I should be shot.
Three hours dicking with this and I just now realized I have the easier to hack 4716 so all I needed was one resistor. 30 seconds later I’m done and it works.
Shoot me now.
Pad #2 is up (second stick) and I’m stuck with the harder-to-hack 4716. I have my transistor hooked up properly according to all of the pictures I’ve seen here (NPN) but it only activates when I let go of the button.
To simplify: Hooked up like instructed, low to emitter, high + resistor + wiper to base, high + resistor to collector, signal on the base line.
=/
You can actually hack LT and RT on both the Mad Catz (common ground version) and Joytech NEO SE (commond ground) without even having to buy additional components. Might work for other brands, but I haven’t tried.
On both of these controllers, there is a potentiometer, aka pot, when turned, varies the voltage sent to the controller chip. The ones I have uses 3.3V when trigger is fully pressed and 0V (ground) for fully released.
The goal is to generate a 3.3V when your pushbutton is pressed and 0V when it’s not.
The pot has 3 legs, power (3.3V), signal, ground. What you need to do is figure out which leg is power and cut that leg. Then, with your multimeter, probe the signal and ground leg, and turn the pot until you get roughly 10K ohms. Then solder one of your pushbutton’s connect to the signal pin and the other one to power.
Mad Catz controller has the pot legs exposed so you can easily cut it with a wire cutter. However, on the Joytech NEO SE, you’ll have to desolder the whole pot and then cut the power leg off.
SUMMARY:
- cut power leg off pot
- turn pot till you get 10k ohms (measure signal and ground, the other two legs you didn’t cut)
- solder a wire to signal
- solder a wire to the 3.3V ( the pad where you cut the power leg)
That’s it!!! No resistor or transistors needed.
I’ve done this to 3 controllers and they all work.
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=183070
PM me if you have any questions. I can explain the electrical characteristic of how it worked before and how it works after if you really care to know.
nice kanedo.
That will work fine, but won’t work with mods requiring a common ground pcb, like dual pcb mods and light up LED mods.
I use one ground for all buttons (dpad, A, B, X, Y, LT, RT, LB, RB, back, guide, start). Hope that helps 
Wow, even better. I’ve already bought some resistors but I may not even need them. Thanks
I recently started my first project, got the late version Mad Catz per slagcoin.com. From reading this thread I realize this is mostly concerning the late late model LT RT problems, but I’m not sure if right now there’s a better place to put this.
I got all the other buttons wired up and working, now all that is left are the triggers. One of the points, possisbly two of them are a little messed up.
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/JezmundNY/2009_0329PCB0004.jpg
The leftmost one is gone, the middle one is loose, not sure if it is safe or not. For the time being let’s pretend the middle piece is ok.
- Am I going to be able to still use this board with the 10k resistor fix?
- If so, which points do I attach the resistor to, and is it the mirror image on the opposite side?
- Once I’ve done this, can I wire up the triggers to buttons and where do I solder the signal?
- (not related) What do I do with the rumble pack things? can they be removed? and if so do I just snip the wires and put some hot glue to insulate the parts left over?
I know I’ve read how to set the triggers as buttons somewhere in the padhacking thread although it is hard for me to pinpoint exactly where it was since it is such a long thread. Please forgive me for posting somewhat off-topic in this thread as I’m not quite sure where else I should’ve left this post.
Not sure about the rest but you can just cut off the motors.
If you have resistors, use them instead. It’ll prevent accidental turns on the pot in the future. I used hot glue to cover the pot just in case. The only reason I used the method I posted is because I didn’t have any resistors the night I hacked the controller. In the future, I think it’s easier to just remove the pot and use resistor.
Now, as Toodles mentioned, this method won’t work if you wish to use one of the pushbutton’s connection for common ground. I’m going to think about this some more to see if I can come up with another no-component mod.
Not sure this is news to anyone but when I was mapping the controls in SFIV for my custom stick I noticed that you can actually set any button to ‘No action’. So for the people who don’t want to remove the trigger pots, it’s not even really an issue to set them to neutral.
Of course, it’s better/safer if you do set them so they’re inactive, but as long as you set LT and RT to ‘No action’, if they do happen to go off during a game they’re not going to do anything.
It might get annoying in the dashboard, though. If you have the means, you might as well set up the trigger probably.
Need Some Help
I’m pretty sure I have one of the Newer Models cause things seem to be acting weird. The problem I have it that the whole controller shut off at random times. I’m not using the LT/RT but I am using the LB/RB. I still have the Pots on (i think that’s what it’s call, the square black and white circle for the LT/RT).
What can I do to solve this issue?
Thanks
:tup:
Alrighty, so I’ve got the newer version of the 4716 with the right trigger wired up like this: http://picasaweb.google.com/wliu0912/PrehackedPads?feat=directlink#5313446559450665170
It seems to work perfectly fine on the xbox, but the cthulhu that it’s dual pcb’d with shows that button as always pressed. Any ideas?
You need a diode. Right where that red signal wire is, replace it with a diode with the band on the end away from the transistor. Connect the signal wire back to the free leg of the diode.
Because of situations like this, I think it might be better if we recommend the inverter chip option over the transistor.
Agreed. I’ve discussed this circuit to my manager who’s an analog wiz. His suggestion is either transistors or an inverter chip. I think an inverter chip is probably the easiest solution if common ground is required.
hey guys I checked the forums for this issue but couldn’t find it, i have the retro stick and i used the 10k resistor method . when I go to use the triggers I press right it hits both, and left hits both as well. thoughts?
-Armando
in dual mods you need a diode so the reverse press of the trigger doesn’t reverse the other pcb’s corresponding button.
not the greatest pic but you can see the diode coming off the base pin. http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n5/akuma001/PICT0878.jpg
Really? I have 2 dual PCB sticks using Madcatz 360 PCBs (Hex inverter method) and I have no problems without using any diodes. Interesting…