OK, another question. How do barrier strips work specifically? I wanted to get one because I’ve seen it makes wiring really neat. I’d love to have my wiring as neat.
Big hunk o’ plastic with holes in both sides. The holes have metal bits, into which you plug your wire, and then screw down the… screw… on the top to secure it. Do the same for the other side, and violin, you have yourself a connection. Solderless, and relatively easy to change if needed.
Other variants include terminals to which you attach quick-disconnects, same deal but a bit easier to change around, but you have to crimp wires.
Basically just a convenience/neatness thing, completely unneccesary.
–flux
So, one side is ground, while the other side is the action connection(X, B, etc)?
Well no, it’s more or less just a way of making a connection between two wires easily. You have the same contact on both sides of the strip. It’s just X->X2. So you can have the stick side of the wiring separate from the PCB side.
–flux
okay, so im trying to wire up competion stick and some happ convex buttons to a first party DC controller. and it recognizes the stick in the DC, but the stick wont respond and it only acknowledges button pressing when you press what would be L and R and the same time. can anyone offer some insight?\
EDIT - so everything works except L, i’m not sure why not. Any help would of course be appreciated.
ONE MORE EDIT - so we jacked the PCB, and i’ve got a blaze twin stick lying around, so i ripped out the board on that one. But the problem is there’s two contact points for each button, and the blaze buttons attach directly to the board. Is there some kind of workaround? Wiring one wire to one contact, or one wire to both contacts, or two wires to seperate contacts yielded nothing tangible, but the stick freaked out a bit and moved around kinda randomly. Does anyone have some advice?
I don’t know what the problem might be but I’ve wired up quite a few of the first party DC pads and I’ve never had a problem. I’m in Mountain View and could look at if you just pay me for my time and for shipping.
You have a short somewhere or it’s probably not grounded properly. Best way to check is to use a multimeter
**
ONE MORE EDIT - But the problem is there’s two contact points for each button, and the blaze buttons attach directly to the board. Is there some kind of workaround? Wiring one wire to one contact, or one wire to both contacts, or two wires to seperate contacts yielded nothing tangible, but the stick freaked out a bit and moved around kinda randomly. Does anyone have some advice? **
- Okay, for this problem you’ll probably will have to trash those wires that are connected to the buttons. Actually, is the Blaze stick a ball type with cheap jap buttons? Those type of joysticks usually are wired/soldred directly to the buttons. If you are using just the pad, just remove the wires from the buttons and if they are long enough to reach your stick button microswitches, then crimp on some .187 female quick disconnects and make sure that you don’t forget to have it grounded like it was on the blaze. If the wires are going to be too short, you have two options: a. you can run them through barrier strips, b. you can solder on longer wires from the pcb to reach the microswitches. *
If you have any other questions, just post. I’ve been busy working on sticks and work/school/family and practicing for a tourney so I have a tight schedule.
What PSX PAD???
What PSX pads do you guys use when you make a custom stick. Any links? And does it work with Xbox, GC and PS2 with an adaptor?
I have seen a psx pad (3rd party) on lan-kwei.com for 5 bucks, anybody know if this one works any good?
Any 3rd party controller should work. The best one to use so far are Madcatz controllers. Wal-Mart sells these PSX Madcatz controllers for only $5!! The one without the rumble feature. You can use the following pads:
PSX/PS2:
Nyko
SONY (original, PS1)
Pelican Retro Shock 2
Madcatz Dual Force 2 Pro
Madcatz Digital Controller ($5)
PS Arcade (joystick)
Namco (joystick >for Tekken mainly)
Dual Force (joystick)
DC:
Agetec (joystick)
Pelican
Madcatz
SEGA
The Enforcer (joystick)
GC:
Nintendo’s Wavebird
Pelican
Madcatz
XB:
Madcatz
What kind of problem would you run into as I’m gonna use the cheap Madcatz Digital Controller found at WalMart as it has an auto-fire function? I know RoTeNdO recommends this but I’m a total newb so I want the building of my first stick to run as smoothly as possible.
Sony PSX pad
There is a Sony pad that has small copper points exposed on the PCB so you don’t really have to dremel the black contact material off to expose the copper. Zip tie your wires down to the pad and then solder each fine wire to the contact point similar to these pictures. http://www.geocities.com/armad1ll0/systems/Wavebird_Stick.htm
It’s the Sony Digital Series H pad. For some reason, it’s important to me to have it say Sony on the cord, purchased used for $8 each. (not shown, my example is my work on a wavebird)
If you want to use the Sony DualShock (the white one) then you can desolder the ribbon cable and then solder right to the PCB (very small points to solder to) I like the Dualshock because it has better compatibility to those adaptors. Here’s the wire code for that ribbon cable on the DualShock series H. I use this one when I want to do a dualshock. Here’s an example of a dualshock stick.
Wiring code (top of ribbon, away from the LED)
1 mode change
2 Joy left
3 Joy down
4 Joy right
5 Joy up
6 Start
7 Select
8 L2
9 R2
10 L1
11 R1
12 Tri button
13 O button
14 X button
15 Sqr button
16 Ground
I’ve located adaptors that’ll work with just digital pads as well. The thing with adaptors are that there’s three levels of compatibility.
- adaptors that need a dualshock.
- adaptors that need a sony digital (or very good digital pads that are coded similar to the sony digital)
- adaptors that’ll still work with other 3rd party digital pads. Less similar to the Sony one.
The adaptors that I’m talking about are for Xbox and Gamecube. Compatibility for Dreamcast and PC/USB are less of an issue.
There was a broken PS2 DualShock2 here at work that I’m now doing the ribbon wire code to. This way I can salvage this one. I also have mapped out the MS Xbox controller at home. You can solder directly to the small points on the back of it instead of trying to scrap off the black conductive surface material.
can anyone link a diagram that shows where to solder for the original ps1 pad, not the dual shock version?
thats exactly what i wanted… sort of.
my pad looks different.
especially the traces where the buttons are supposed to hook to.
compability…
I have read that some games are looking for those two analog thingies on the dual shock, what happens when you dont have them (use digital pad instead)? What games cant I play if I use digital?
I saw a controller for 5 bucks on lan-kwei.com…are they any good?
Digital pads vs Dualshocks
Most or none of the fighting games require a dualshock so you’re safe going with the digital. You won’t be playing onimusha on your stick nor would you want to.
Most pads now are fine. Some of the original 3rd party pads did not produce a signal that was exactly like the Sony pad. Back when I had more disposable income and didn’t want to build my own sticks I had a pair that used a hacked 3rd party PCB in there. Tekken 3 didn’t work and that was the end of that pair. I went in there and hacked in a pair of Sony pads and then everything was compatible. I’ve heard of no stories like this one anymore.
Later on when the adaptors starting showing up for the Gamecube/Xbox I went in there and tried them on the digital sony pad. NO GO so I then started hacking in Sony Dualshock pads. Now the adaptors that are showing up work with even digital pads to now you don’t need to as long as you get the right adaptor that is more compatible.
OK armad1ll0…
But what PSX pads is thebest/cheapest to use? I have read that some psx pads dont work with a Playstation console so how do you solve that one? And is it better to use a orginal dual shock you think? Is it hard to solder ( I am not so good at it)? where do you buy your pads, you have some urls :D.
Best wishes
correcting…
doesn`t work with a Playstation 2 console.
have anyone…
used this controller?
http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=14&products_id=3544&
I know It has turbo and all that but can`t it work? Buy 5 and get 57,86% off 
lexan!!!
are the lexan sheets everyone is using easy to cut with a tablesaw and drill through using a hand drill? <— i mean hand held drill as opposed to a drill press.