I bought a paewang revolution joystick ( http://etokki.com/Joytron-Paewang-Revolution-arcade-stick ) to play KOF 13 with my friend because it come dual modded and we have different consoles. I was dissatisfied with the joystick it came with, so I decided to just replace that as well as the buttons because why not. Anyway, I came to find that it has a non standard PCB, which was a pain in the ass. In short, there was a PCB for the buttons wired to the main PCB by ribbon wire, so I ripped that all out so I could attach the new stuff to the contacts.
I ordered all sanwa parts to put in, along with the 9 pin connector with 8 colored wires and 9 black ground wires ( http://etokki.com/Misc/Paewang-Button-Harness ) so I could wire the buttons. Problem is that I have no idea where to put the 9th black wire. I got the joystick in ok, but I can’t test anything because I can’t ground it to complete the circuit. I wish I had pictures but my phone refuses to email them to me. Has anyone worked on a similar project? If not, is there some general rule I can follow when trying to ground the circuit?
I know this is pretty vague without pics but I’d appreciate any help. I’m totally new to this so if it sounds like I have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s because I don’t. Thanks for any help.
Without pictures of the PCB it’s hard to make any real recommendations, so keep in mind that what I’m about to suggest could fritz your stick entirely, though you should be OK if you don’t do anything ridiculous.
You could look for the ground pin where the main cable (from the 360/PS3/whatever) meets the PCB. Usually the covering stops a little way before meeting the board itself, so just look for the black wire and connect your spare connector to the same spot on the board.
Some boards use the ‘blank’ areas as common ground. Ideally you’d have some sort of voltmeter or something to test this with, but if you’re really desperate you can try scraping away a small amount of the insulating coating (don’t scrape away the green stuff) and solder it straight to the board. This is a less preferable approach, so try the above one before doing this.
If you’re not confident in this, though, then wait until you can upload your photos, or post in the stickied questions thread where others might be able to offer advice.
There are actually two black wires coming from the USB cord that go into the PCB. Does it matter which it is? One black wire is a good deal fatter than the other one.
It shouldn’t matter, if Paewang has followed convention then they will both be earth. That said, another convention is to make your power and earth lines on the opposite sides of a series of pins, so I’d say go for the black one furthest from the red.
Also, if the image in Exand’s post shows the right board, then you may as well just use the GND that is marked there.
OK, so let me see if I understand the situation: you have a harness with nine ground connections, and eight of them are connected to buttons, leaving one extra. Yes?
If that is correct, then the remaining one must connect all of the other common-ground wires to the ground line on the PCB. Try connecting it to the solder-point where the black wire from the main cable connects to the PCB. I just recently did a stick mod where i had to precisely that.
Also, sorry for the slow replies - I’m working over an incredibly slow net connection atm.
There will be a simple solution, but I’d probably need a photo or something to really see what the problem is if this doesn’t solve it. Also, make sure that any components you’ve attached yourself are around the right way, in the correct position, etc.
I just did a soldering job that would shame my family, but there are no shorts and it didn’t work. The only thing I can think of is that I wired the buttons wrong or that the main cable soldering is flawed. It should be that colored wire goes on the left, black on the right for the buttons right?
Edit: jk, the soldering was so bad that it just snapped off. I’ll redo it when I have more time.
The “fat” one is very likely a bare wire with heat shrink around it. To be technically correct you probably shouldn’t use that one; use the one with black insulation.
if you already know how to solder, then it would’ve been easier to just solder all the signals to their corresponding spot and then just daisy chain all the grounds and just soldered it to one of the many ground points.
It’s not a shrink wrap wire, there are two wires with black insulation coming from the power supply. I guess my description was off here, one is fatter by about 50%, not WAY fatter.
If you guys wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on this thread for a few days, I’m getting a new phone and I’ll be able to post pics within a few days.
Pics are here, used my dad phone
This is what all my connections look like, he didn’t take a pic of the whole thing so use your imagination.
First pic is the solder I did from the button harness to the ground of the power line. Last pic is a bigger version of the other side. Hope this helps.
OK, so the first thing I noticed is that you’ve got a fair bit of detritus on the board near your solder joints - I’d suggest cleaning that up just to make sure you’re not shorting anything accidentally. Also, the connection to the power line on the main cable looks like it could use some more solder.
On the good side, finding an earth on this board doesn’t look like it will be difficult. It looks like I was right about all of the blank areas of the board being ground, but if you look at the last picture one side of the meshing gold ‘E’ shapes will be connected to ground, most likely the ones that does NOT have a track leading from it. I think these are the pads for your Start, Select, etc. so you’ll want to make the connection as close to the edge of those pads as possible in order to avoid getting in the way of the buttons.
EDIT: Also, when you said you plugged the stick in and it didn’t work, do you mean that the buttons just didn’t work, or you couldn’t get any response at all (even from e.g. your start button, which you haven’t messed with at all)?