Cerberus: Unleash the hellhound in your arcade stick

Tech Talk
341

Here are some pictures, I still cant get it to work

Any other tips?

342

Hmm, that looks like a solid install. Let’s step back a bit:

First, confirm that the button harnesses are in their correct place… they look like it since holding start is yielding the correct response and it’s not just going into bootloader mode every time without holding start.

*If i hold the start button the lights will go around in clock wise fashion but nothing else works. I hear the Usb sound on my computer and it just says unrecognized usb device. Any tips on how to get this thing to work? *

You actually hear the enumeration sound?

Ok, can you clarify for me (after re-connecting the USB):

  1. What operating system
  2. What happens (with the controller applet up) if you hold LP down and plug it in?
  3. What happens (with the controller applet up) if you hold LK down and plug it in?
  4. Tried this on the system(s) at all?
343

If i mess with the wires while the usb is in the computer i can hear the sound going on and off.

  1. windows 7
  2. the applet flashes once
  3. flashes one time
  4. it does the same thing =/

I can make a quick youtube video showing how i installed it and everything if you want. Also if i lift up one of the clamps for the wires on the usb connection side the light will flash once. If i lift up a clamp with the wires still in on the xbox360 pcb side then nothing flashes. You think the problem is the way im inserting the xbox 360 clamp wires?

344

Hmm, no the 360 wires not causing any effect is fine since it doesn’t deal with where the power is coming into the board.

I still think either the white or green wire aren’t being bitten into, it’s hard to tell from the blurry pic. Make very sure you can clearly see bite marks with copper showing inside of the bites, not just knurled spots where the metal teeth are trying to slice but don’t penetrate the wire. It does happen (just had to deal with that the other night actually, took me 3 punch down tries).

Here’s what I want you to do.

Option 1:
Pull the board out of the stick and take a secondary USB cable that you may have around (a short one would be good, but really any you have on hand will suffice). Cut the end off of it and punch the wires into the USB OUT terminals on the cerberus. This will allow you more space/room to work with and also verify that the board does indeed enumerate correctly.

Option 2:
Strip the ends of the white and green wire (not black and red, you’ve determined power is OK), just the last 1/4" or so, twist them so that they’re nice and tight (not together, just individually twist them so their strands are tight). Then put them back in and try again. Do this ONLY with the USB OUT connection made, leave all other ribbon cables and such disconnected.

If you go option 2 route and it works, proceed to put everything back together (after you unplug the USB cable, try not to mess with connections while the board is powered it can be bad news bears).

If you go option 1 route and it works, you know the USB OUT needs to just be fanagled with a bit to bite nicely… which may mean doing option 2 anyway.

345

i give up man =/ I tried what you said bro…now the lights dont even come on the stick. i cant get it to work R.I.P. madcatz stick. Do you know where I can get the original usb cable the madcatz stick came with since I cant use it right now with the current stripped wires. Or is my stick done for good?

346

No, it’s not done for good. I’m sorry man, just trying to exhaust all options, this is like a worst case scenario but I’ll do my best to get you up and running.

One last thing we can try, it will probably require you to simply pull more cable into the stick so you have enough to work with, but clip the ends and strip a little bit more sheathing to give you 4 new clean insulated ends to attach to the USB OUT connectors. You’re pretty much going to put it back to where it was when it was initially showing a problem (where you could hold START and the LEDs would cycle correctly). Button ribbon cables and 360 PCB USB cable in place too.

The ONLY thing I can think of right now other than literally swapping your board out (if you got it through focusattack you can do it through them, otherwise through me), is that I somehow missed that one board and didn’t do a final program on it and put the firmware on it.

If you get it back to the original state, try this as a last resort:
Follow the instructions in this write up: http://beckfolio.com/focusattack/akishop/docs/PS360PlusFWUpdateGuide.pdf

The procedure to flash the firmware on the cerberus is the same as far as I can tell, so do everything the same up to step 6, where you select the firmware. In fact, if you get to step 5 without an error, this basically confirms this theory since you’re “opening” a connection to the board and talking with the bootloader at that point via FLIP. If it ERRORS, the board has an issue and I owe you a working board.

http://phreakmods.com/wp-content/CerberusFirmware/Cerberus_v1.01.hex

Grab that firmware, select it in FLIP, and then continue with the flashing procedure. In win7 you might need to run the program as administrator and follow more of what the Win8 steps look like.

If you get through that, unplug it and plug it back in with nothing held down… should work now.

347

Anyone do a super nintendo mod with this yet? Cant wait to give that a shot.

348

In love with the cerberus phreak… Used it cut down as a standalone and is so SMALL! think I am gonna switch to these for quite a few projects now!

Your stick is not nearly done… any USB cable will work, but soldering is required. its not that hard to learn the basics

349

I put a Cerberus board in a SNES game pad for PC use, Gummo did the same thing except he also added a USB hub and a Flash Drive.

350

When i get to step 5 it tells me that I “can’t open USB device”

351

I owe you a working board then, something is weird with the USB lines. Potentially a 4066 chip issue, I will look into it when it gets into my hands.

If you got it from focusattack, ask Jaleel to swap your board out. He’s got 1 left by the looks of it, and I’m still waiting on a restock so do it asap.

Thanks for being patient, sorry about the inconvenience.

352

yeah man i got it from focusattack but they are sold out like you said. Guess ill have to wait til more come in stock.

353

Any idea will I be able to order one of these at the end of the month?

Edit: I would be ordering it to Europe, Finland to be exact, do these ship to europe?

354

Hey, my cerberus came yesterday. I’m working on a Brawlstick (360). Trying to do the advanced method, you know cutting the inner face and soldering. Now my question… are these all the soldering points I need to use? Is my template ok? (see pic below, actually click it. You won’t see shit if not)

edit: updated image
http://thumbnails103.imagebam.com/25184/882fec251831435.jpg

Edit: Well, I just soldered all those points marked on the pic.

The thing is I can’t make it work on PS3. When I connect the arcade stick the guide button leds flashes briefly and then nothing. Double and triple checked for continuity with all the wires and everything seems to be correct. Any clue of what could be happening here? I could post pics of the actual soldered PCB if needed.

It works fine on PC, it gets recognized as Cerberus v1.01. All buttons work, dpad, right stick, left stick, etc. It also works fine when forcing Xbox 360 mode on PC (gets recognized as Madcatz Brawlstick). And again works with no problems on Xbox 360 by just plugging it, no need to force xbox mode or anything. Bootloader mode does that clockwise flashing lights and then all 4 leds remain turned on.

So yeah, so far I got a dualmodded stick that… works on the same platforms as before T_T

355

Well, this is just getting on my nerves. Now it works on PS3 and PC, but not on xbox 360 (nor 360 mode on PC).

I remade all the soldering. Mostly because I wanted to put the cerberus pcb in a better place inside the case, tidy up the wires and stuff. Btw, I realized most of the gnd points I added before were pointless, since it’s a common ground PCB. In any case, as I said now it works ok on PC. Works ok on PS3. And doesn’t work on 360. When I plug it all leds flash twice, and then nothing. The funny thing is I can turn on my 360 from the Arcade Stick pressing Select + Start (which is a home button alternative, I know), but then the same thing happens: leds flash twice, no response from any button.
When I connect it on PC forcing 360 mode it gets recognized as an ‘unknown USB device’.

Can I get some help here, please? anything…

356

Pictures of the actual solder/wire job would help.

Do you have power going to both PCBs?

The 360 turn on happens because the Cerberus is actually doing that, then when it sees the 360 it’s handing it over, so it’s a USB connection/power problem to the 360 PCB most likely if all the other buttons work when using in on PC/PS3 in Cerberus mode.

357

Crap, my posts need approval from SRK? O_o

edit:

Thanks for the quick reply Phreakazoid!
Ok, here are some pics (you’ll have to click to enlarge 'em).

This is where I placed it:
http://thumbnails107.imagebam.com/25205/78704a252048313.jpg

Solder job:
http://thumbnails107.imagebam.com/25205/72b2b4252048340.jpg http://thumbnails104.imagebam.com/25205/ab1ca1252048364.jpg

I’m getting power on both PCBs.
http://thumbnails108.imagebam.com/25205/c5c007252048393.jpg http://thumbnails107.imagebam.com/25205/2a6b42252048417.jpg

358

Check your XD+/-, I think you have it reversed, D+ is going to D- and vice versa

Going based on the picture with the green wire soldered to D+ of the 360 PCB underside, and cross checking with the other picture that has the white wire soldered to XD+

359

double post

delete plz

360

Oh my… you’re right. I feel like a moron. I guess I’m just burnt from working on this arcade stick for too long u.u

I’ll fix it and report back. Thanks again Phreakazoid.