Soldering a Madcatz SFIV Fightpad?

[Code_Man65]

sound to me like you are not getting enough heat to the to the contact. I use a butane soldering iron havent had any problems. I hate to say it but ive dropped soldered the first board i did just hot glue it after and it should hold if you run out of options

If anybody knows im trying to connect a perfect 360 joystick to a madcatz pad. The power supply for the joystick need to be connected to ground since its common ground can i use a d pad ground or is there a specific usb connection cable i should solder too.

If you look at the pictures I posted further back in the thread you will see where you can connect the ground wire for the joystick (provided it works like the standard sanwa wire harness)

[Vanhyuk]

Is the fightpad common ground or not?

[_vince-uk]

I bought a fightpad as a replacement PCB for my x360 TE stick (Bloody AWFUL PCB…).

Is there a way to redirect the player ID assignment lights to the stick’s control panel?

[electric]

Does both grounds on the controller (Black ground wire & Shielding ground wire) have to be fuse into one for this to work?

I’d like to know the answer to this.

I did this mod a little while ago using a DPDT switch - PS3 side works perfectly, but on the 360 side everything works except the buttons. The stick and guide buttons work fine, but no buttons - including start/select.

I figure it has something to do with the way I wired (or didn’t wire) up the two ground points

[jdm714]

Do not need Shield Ground.

[bizarrotx]

I have a feeling this is the pad I’ll hack, but I’m not putting money anywhere near it until I know whether or not I’d have to do anything crazy with triggers, I’ll probably just use a 6 button setup, so does that mean that I still have to manually neutralize and hot glue trigger pots? Or…what’s the deal there?

[jdm714]

Do not need.
There are zero Potentiometers on this PCB.

[bizarrotx]

Do not need.
There are zero Potentiometers on this PCB.

You are some kinda tech wizard man, very, very helpful on tech talk, about 80 pct of legit answers I see come from you.
Thanks again.

Soo…being “not great” at electrical stuff, does zero potentiometers mean that I could do an 8 button setup with no trigger hack?

[mR_CaESaR]

You are some kinda tech wizard man, very, very helpful on tech talk, about 80 pct of legit answers I see come from you.
Thanks again.

Soo…being “not great” at electrical stuff, does zero potentiometers mean that I could do an 8 button setup with no trigger hack?

I don’t know what potentiometers means but I know the answer to your question

Yes you don’t need to do any form of trigger hacks for this pcb, you can use it for an 8 button seup, you just solder the active to the active, and ground to ground, being that it’s a common ground pcb, its a perfect candidate for a dual mod.

edit: yes, jdm714 is one of the most helpful tech forum member and he seems like a genius too

[jdm714]

Potentiometers are like variable Resistor things.
Analog Stick and some Triggers use them.

The Mad Catz FightPad PCB is digital everything.
There are no Potentiometers used on the PCB.

All you have to do is solder wires.

[whitey9]

I think I fucked up my home button installation based on that thing, but I found that you can solder to the tiny little spot just above it and still have home functionality. Not sure if this was mentioned in the thread.

Easiest padhack yet, I did this in about twenty minutes and that included stripping wires and stuff. I sacrificed my never used select button and wired it to turbo because why the fuck not.

[Kuya_Joe]

Bah never mind answered my own question

[Kuya_Joe]

so I didnt realize how big this pcb was… I need about 1 inch by 1 inch square cut off the bottom left corner to have this thing fit into my case… since i have never cut into a pcb before just wondering if this is possible. does anyone foresee a problem with this? thanks

-blind

[jdm714]

You can cut the FightPad PCB.
There is a lot of empty space that you can remove.

Phreakazoid187 cut up his FightPad for this mod.
http://shoryuken.com/f177/dual-modded-vtech-vsmile-w-led-upgrade-lots-pics-214801/

[bottomramen]

I scorched the guide button contact as well. Here’s what i did:

The trace for the guide button goes up and to the left of the small contact point into the white circle in the center of the PCB. (Hold it in the light and you will see it). I used a really small screwdriver and scraped off about a quarter inch of the trace exposing the copper.

Next, I laid a stripped wire on the exposed trace, heated with an iron and applied solder. The trace is very small, so it will not hold the wire by itself. To add support, I linked the solder I applied to the existing solder on the pcb that is holding the top left green light in place (The trace runs right next to the light).

Worked like a charm.

Hope it helps.

Damn, what’s up with this contact point? I just did the same thing. I know this post is old, but if 5.Ball or anyone else could help me out on where to find the trace mentioned above? I held it up against the light and not sure what I’m looking for since it got torched pretty bad. Has anyone found an alternative solder point yet? It’s the only button that I have yet to get working.

[ComradeTao]

Hey, does anyone know which areas of this PCB are safe to cut off for a dual mod? It’s too tight of a fight in my case at the moment, I need to save some space.

[Avelorn3]

Only change I would make to the diagram above is adding a note to remind people that the switch needs to be in the middle position

[Fists.Of.Fury.187]

Hey can someone put some more larger pictures up for the LB and LT, start back and home solder points are? The ones here are really helpful but a couple more would be nice just to get the point across. Thanks!

[Niteo]

I got my hands on a PS3 wireless street fighter 4 fightpad found here: http://shoryuken.com/f177/ps3-wireless-streetpad-madcatz-fightpad-review-dpad-fix-227921/

i was wondering if anyone has a guide on how to solder this bad boy. I have experience soldering 2 wired 360 fightpads successfully so I know where to solder for the buttons but the addition of wireless complicates things for me.

My current set up is a dual modded hrap3 with a DPDT switch. My hrap3’s PCB began to fail on me so i needed a ps3 pcb replacement. I was thinking, since I have a single cord thanks to the DPDT switch, that I could splice the 5V and ground from the battery dock on the ps3 wireless fightpad to the usb cord on my stick this way it can be always powered and i can leave the switch on the fightpad to “on” all the time. The issue with that set up, however, is that i would need to plug the usb cable in to a power source just to give the pcb power and plug in the madcatz usb dongle just to send in data on my button presses. It would take up 2 usb ports and be inconvenient.

A second idea would be to cut out a giant hole on my hrap3 to expose the battery dock and replace the batteries but I don’t want to put more holes in my hrap3 and use batteries to play on my main system.

Is there any way to wire up the D- and D+ on a wireless pad? Basically make my wireless controller wired. that would help a ton. Otherwise any suggestions? Scrap the pcb? etc.

[Greg]

Any of you guys have a problem soldering the guide button? I sure as hell am