Goodfella answered, but to be more specific - the RJ-45 isn’t being used for ethernet here. It’s just so that we can unplug and plug in different cables for different consoles. The same thing could be accomplished using different kinds of connectors, but I prefer this kind.
RJ-45 being used for your unholy reasons, my networking degree weeps.
Good guide man, I’m sure this’ll make people happy, makin’ Toodles proud.
This is awesome stuff. You’ve basically given me the easiest guide I could get to getting my 360 SE ready for Evo. (Damn you Evo and your Sony loving ways.)
This is a fantastic guide, now pray I don’t mess anything up. 
(Sticky vote: Srsly, this is going to be helpful for years to come.)
(I hope no one thinks this is a derail attempt, just trying to contribute a bit)
I’ve posted up the photos I took doing the same mod on a TE stick. They’re uncommented, but if you’re wanting to try this mod on a TE they may be worth a look. The process is exactly the same as the SE, so follow Bomberman’s steps. The only difference from how he describes the SE versus how I did the TE is where the boards were placed. The Cthulhu I used was mounted to the left of the 360 pcb using bolts that go through holes I drilled in the black plastic frame, and the Imp was installed using the right most screw holding the distribution block (the piece that all of the buttons plug into). Bomberman installed the wires to the solder points on the bottom holding the pin connectors in; I used the unused surface mount spots by tinning the spot and the wire, and then soldering the wires to those points.
Maybe someday I’ll have time for the Instructable.
EDIT: There’s at least one photo that shows the wires soldered to the Cthulhu from below, with the soldering done on the top. This didn’t work too hot; I couldn’t get the Cthulhu mounted worth a damn, so I removed them and made the wires go in from the top, and soldered from below. Much better that way.
When I did mine I mounted the Cthulhu on top of a couple ziptie standoffs, which gave it the extra clearance it needed. What I was after was a cleaner look, but really, comparing the two, it ain’t that much cleaner and what does it matter anyway? With the wires up top, any quick examinations or changes ought to be easier too. For example, changing the 360 button layout or something. If I want to switch from the TE stock layout (which I used) to the new be-all-end-all LB/RB (HP/HK) layout from that one thread, I have to unmount the PCBs, but you could probably get away with working from the top.
Maybe I’m missing something, but would it not be better to have the USB outputs of the Cthulhu and the SE PCB use the RJ45 and only have one cord that comes out?
And maybe Toodles can explain the dangers of multiple cords plugging in a little better?
Thanks for the tips about doing this with a TE stick, Toodles. I plan to do that mod sometime in the future, but the TE stick I had was for the PS3 and I decided to sell it. They’ll come back in stock some day!
Slagcoin you can do that too - removing the USB cord entirely and making one with an RJ-45 jack. I just like having the USB cable attached because 360 and PS3 are what I play the most. And you should answer emails!
So if I want to do this for a TE so it plays on the PS3 as well do I need to drill a hole in my stick for the rj45 or can I skip out on that?
If you only care about 360 and PS3, you can leave out the RJ45 connector entirely and use the original USB cable to connect to both. If you want to take advantage of the MC Cthulhu’s compatibility with other systems, you can either wire up system cables (e.g. PS2, GameCube) directly to the Cthulhu and have them hanging out, or wire up an external connector like the RJ45 setup.
Incidentally, I’ve wondered (and still do): is there any reason you couldn’t bypass the rj45 and just make all the additional console cables usb?
Because USB uses two wires for communication. PSX uses 6, GC uses one, NES/SNES use 3, Saturn uses 6, etc, etc. The question keeps coming up in the Cthulhu thread, and the answer is No, with the exception of Xbox1.
Simple enough. Thanks.
Great read. I might get a 360 TE stick and mod it this way for my PS3, but then I could also play on my friend’s 360.
I just completed this mod late last night or maybe I should say early this morning. Everything works but what a pain in the rare end. My 360 TE motherboard looked like shit compared to the ones shown by bomberman and toodles, it looked like it had been badly reworked by someone who does NOT know how to solder at the madcatz factory. There were way too much solder covering up the surface mount resister rows for the buttons and joystick, I couldn’t see the resisters at all. When I first opened up my 360 TE, I knew it was used from the outside due to scratches and scuff marks all over the place, didn’t know it was repaired inside too. It felt like I bought a refurbished stick but paying brand new price for it.
It took me 2 hours to buzz out all the shorts I had on the Madcatz 360 TE motherboard. The installation and wiring of the MC Cthulhu and Imp board went flawless.
Thank you to Bomberman and Toodles for the guides and boards. Now I got a MC TE stick.
Great job Faux123! Feel free to post pics of your work.
Ok, here are a few photos of my Madcatz 360 TE modded with Imp and MC Cthulhu board.
Here’s the Madcatz 360 TE motherboard. Notice the BOTTOM of the board, see those solder blobs, those were DONE by Madcatz. What crappy soldering job.
Here’s the MC Cthulu all wired up:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3329/3433481746_50aec6df8b_b.jpg
Here’s the Imp Board installed:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3610/3433483678_a95830f902_b.jpg
This shows all boards all wired up before I put them in the box.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3541/3433490066_bd7eb75ba5_b.jpg
Here’s the photo show the boards placement in the box.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3608/3433493482_83dfeb9159_b.jpg
Something I haven’t yet quite understood, what was your decision in using the MC Cthulhu for your dual mod as opposed to using the UPCB? It seems that all of the dual mods I have seen as of late have been using the MC.
Btw to Faux: Way to represent with all the scotch tape, hah.
The MC is what Toodles actively promotes now… As I understand it, it’s smaller and easier to install than a UPCB.
Nice wiring, Faux! Those extra blobs of solder are present on the SE stick too, but they don’t interfere with stick performance (unless somebody gets a dud).
Hehe, I didn’t feel like finding the screws and drilling things in my TE box, so I used scotch tape instead. Scotch tape is actually quite durable as long as you don’t move around too much. I chose MC because MC has a better chip than the standard PS3 only Cthulhu. Maybe later on I will add an RJ 45 connector mod to my TE after I am done with all my other mods.
I have another Pelican Universal mod going on right now. It is NOT a common ground (my previous one was) so I am thinking about making the non-common ground to a common ground using 4066Bs and 74HC04s.