The official Cthulhu and ChImp thread - Try our new Dreamcast flavor!

Tech Talk
2301

Alright, finally back home from a kick ass Evo. Now to see if I can catch up. If I end up missing your post, feel free to point it out to me.

I’m back, so I can ship out after its paid for. All of the orders that have come in since last Wednesday will go out asap.

  1. It connects via USB.
  2. Umm, I’m not sure if there’s something specific you’re asking here. If you got the disassembled board, you’d have to assemble it. But more on this in #4
  3. If you get the PS3 only version, you’d have one USB cable coming out of the stick that works on the PS3 and PC. When playing PS2 or PS1 games on a PS3 that supports backwards compatibility, it will work just fine and plugs into the PS3 via USB like normal. If that’s all you need, then just get the PS3 only version. You should get the MC version if and only if you want more than one cord coming out of the box. If you want both a USB and a playstation cord that plugs into a PS2 system, then you’d want an MC. Definitely read the first post of FAQs to see if it helps with any confusion.
  4. Alright, HRAP2. Installing a Cthulhu in an HRAP2 is really easy, especially with the assembled version. When you open the stick up, you’ll see a crap ton of wires all going to the little board under the turbo switches. Cut the wires close to that little board, and screw them down in the screw terminals. Then:

For PS3 (USB) Only: Unplug the PS2 cable from the little board and remove it from the stick. Find a long USB A-to-B cable, run it along the same path so the B end is inside the case, and plug it into the Cthulhu jack. Close up stick, you’re done. You’ll notice that there is no soldering involved here.

For both PS3 (USB) and a playstation cord: Unplug the PSX cable from the little board. Cut the small white connector off of the end, pull the cut end so it is inside the case with the cord’s little ‘pull stop’ thingy still in the notch in the back plastic. Follow the ‘How to install a PSX cord on an MC Cthulhu’ instructable to pin out the cord and solder it to the 7 holes listed in the instructable. Find a long USB A-to-B cable, and work its way through the holes under the switches so the B end is inside the case and plugged into the Cthulhu. Use a pocket knife or dremel to make a little notch the PSX cord plugs into a little taller, so the USB cable comes out on top, and the PSX cord with pull stop helps keep the USB cord snug. Close up and you’re done. Minimal soldering involved here as long as you start with an assembled board.

Hehe. Glad you caught that. For those keeping score at home, the answers are:

  1. Always.
  2. Yup
  3. Honestly, they’re pretty tough chips. Just get in, solder, and get done, and you wont have any problems.
  4. Not really. Its really a ‘Warning: Coffee is hot.’ kinda label.

I will look into this when I can. I have never used a swap magic before so I have no experience with this, but I’ll see what I can do.

The easiest thing to do would be to get an assembled cthulhu, cut all of the wires close to the ps2 board that’s there, strip a little insulation off of the wires, and screw them all into the cthulhu screw terminals. You’d need to get an A-to-B USB cable, and you’re done. If you get the unassembled cthulhu instead, you can do the same thing, but you’d have to solder the board together yourself, and solder the wires to the board, or buy screw terminals to install on the cthulhu so you can screw the wires in. Since it sounds like a custom and not a mod of a retail stick, I HIGHLY recommend you get a USB jack as well if you order an unassembled cthulhu, so the USB cable can be plugged in properly instead of cut and soldered in. The USB jack is already present on the assembled board.

  1. It sounds like the ‘2k’ button is shorted to vcc. You need to locate where the short is and fix it.
  2. There’s always a voltage reading, even if the voltage is 0.00

Two golden rules of dual pcb mods:

  1. All pcb’s must be common ground.
  2. All pcb’s must be powered at all times.
    At a guess, you probably violated rule #2. Make sure both boards are powered no matter which ones is plugged in.

Or perhaps whomever told you there was such a thing as a first party wired common ground 360 pad was wrong. They don’t exist, so you’re violating rule #1.

It’s an N4148 diode, very cheap and easy to replace from any radio shack or Fry’s. Or if you order again some time in the future I can throw a few spares in.
Let it be a lesson; don’t fix something if it isn’t what’s broken. Figure out piece of the puzzle isn’t working before trying random things.

‘but the cable was plugged in’ worries me. If it was plugged into the PC first, it’d go into USB mode and never try to talk PSX. The PSX also uses one of the lines used by USB, so if the USB on the computer is sending data, it’d be useless to the PSX. Never plug into more than one console at a time.

2302

Nono, you misunderstand. The USB cable wasn’t plugged into the PC; I meant it was plugged into the board. We had it in to make sure everything fit right.

2303

Hi, I need your e-mail to look your order up;
But, in general-
We don’t have any outstanding orders, international or otherwise, today we caught up to all the orders from the weekend and we pretty much never go more than 4 days or so without shipping out an order.

If you are international, you don’t receive a shipping confirmation even when your items are shipped, so this may be why you didn’t get an e-mail.

Our e-mail is naregnemyes@gmail.com by the way.

2304

Cthulhu Problem

Hey Folks,

I am very new to messing around with PCB boards and wiring. This might sound like a very stupid question, but I just tried test the joystick with the Cthulhu by hooking up the ground wire and all the other wires to the board. Plugged it into my PS3 and the joystick movements do not register any input. Do I need to hook up all the buttons for this to work?

Any help would be appreciated!

2305

Definitely test first on a PC via USB. Once it is coming up on the PC, then it’s just a wiring problem. Use a multimeter to test the connection from the PSX end pins to the columns listed in the instructable, and also check the columns themselves against each other to make sure none of them are connected together.

Nope, the buttons dont have to be hooked up; any unwired buttons just always looks unpressed. If you’re just wanting to test the board to begin with, a single wire connected to ground is all you should need (and the USB cable from the cthulhu to the PC of course). Open up the game controllers applet in the control panel, and touch the other end of the wire to the various signal screw terminals, and you should see the reaction in the controller’s properties.

2306

Yes. That is probably it!

2307

Thanks for the quick info. I will try this tonight.

2308

Hi Toodles,

So I did as you said by hooking up the Board to the PC via USB. Its coming up correctly on the PC as a Cthulhu/PS3 Device. So next I set the multimeter to read 20V DC, placed the black wire to a GND pin and then used the red wire to try different buttons. First I tried the VCC and I get about 5.12 Volts which according the post is correct. Second, I tried the Home and Start pins and each is about .18 Volts and shows up in the Controller Applet as a registered button press. Next I try all the directional buttons and the Controller Applet starts going wonky as the direction is never constant. Finally I try all the pins on the row with 1k,2k,3k,1P etc. and those buttons do not register on the applet but on the multimeter it reads 5 Volts. I think there is a wiring problem and there is a short somewhere.

What would be my next steps as I bought this board pre-assembled?

Thanks,
Thomas

2309

Your next step would be to disconnect it from the board you’re trying to dual mod it with. Repeat with nothing, absolutely nothing, connected except the USB cable and the test wire.

2310

Hi Toodles,

I think you got the wrong guy here. I just want to hook it up directly to the PS3 and not dual mod :).

2311

Alright, well, it worked on Xbox and pc no problem, and was working only on player 2 on the ps2, so we double checked the connections. My friend thinks we may have somehow messed up the clock cycles while checking the connections last night, as when he deliberately tried to reset it, it worked on both ports.

Question though, I want to make sure it’s functioning normally: it would only work for the ps2 after the game had been booted up. If it was plugged in before the game had booted, it wouldn’t do anything until it was taken out and plugged back in. Is it supposed to function like that, or is something else weird?

2312

Hi Toodles,

So I tested with just a wire connecting one end to the GND pin and hitting the other pins to the a reaction. All the pins work fine until I hit the 3K pin. When I hit the 3K pin, the number 8 button highlights in the Controller Applet AS WELL AS the UP direction. Finally, my last test was to place an unterminated wire with one end not touching anything and the other end hitting each of the 4 direction pins. Each time I did this the Controller Applet will have the number 7 lit up and the direction going bonkers. I hope this is enough information to determine what the problem is.

Thanks,
Thomas

2313

Mine behaves in this exact way, which is why swap magic was a “hassle” for me, as it boots up one game, i plug in the cord, then i boot up another game and re-plug it in, i used quotation marks cuz in order to swap i’m already at my console so its not too difficult. If its of any concern, I got mine about 12 days ago from ModChipMan.

2314

If I dual mod my TE will the PC use the 360 PCB or the Cthulhu?

2315

You will choose whichever you want to use it when you plug it into your computer (either with a 2nd USB cord or a switch).

2316

I thought the imp board made it so you dont need a switch o_O

2317

once again my ignorance in electronics drives me to ask a question probably answered. (sorry in advanced)

why exactly do both pcb’s need to be powered on? if only one is being used. I can only assume it would have to be that everything is wired up to both of them, but i figured for the pad thats off, it just be like its, unplugged.

2318

Eh, the imp is just a different kind of switch (albeit a very clever one), if you hold down the button for 360 mode and plug the cord into the PC it’ll be in 360 mode and will function just like normal, if you don’t have the button held down it’ll go into Cthulhu/PS3 mode.

2319

So if I ordered the MC Cthulhu can I wire it in my TE and still use the USB cable that it came with? I don’t have to do the RJ-45 stuff and whatnot. What about the USB jack? I have a feeling that shouldnt be on the Cthulhu PCB if I dont want to do the RJ-45 mod… did I mess up ordering?

Thanks. I’ve read a shit ton of pages recently and am still having a problem understanding how and why things work as they do. Plus, there are a million different guides that all do the same thing in different ways. I’m unsure of which to follow. All I want is a Cthulhu in my 360 TE with an Imp board and for it to work on both consoles lol

1.: We disconnect and strip the USB cable from the madcatz PCB and solder it to the Imp board. The madcatz PCB gets power from the imp as does the cthulhu correct? If thats the case then this makes more sense.

2.: there are several ways to get the cthulhu board to be selected. You can set it so basically any button selects it opposed to the 360 PCB. Whats the best way yo do this? solder it to xbox guide button? Start+select? Turbo? (I never use turbo anyway) Also what you are soldering is the “guide” part of the cthulhu correct?

2320

Same here! On the MCM thing, anyway. And I suppose the problem. It also does it if I try playing arcade compilations, most notably CCC2 and SF Anniversary Collection between the games and menu, but it also did it on Midway’s between the start menu and the game select screen. It doesn’t do that on PS1 games, though (tested it on Raiden) or on the PS2 menu if there’s nothing in the machine. I’m playing on a fat PS2, if that changes anything. It’s kind of a pain in the ass to constantly be replugging it in from where my PS2 is located.

OK, so, it’ll work on bootup if plugged in when it’s with the Wii or the Xbox. It’ll also work on startup on the PS2 if it has no game in it, or if it has a PS1 game in it. It will ONLY work on a PS2 game if I plug in the controller after the game boots up, and in games that bootup to additional titles like CCC2 or SF Anniversary, it has to be removed and replugged in after the game proper is booted up. Is it supposed to do that, and if not, what could be the problem? Do I need to reflash the chip or something?