Toodles I have an interesting dilemma. I installed a TE kitty into his multiconsole and it worked fine. I added an LED mod using the widget (soldered to the bottom of the TE terminal strip not the Kitty and used the screw terminals for power. Stick worked fine and has been for 2+ weeks now. Then I get a call from him describing the stick acting weird. At first I thought it was in test mode because two of the guide player leds lit up but it’s the opposite of the test mode. I haven’t had time to get with him to look into it and can’t till this weekend. So I had him make a vid of the issue to post up here in hopes that there is a known quick fix prior to me getting a chance to dig in it. (Note: I never had to flash the firmware since it worked. That is my first planned check).
Hi Toodles. Thanks for shipping my TE Kitty out so quickly. I received it yesterday and did the install last night. Everything works great. I decided to keep the ferrite core on the USB cable since I didn’t need the extra cable length. I had a tough time disconnecting the headset connector because they filled the inside of the connector instead of just putting glue on the outside, but other than that it was a breeze. Thanks for putting this kit together with clear instructions. Now I can start competing on PSN too!
You’re gonna have to crack it open. See how the turbo LEDs blink, when he holds down the 4P button? Those are directly connected to power, so if its turning off, then the power to the stick is being cut off. Something is causing it to pull way more power than the PS3 is comfortable of sending, which is the first time I’ve seen that happen on any mod with an FGW LED controller or Kitty.
[EDIT]
Issue resolved. Traced back to a back Cat5 coupler. Geesh. The one thing I didn’t have at least two of to troubleshoot. 
Toggle below if you care to see my tale of woe.
Spoiler
Need the help of the elder gods here on SRK.
Wired up a 3rd party Saturn controller extender to Cat5. Followed the pinout guide, confirmed all connections. Fired up SF Alpha, and for the first part of the round, all controls worked fine. During the second round, all inputs on the joystick went dead. No lights on the guide or turbo panel. Unplugged, reconfirmed continuity, hooked back up to Saturn. Now, the turbo lights come on when I press a button, but no lights from joystick input. Worse yet, even though the Kitty is picking up inputs, they aren’t registering on the system.
At this point, I’ve tried it on two Saturns and a Dreamcast using an Innovation SS>DC adapter. Same thing (lights from the Kitty, no input on console).
I’ve confirmed that the ports on both systems are working with other controllers (and the SS>DC adapter as well).
Plugged it into my PC and it recognized as TE Kitty. Plugged it in with Turbo down and it recognized as a TE Stick. This was the only time this worked. I unplugged it, tried again with the PC, now it won’t recognize at all.
When I plug it into a PC, I get the exact same thing, along with a USB failure message. Same thing when holding down turbo to force the TE board. XBox 360 doesn’t work anymore, nor does PS3. Puts a damper on my weekend. :-/
[EDIT]
Took everything apart. Confirmed the TE board works on it’s own, as does the TE Kitty. Now I’m stumped.
Loose connection to the RJ-45 most likely.
Yeah, one of the wires on the pins came off. Last thing I thought to check since it’s the simplest device. But hey; at least now I know I can reassemble a TE Kitty setup without the instructions.
Toodles,
Just wanted to thank you for your hard work. Received my VLX Kitty yesterday, installed in about 1/2 hour and works beautifully. Thanks.
Hey Toodles, if everything is working great except my down input. What do you think that’s a result of? Or what should I check? I opened it up and everything seems to be fine.
I just installed the TE Kitty and came across an issue.The LS/DP/RS switch isn’t fully functional when I’m in 360 mode. The joystick will only register movement when I’m emulating the DP but not when in LS/RS. I noticed that other people have experienced this issue but no solution surfaced. Is this by design or am I overlooking something?
Is there something on the 360 that uses the left analog stick that isn’t working when set to LS? Does moving the slider to RS, and pressing down Turbo when plugging in make it show up on the PC as the MadCatz fightstick? Do the turbo LEDs for buttons A, RT, LT, and RB light up properly when pressed?
Toodles, I installed your TE Kitty and it was super easy. Thanks for such a cool product. Everything seems to be working fine, but since I also modified my TE into a fightboard/SLAC, or whatever people wanna call it, I noticed I am still able to block in both directions in MVC3. Did i do something wrong. I know you mentioned earlier that it forces neutral in an SOCD situation. I’m not really worried about it since EVO announced that SOCD’s are tournament legal so now no one can give dirty looks at fightboards. Is anyone else experiencing this (non)issue.
It forces neutral in a SOCD situation for the consoles it supports; it can’t change how it behaves on xbox360. Try on a PS3 version and you’ll see you can’t. (Or I made a major, but fixable, mistake somewhere)
Oh Ok, that makes sense. Well I don’t have a PS3 (not yet anyway, I am waiting for Twisted Metal, Sweet Tooth FTW!). In the meantime I guess I’ll enjoy my time annoying wolverine players (not really, its gonna take a while to get used to this fightboard layout).
I tested the slider using a twin analog XBL indie game and it doesn’t register any movement. When I force 360 mode on my computer it does show up as a MadCatz stick, and yes the turbo LEDs light up as expected.The slider works when I’m working off the Kitty board but not when working off the Madcatz PCB it seems (I tested the PCB and slider before I opened the stick for installation and they were fully functional). I have a feeling that a connection isn’t sitting right but I’ve triple checked and re-seated all of the connector to be sure. I’m stumped.
The slider stuff is carried on a ribbon cable along with the four Turbo LEDs I mentioned. Since the slider works to force Xbox360 mode, and the turbo LEDs light up for those buttons, then you can be sure that the one ribbon between the LED daughterboard and Kitty is in and working. That leaves the ribbon cable going from the TE main board to the Kitty.
The easiest way to verify it is in place is to plug it into an Xbox360 or into a PC when forcing Xbox360 mode. Then hold down the turbo button, then tap and release the RT button while still holding Turbo down. The TE board should flash the LED for the RT button on and off to show that it has turbo set. If that happens, then you know the cable from the TE board to the Kitty is in place and your wiring is working; perhaps the indie games doesnt like the TE, or visa versa. I dont know, but I can tell you that its the same behavior that would happen if the Kitty wasnt in the picture at all.
If the LED doesn’t flash, then you know where to look, specifically the ‘R’ ribbon cable between the Kitty and main TE board.
I did your test and the turbo button lit up for RT and works as expected. It’s possible that the indie game may not like the TE but I used that as an example to test the right stick. In reality, neither stick works no matter what situation - with the important ones being the 360 dashboard and game controller control panel when I force 360 mode on my PC.
Stick only working in DP on the dashboard is normal, ditto for on a PC.
I loaded up Doom, and this test should work for the demo of Doom as well, so if you dont have the full game, you should still be able to test still with the demo. With the slider to DP, moving the stick left or right swapped weapon. On LS, it strafes left or right, and on RS, it turns left and right. If you want to verify the slider is working properly, that’d be the best way to test it, but so far everything youre describing sounds perfectly normal.
I’m baffled right now. The slider is working as expected when in 360 mode (I didn’t test it in Doom, btw). Initially it wasn’t registering the analog sticks when in SF4/MVC/twin stick shooter but somewhere between our interaction plus my tinkering with the cables and board the analogs are registering again. I also got a little lesson on how the madcatz pcb works outside of actual games, so I apologize for my ignorance/confusion.
tl;dr: You rock, Toodles. The Kitty is amazing.
Just got my kitty board for my vlx in the mail. :). Great timing and fast shipping. Will install when my vlx arrives . Thanks Marcus
Just finished installing my kitty to my BlazBlue stick. Installing it was easier than installing an MC Cthulhu. Though I had quite a bit of trouble with my Home/Guide button not working and the top row of LEDs not lighting up as they should. But I soon found out that the “K” connector to the daughterboard was backwards. After a few seconds of “ghetto” tweaking the port, I plugged in the connector backwards and now the guide button works and so do the LEDs. I’m loving it right now, playing on the 360 at home, then playing on the PS3 at work.
Thanks Toodles!