Thanks for your quick answers! I would probably had cut off the analog PCB if I didn’t check. Hopefully I can borrow a soldering iron from a friend tomorrow.
can you point me in the direction of the resistor info? cause i can’t find it, i’ve been looking but haven’t seen anything, all i currently have is an analog kill switch which only works with cvs2 and tekken
What’s currently the best 360 pad to hack that is easily available?
I think that the common MadCatz one is easiest; I think it usually has the Gamestop logo on the front of it, and Gamestop still sells it:
http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=42850
I’m not 100% sure if those ones are always the common ground version.
I write about neutralizing analog sticks in my site now. With this, it is a matter of looking where the variable resistor points lead and setting resistors between those paths. But now that I look at things, it might be pretty hard to install all the resistors needed to neutralize things. I just hope that each variable resistor can be neutralized with one and not two resistors.
You could use a pair of resistors to replace one of the pots, and then run a wire connecting the middle wiper pin of that one pot to the middle wiper pin of the other three analog stick pots.
I’m admittedly trying to understand better how analog sticks usually work. I’m wondering if analog stick variable resistors always use both sides of the resistor or not.
I can see there are 8 pins used by the analog PCB for this particular controller. I assume 2 are the click switches, 2 are for the side pins used by each variable resistor, and the other 4 are for the middle of each variable resistor. My question about your solution is does having the middle pins on all the analogs connected not cause problems?
I’m confused by your description; it doesn’t match what I’ve seen, so maybe a pic will help.
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/8255/analogxk6.jpg
That’s from a common ground MadCatz 360 pad, in case you’re curious, but the idea is the same for every pad.
The four points in the red box on the left are the tectile switch for ‘thumbclicks’. Those are digital of course and don’t concern us.
The two brown boxes surround three pins. Each box represents one pot, one for the Y axis, one for the X axis. You’ll see that one pin on each is connected to the ground plane (the left pin on the bottom pot, the bottom pin on the right pot). The middle pin has those nice lines heading towards the controller chip; those are the only ones that get read by the chip. The last pin of each pot is connected to a voltage source of some sort, maybe the 5v from the console. (probably a 3.3v regulated voltage source, but whatever.)
The other four holes (two of which show solder, the other two dont) are just the mounting holes for the analog stick metal contraption, and have no electrical significance.
Those questions go slightly hand-in-hand, so I’ll answer them kinda togetherish.
The whole reason of using potentiometers is based on something called a voltage divider. You dont have to care what that is, but it helps one understand how the pots work. The idea is like this: You have one leg going to a low voltage source, so 0 volts. You have the far other leg as a high voltage source, say 5v. And somewhere in the middle is a third leg called the wiper. Turning the pot like a volume knob will move the wiper around, closer or farther to an end depending on which way it is turned.
The cool thing is that the voltage on the wiper pin changes directly to its distance from the ends. If the wiper is in the middle, the voltage is exactly 2.5 volts, half way in between 0 volts and 5 volts. Jammed all of the way high? wiper is 5 volts. All of the way down, 0 volts. all by 10% of the way down? 0.5 volts. By checking what the voltage is, you can tell exactly where the wiper is.
In order to use that in an analog stick, the make the very center, 2.5volts, be neutral. If the voltage goes a bit lower, they know you moved the stick left by that amount. If it goes higher, they know you moved the stick right by that amound. The point is, by checking that one voltage, they can tell exactly how far you have the stick moved, so you can get some precise FPS movement.
For triggers, its a little different; there is no need for a neutral; you can’t ‘unpress’ a trigger further than all of the way. So they usually make unpressed be high voltage, and all of the way pressed be low voltage. We don’t need to use two resistors for these because we aren’t trying to force it to be in the exact middle between high and low.
For your first question, if you remove one of either of the voltage pin, the voltage divider doesn’t work. If only the ground is connected, the wiper will always show 0 volts because there is no +5v to compare it too. So you need a high and a low in order to get the middle voltage we’re looking for when we lock the analog sticks down.
Second question: A chip reading the voltage on a line doesn’t use any (appreciable) current, so the voltage on that line stays the same, even if four different chip pins are reading the voltage. So, my solution of locking one wiper pin to exact middle voltage, and then connected that wiper to the other three wiper pins, does not cause any problems.
Thanks Toodles. I was mainly just confused about how the variable resistors register in the PCB now that I look at it. I guess that the created voltage is specifically what matters, not simply resistance. And the variable resistance functions by using more or less of the length of an arched carbon film. And the side pins do not have a special line relative to the processor.
I was talking about the 8 pins on the Dual Shock diagram shown above linking the analog PCB with the main PCB. So, with what you said in mind, 2 pins are for the click switches, 1 pin is for 0v, 1 pin is for a higher voltage, and the 4 other pins are for the middle pins detected by the PCB.
That use of only 2 resistors sounds interesting. That would definitely save a lot of trouble. In that MadCatz image you show, it looks like you could install 2 resistors to replace the one variable resistor, then go where the middle pins paths converge, scratch at the two paths, then add a glob of solder and have that stick set.
Exactly right. The voltage is the ratio of the resistances; the voltage at the wiper will be VCC*(Rgnd/(Rgnd+Rvcc)). So the actual resistance of the two resistors you use doesn’t matter much; as long as they are equal, the voltage will be a solid half. To minimize the amount of wasted current going through the resistors, I recommend 5k-ish resistors. I use 4.7k Ohm resistors on all of mine.
That makes perfect sense. Short the four analog wiper lines together, connect that mass to ground with a 4.7k resistor, connect the mass to VCC with a 4.7k resistor, and you’re done with all four analog lines locked in place.
You could, but run the risk of cutting those traces when you scrape the green soldermask off. The pads are nice and large, so running a wire would be easier at least for me.
I appreciate anything about this you post up on your site; this is a frequent question/problem. Especially if it includes a picture of the PSX pad with removable analog daughterboard, which seems to be the one most people make this mistake on.
Mission accomplished
Thanks a lot for the info Toodles. I’ll definitely update my site when I get time with this new info and give you credit for it.
I dug out my PS1 DS H (Early Version) so I could try this stuff out; I chose that model because I think most people want to fix that one. I figured out that the pins from the analog stick PCB left to right were: 1-4 middle analog signals; 5, 7 click switches; 6, 8 0V and higher voltage. The layout of these could not be more hacker-friendly.
I rubbed flux on the pin’s connection to the main PCB and mopped up as much solder as I could. When I got as much solder as I could, I added more flux and slowly heated and pulled away the connections one at a time. I attached one side of each 4.7K resistor to the 0V and higher voltage locations; I used an exacto knife to make sure they were not touching neighboring pins. I globbed together the 1-4 pins. I then took the other side of one of the resistors and attached it to the glob; then I attached the other side of the other resistor to that wire. Some trimming could be done.
Tested the PCB and it works great.
Another technique that could be easier would be cutting 8-pin cable near the main PCB, removing the insulation, and using the wires to connect the resistors.
Gracias. Will look into it.
slagcoin and toodles, i can’t thank you enough for providing this info
slag, your site is bar none the best padhackers resource i’ve ever seen
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h191/djdelly/DSCN0375.jpg
Start and select on a PS2 pad I’m trying to hack.
Is safe to assume that I need two wires running to each?
Mad Catz Arcade Stick hack - further help please
Hello -
So I’ve found the mad catz arcade stick cheap and I want to attempt to hack it first before investing the $20 or so in to the mad catz pad everyone is talking about. I found the below image through my searching. Please correct me if what I say here is wrong.
-Do I solder individual wires from the blue circles to the correct button/direction?
-What do I do with the 3 red ground circles?
-My pad doesn’t have the red and black wires on the back running across the back of the PCB. What is this doing?
-I’ve read about resistors and the potentiometers needing resistors jumped from the pins but can’t I just remove these? If not what type of resistors do I use?
The PCB diagram is extremely helpful but I’m dumb to this stuff and I’m more of a visual learner. If anyone has one of these PCBs all soldered up I’d love to see a picture.
Thanks!
No need each pad in the set are connected, see the attached pic…
For the pots you don’t have to remove them if you don’t want more than 6 buttons. I don’t know about that pcb, but on normal controllers you can remove them faster if you don’t have soldering braid/wick by being ghetto and using tin snips/shears: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=60ugdjPRYiI
Then just solder 10k resistors to the correct spots: http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=145573
stupid question but… I guess you can’t make an 8 btns stick with that can you ?
You should be able to. It does have both shoulder buttons (RB & LB) and triggers (LT & RT) as well as A, B, X & Y
OH ! right my bad I did’t see the extra triggers on the other side of the pcb 
I picked up a PS2 HRAP (mirror finish) the other day. All wires had been cut and stick was hacked to work on the neo geo. Now I have two questions.
Does anyone have a pic of the board so I can re-wire it to work on a PS2 and what do I need to do wire it, so I can use it on the Neo and on the PS2? The reason I want the PS2 out is so I can use it on my computer for 2df and ggpo.
Thanks.