I’m thinking of buying a PS3/PC Cthulhu So that I can use my PS3 TE on PCs without intel or Via (UHCI) chipsets. But I’ve never ever modded a stick before and have no idea how to solder…
If I order the assembled version. How comprehensible do you think The instructions will be for me?
and how likely am I to end up with a $200 CAD paperweight if I screw it up.
Alright, lots of orders piled up over Evo. All of the domestic US ones are packed up ready to go, with all of the internationals going out tomorrow.
Many of you should have received automated email notices from paypal with your delivery confirmation numbers. Those in the US who have, I’m trying the paypal postage thing for the first time, so bare with me if there is any confusion or delay.
I’ll come back and field the questions as soon as I return from the PO.
<3 uu
I may as well ask in this thread too, means it’s just as relevant.
"I’ve almost got everything squared away for my controller, I’ve got my CG 360 PCBs, my buttons, and soon to be- my case. The next step is to get ahold of the Imp/MC Cthulhu and wire everything. Wiring is where my question comes in. I just want to get everything squared away in my head.
(bare with me, because I can’t load images from imageshack and whatnot while I’m at work) Am I correct to think that the 360 PCB passes through the Cthulhu board, and out like the rest of the controllers (through the RJ-45 jack, also I would just have a single jack for everything)? I have a feeling that’s exactly what I’m reading, but I just can’t piece it together with the lack of sleep I’m currently suffering. If someone could just confirm that for me, and if possible a quick diagram of exactly what goes where (not nessisary, but would help me pass the time at work) Thanks in advance, I have a feeling its a stupid question."
Could you PM me with pictures of the board, especially of the bottom? The behavior you describe is unheard of, so I’m wondering if there were any issues during assembly. Feel free to send me an email so I can get your address so we can get this straightened out.
Well, I can’t say it’s supposed to function that way, but I can see why it would. Just about anything that sort of ‘resets’ the ps2 or runs another executable would re-do the initialization of the controller ports, turning off power and eventually turning it back on to talk to them. I can see this would happen. I will look into the code and do my best to help with that, but the main problem I think we’ll have is that there is no way for the Cthulhu to tell the difference between the ps2 cutting power to the controllers, and you unplugging the controller to plug into a USB or GC or Xbox. So I guess I need to work more on the console detection routines. I’ll do my best, but I wont have an ETA for a bit.
It’d take a while to explain. Go through the ‘2 pcb’s in one stick’ thread, I’m pretty sure I’ve answered that more than once there.
Chances of you ending up with a paperweight are pretty much nil. The difficulty of the install is pretty much up to you and the decisions you make.
Stick, face buttons and select and start buttons are dead easy. Just cut the wires going to the original board and screw into the cthulhu’s screw terminals. You can cut and remove the existing cable and run your own A to B usb cable out (may involve a little dremeling), put in a wire as directed in the welcome sheet so start + select = Home, and you’re done, solderfree.
If you want to use the existing USB cable instead, you can, but you’ll have to desolder it from the original board and solder it onto the Cthulhu.
If you want to use the existing Home button, you can, but it would involve soldering a couple of fine wires to the board and then screwing them into the cthulhu. You may have to either keep the original pcb powered, or cut a couple of traces to make sure it works though.
Sadly, I dont have pictures from anybody who has done this exact mod though, but chances of frying things is slim to none, and the difficulty is all up to you.
Bomberman has put up a ton of diagrams of this mod in his tutorial. It’s highly recommended you follow his guide.
toodles i was hoping you could give me some tips on trying to figure this out.
I have an hrap3 dualed with a madcatz360 pad and an imp as the switch. it worked perfectly for over a month and then yesterday i started having this weird problem. I plug it in and nothing happens, plug it into 360 and i know its getting power because the little light on the turbo panel blinks for a second which is the normal behavior, but after that none of the buttons work.
When its like this even holding the button down to switch to the hrap3 pcb which i have wired in as secondary doesn’t work. if i mess around unplugging and replugging between my ps3, pc and 360 it eventually starts working again and once its working it works. leaving it plugged in is no problem once its up, unplugging it and replugging it works too. i thought maybe it was just a random glitch but i fired up my 360 again today and it happened again.
I don’t have the triggers wired up at all. any ideas?
Intermittant problems are a bitch to track down. Keep at it to see if you can figure out a way to reliably recreate the error. Most likely, theres a stray strand from one of the wires sometimes touching a neighboring point it shouldn’t. Also use the PC more for your testing. You can easily see which board is being used by the Imp in the control panel, and you will likely get better error messages when plugging into a PC.
Hi Toodles,
Finally figured out what was wrong with it. During the assembly of the board, the first and last pins of both the resistor networks were soldered but none of the others. I had a friend help me solder the rest and the board works like a charm. So I guess without the resistance the CPU chip was detecting a current and sending some random signals back to my computer. Well thanks for the support, I will probably buy the MC version moving forward.
You are the best! Thank you for the replies, sir.
Argh, I guess keep me informed; PM or whatever. I tried reflashing it with the file you posted a while back but it’s still acting the same. I don’t suppose it could be any sort of physical problem rather than a coding one given what I posted up from my own tests? It’s really weird that it is fine with PS1 games.
PM me your order number and see if I can arrange something for you.
So, I can solder on a USB B female jack onto my Imp and then use an old USB cable I have to have a detachable connection? As in, solder the two USB cables together to give the TEs USB cable a male B style end.
And when we solder stuff to the madcatz PCB or even the cthulhu or Imp…are we heating the board slightly? I know the proper way to solder is to heat both the wire and the hole it goes in. So I guess we have to be careful how much we heat it eh?
Im having the same swapmagic/hdloader issues down to the letter with ps2. Im using a te stick, how about u guys?
Mine’s just a board by itself using a Pelican Real Arcade Universal shell and controller cord, but it’s only been tried on a fat ps2. Is yours a slim?
So I tried searching but didn’t find anything concrete:
Any chance of an SMD version? The particular issue being, of course, the IC since the rest of the board could be replicated very easily in SMD form but the through-hole IC would prevent mounting the board directly to metal without some spacing.
Yup.
?? I have no clear what you’re trying to describe here, but it sounds wrong. If you use the USB jack, the cable going out of your stick will be a single, unmodified standard USB cable. Everything going to the Imp will be just wires connected to the two pcb’s in your stick.
The heat isn’t really an issue on the Cthulhu or the Imp. Just dont leave the iron on it forever. The points on 360 pcb’s you’ll be soldering to are far from the heat sensitive components, and won’t be an issue there either.
An SMD version could be made, but isn’t planned. The benefits just don’t outweight the drawbacks. If I switched everything over the SMD, then the unassembled kits would be completely dead; every board would have to be preassembled. Not really a problem for me, but many folks prefer assembling their own. Next, the IC sockets are used so the chips can be installed later as either the PS3 or MC version. Going SMD, the chips would have to be purchased all at once during assembly, meaning a lot more money would have to be put up front for the assembly order, and would be hard set to either MC or PS3 versions. Third, even if the electrical components were all switched to SMD, the ones that require mechanical strength, namely the USB jack and screw terminals, would still need to be through hole. I know surface mount versions are available, but I just dont trust them to hold up to the abuse. Needless to say, those parts extend further from the board than the electronic parts, meaning you’ll still not be able to rest it flush on a metal surface. Lastly, the main size restraint on the Cthulhu is the length of the screw terminals. The board size would not be reduced my much if any if the parts were changed to SMD.
I’ve given it a lot of thought, but I just don’t see the benefits of going SMD outweighing the drawbacks.
If you were mounting it properly on a metal surface, I don’t see how there is any problem. At the most ghetto end, it could easily be mounting with a thick piece of double sided foam tape. At the more proper end, #4 bolts could be welded on the case for the four corners. The corner mounting holes have plenty of room for a nut to be placed underneath as a stand off, keeping well more than enough clearance.
How exactly to wires “screw in” to the cthulhu? Like, you have wires wrapped around the screws, so the signal goes to the screw then the contact?
Can you provide a zoomed in image of the screw terminal? I think that would help me decide if I’m competent enough to do something like this.
Screw pushes down a metal tab, and the wire ends up pressed between the tab and the metal wall.
http://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data%20Sheets/Phoenix%20Contact%20PDFs/1729018.pdf
I don’t see how it could possibly be at all difficult for anybody. Wire go in hole, turn screw till it doesn’t turn.
Thanks for the response, Toodles. The issue I’m facing and particularly why I’d want SMD is that thickness is a limiting factor for an idea I’ve got. But let’s say I wanted to roll my own board using the Cthulhu schematic:
Oh, also, if you don’t mind, what’re the dimensions of the board anyway? (The components I can just look up the datasheets for but I can’t see a listing for board size.)
Thanks again!
Dimensions are listed in the first post. The cthulhu is not open source. If you’re looking to have custom versions made, I’m all for helping, but it wouldn’t be worth either of our times if you were looking at less then a few hundred in a batch.