Heh, quick shipping comes to bite me in the ass. I was planning on Instructables tomorrow or Sat. when the cables arrived.
Quick and dirty for the time being:
Don’t short the USB Only solder jumper. If you did already, a quick touch with a hot iron should melt and separate the short. You don’t need the solder gone, just not shorting those two pads.
Package comes with two very small glass diodes (4148’s) and two larger black diodes (5817’s). The area where the USB Only jumper is is the area the diodes need to go; the others are numbered, 1-3, and the USB Only one is for the USB jack. Install the diodes in those spots, with the glass diodes over the USB Only spot and #3 beside it. Both of the bands on the diodes should match where the band is on the silkscreen for #3. Install the two black ones into #1 and #2, against matching the bands shown on the silkscreen for #1 and #2. Fitting the black ones in isn’t completely easy; the holes are like exactly the same size as the legs. I had to use pliers to get them all of the way in. Maybe rubbing the legs with a little sandpaper might help if you’d rather not tug with the pliers. Solder all four diodes in place and trim off the excess legs
And that’s the only difference in assembling the board.
Where to solder console cables. General rules: Every cable has a ground pin. Solder those to the G column. Every cable with have a power or VCC pin. Those go in the V column. Pinouts for cables are easily found on google or gamesx.com. Any pin not mentioned does not get connected. For PSX it is highly recommended that the VCC line go through a black diode instead of a glass diode. The rest don’t really matter.
PSX:
-DATA line goes to column C
-CLK (‘clock’) line goes to column A
-ATT line goes to column D
-CMD line goes to column B
-ACK line goes to column F
-GND goes to column G
-VCC (the 3.3v one, pin 5, NOT the other higher voltage rumble power) goes to column V row 1; you want this one to use one of the black diodes, and if you put them where I said above, then using the spot in row 1 column V will make sure of it.
GC:
-DATA (pin #2) goes to column F
-VCC (pin #1, the +5 volt one, NOT the 3.43v one) goes to column V
-GND (any of them, but I usually use the one from pin #3, so I’m using pins 1, 2, and 3) goes to the G column
Xbox: Wire colors are not guaranteed, but damn common.
-VCC (red wire) goes to column V
-GND (black wire) goes to column G
-D- (white wire) to column D
-D+ (green wire) to column E
(other yellow wires remains not connected)
Remember you need to hold Left when plugging in to activate Xbox mode. The rest will detect automagically as long as Left isn’t pressed when plugged in.
I may have missed it in the thread, but what is the difference between the various diodes included? Does certain consoles require certain diodes, or is it just that some (the PSX with only 3.3 VDC perhaps) require a more expensive diode? My plan was to wire the auxiliary console pins to a DB-9 port on the back of the case with separate console cables for maximum neatness…
Not really. Just get a length you’ll be comfortable with while playing. IMHO 9 feet is a good length. Just make sure the cable is long enough to reach your chair/couch! :looney:
In the kits and upgrade chips sent out so far, there have been two glass 4148’s, and two black 5817’s. The major differences between them:
The 5817 causes less of a voltage drop, in the area of 0.2 volts versus the 4148’s drop of .5 volts.
The 5817 can handle more current going through it without damage.
The 5817 is a bit more difficult to install; the holes for the legs need widened.
Honestly, for all of my testing, I used the cheap 4148 diode, and everything worked fine, on all consoles, even Playstation, but it brought the power voltage doing to like 2.7 or 2.6 volts on the PSX; going through a 5817, that power voltage is around 3.1 to 3.2 volts, which just makes me feel better.
Nah, you can likely get away with either diode, but just feel that the 5817 is the right way to go for this board. Don’t sweat the details, the diodes will be included in the packages and the Instructable updated to include them.
Oh and quick question, I’m planning on modding my 360 TE w/ the MC Cthulhu w/ psx cord I ordered from ya. I know the sticks aren’t out so ya haven’t been able to work on an instructable yet, but about how many wires should I get to prepare for the solderless mod?
I wouldn’t worry about it; I’ve got parts on the way already for making a parts kit for the solderless mod which includes the wires.
It’s kinda risky, since I’m not 100% sure it will work until I try it, but I figure the perk of having them ready to go as soon as I find out would be worth it.
Sorry to hijack this thread with all the talk of the update Cthulhu PCB my problem is with the older V1.1. My problem being that on the two sticks I’ve built using these boards if I work the stick and press the select button at the same time then I loose my connection to PC/PS3? I’ve trebble checked my connections and everything seems fine, no shorts and everything where it should be. I’ve even ditched usb jack on one of the sticks and soldered the cable direct to the board. Also on the other stick I’ve tried different USB cable. I even used a separate GND for start and select as opposed to daisy chaining all the buttons to one GND terminal. Alas still no joy. Everything else picks up ok. My earlier problem of home menu being activated without touching start + select has been put down to my poor layout design and the ultra sensitive sanwa buttons. Any help guys?
Remove any wires you may have put in or installed. If the ‘Disable Home’ jumper is shorted, touch it with a hot iron to unshort it. Make sure the "USB Only’ jumper IS shorted. Remove the USB wire and use a USB jack; you just can’t go wrong using a jack.
Take a peek over the Instructable; verify the two resistor arrays are oriented correctly and the two capacitors are oriented properly. Plug it in, verify it comes up as a game pad in Windows.
Start by wiring the stick and only the stick. Verify it works. Add in start, select and home. Verify they work, then verify they work together with the stick.
Go ahead and run the ground loop for your main play buttons to all of the buttons, but not the signal lines. Verify everything (but the play buttons, natch) work. Add a signal line at a time, stopping to verify the whole thing works each time, until you’re done.
And mark your VCC terminal with a Sharpie so you know never to use it. The most likely cause of your disconnection is you’re shorting VCC and Ground together.
EDIT: without even desoldering anything I can see exactly what I’ve done wrong. I’ve put the fudging resistor networks in the wrong way round. Fack!!! What an idiot i am so much for checking properly. I presumed unlike the polarized caps, the resistor network wouldn’t matter which way round they went in. Balls. I’ll desolder and try again!!
So you are almost done with the MC… In that case I may have ripped apart a PS1 pad for nothing (which means I have to buy a new one… that thing came in handy using my Joybox to play games on Gamecube that I couldn’t before because the controller gave me hand cramps and PS2 controllers seem to take three seconds to activate the triggers… stupid pressure sensitivity). I await good news with baited breath .
Almost? Son, I got five boxes of MC Cthulhu’s with PSX cords attached and tested waiting for Monday to mail 'em off. I’m waiting for feedback on these preorders before I start feeding them to LizardLick, but as far as I can tell, this thing works great.
I’ve got an odd problem. For some reason, when I plug my MC Cthulhu into my PC, nothing happens. Then after several moments, I get an unrecognized USB device error. But when holding left as I plug it in for Xbox mode, it’s recognized just fine. With an Xbox controller driver, it seem to be completely functional when in Xbox mode but still broken in regular USB mode.
I’ve double-checked all of my connections and it’s all good. The behavior would suggest to me a software problem especially since both of my Cthulhu chips behave the same way. But I don’t want to jump to conclusions since so many others seem to have no problems with USB mode in the PC/PS3 Cthulhus.
is the VCC point and the USB Power point both a +5v point?
I’m going to be wiring this to an xbox360 pad and i was confused as to which one to wire to the 5v point on the Xbox360 pad (and noticed the 5v name on the 360 pad was VCC).
I was planning on Instructables tomorrow or Sat. when the cables arrived.