing or false inputs as the unpowered board gets some voltage from the button/joystick signal lines.
Ah I see, my bad i’m quite ignorant on many things and terms.
VCC and ground are connected via the 20 pin ribbon cable, and also the 4 pin USB lines.
it must be something to do with the dual mod and the power, i was charging it with a battery pack and it took just one press of guide to boot up the ps4. same as when I was using the retoboard on ps2, the guide button responded immediately.
We followed up the same position between PS4 wireless & Switch Pro wireless controller to design
Thanks @Smang and all
More information, please look at the Brook website
Small update on this - the retro board starts to behave very strangely when the battery is empty. every 10-15 seconds it’s like all the buttons get pressed. disconnecting the battery fixes the issue, but i don’t really have room to make a switch for that…
it seems that playing via the retro board doesn’t charge the battery as i had thought - it seems to in fact drain it…
also the ability to go into bluetooth pairing by holding share + guide is gone.
discovered while trying to play beatmania (!) that my ps2 (a fat PAL TEST model) doesn’t seem to give enough power to the control ports. Tried my beat controller on another ps2 and the buttons all lit up which i had forgotten - but it made the penny drop in regards to my wfb stick.
so now using the stick with a dead battery on a standard slim ps2 seems to actuall ybe chargin the battery again, fixing the issue.
now i guess i need to try the same thing on other consoles - I have a saturn, snes and dreamcast to test, hopefully they kick out enough power to charge the battery.
i have a lockout switch to stop this.
