Street Fighter 4 conversion

[Namco]

Capcom just came out with this new game called Street Fighter IV. I got the flyer a couple weeks ago and it looked pretty good. The Street Fighter II machine on my route hasn't been getting the kind of traffic like it used to, so I've decided to convert it. I placed an order for the Street Fighter IV conversion kit last week and it just came in. Here's a picture of the first page of the instruction manual:


LOL, just kidding about the conversion and route thing, but I did pickup a copy of Street Fighter IV on Xbox 360 recently and am going to retrofit my SF2 cab to accommodate the Xbox. It's a Dynamo HS-1 based Street Fighter II cabinet running every imaginable version of Street Fighter under MAME. It has a computer monitor, genuine Happ Competition sticks and buttons, connected to a fast PC via a Ultimarc keyboard encoder. It’s powered by a powerstrip hacked with a 12v relay that turns on all the lights and monitor. Artwork, controls and play experience are 100% authentic to the real thing. I’ve been loving life since I built this thing last year. Original post here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=73101.0

But this year they came out with Street Fighter IV. The Xbox 360 version is out now, but the PC version isn’t out for another year. So this means I have to hack an Xbox 360 and get that badboy mounted into my arcade cabinet ASAP.

For this purpose, I picked up a pair of cheap Xbox controllers. These MadCatz arcade sticks ran me about $5 bucks each and are extremely easy to hack according to the detailed instructions and PCB pictures on slagcoin.com.



 I have to hand it to those guys at slagcoin, they really know their stuff. I thank slagcoin.com for helping me pick this stick and get motivated to do this mod. http://www.slagcoin.com/joystick.html

[Namco]

I thought about using another enclosure like the one I used for my Ultimarc encoder, but realized that I can’t find one big enough and it’s a waste of money. The authentic arcade way to go would be to mount the parts on a piece of wood and mount that on the wall of the cab so that’s what I decided to do.


The solder pads are pre-drilled on this thing and it was extremely easy to solder some solid core wire through the signal side of each button.


The hard part was the A button which did not have a hole and there was a chip on the underside preventing me from drilling one. So predictably I dropped a huge blob of solder bridging both sides of the A button. I tried to scrape it off, and the entire goddam metal surface of the damn button came off with it.


Luckily the left joystick had a button on the top of it that also triggered the A button, so I used the signal from that to wire up the A button.


The other hard part was the big solder pads for the shoulder bumpers. For some reason my iron just could not melt them. On my next mod, I will do the shoulder buttons FIRST so I can get as much of the iron on those pads.

[foleykoontz]

How the hell did you find not one, but two of those sticks for $5? I can't find those anywhere and eBay has them for over 20. I hacked one of the Gamestop controllers for my dual X-arcade stick but I still need to do one more so it can be two player.

[Namco]

How the hell did you find not one, but two of those sticks for $5? I can't find those anywhere and eBay has them for over 20. I hacked one of the Gamestop controllers for my dual X-arcade stick but I still need to do one more so it can be two player.

I saw them on clearance at Fry's Electronics in the Friday, October 31st ad where I picked up two just for this purpose. I mean for $4.99, I just couldn't pass them up. At the time I was going to use them for HD Remix.

Now I need two more to make some custom sticks so I can play it in the living room! 

[Octo]

A new arcade opened up here in Austin not too long ago. I was less than impressed by their selection of games (and the fact they force you to use $1 tokens) except they had the Japanese version of SF4. It's so much better in an arcade than on the damned 360!

Oh and the only other saving grace was they had Mr. Driller....

[Gatsu]

yeah I'm building my Vewlix/Lindberg cab to run SFIV on the PC when that drops. I hope theres a way I can mod the game to run more like the PC, take coins...that kind of thing.

Can't wait to see this finished.

Fighters RULE!

[Ginsu Victim]

yeah I'm building my Vewlix/Lindberg cab to run SFIV on the PC when that drops. I hope theres a way I can mod the game to run more like the ARCADE, take coins...that kind of thing.

Can't wait to see this finished.

Fighters RULE!

[MrMojoZ]

...but the PC version isn’t out for another year.

PC version will be out this summer.

[foleykoontz]

A new arcade opened up here in Austin not too long ago. I was less than impressed by their selection of games (and the fact they force you to use $1 tokens) except they had the Japanese version of SF4. It's so much better in an arcade than on the damned 360!

Oh and the only other saving grace was they had Mr. Driller....

I think I saw a video of that on Screwattack.com but I thought that was Einsteins Arcarde, oh well. I only live an hour 1/2 from Austin yet I've never been to the arcades there, though I've gone to 6th street too many times...

So are there no more cheap places to buy these sticks? It seems pretty hard just to find a store that sells them.

[Octo]

I think I saw a video of that on Screwattack.com but I thought that was Einsteins Arcarde, oh well. I only live an hour 1/2 from Austin yet I've never been to the arcades there, though I've gone to 6th street too many times...

Unfortunately they've all closed down. Einstein's and Le Fun were on The Drag (Guadalupe) and despite the college crowd, they couldn't stay afloat. Arcade UFO http://www.arcadeufo.com/ is the only one left.

There's always the chance you could catch those joysticks on clearance at Target or Walmart. When I worked at Target they were clearancing a ton of Xbox peripherals, but that's been almost a year....

[MrMojoZ]

... except they had the Japanese version of SF4. It's so much better in an arcade than on the damned 360!

Well the Japanese version was the only version released. I'd say the arcade version is equal to the console version with the proper controls as well. Time to BYOAC? 

[Ginsu Victim]

...but the PC version isn’t out for another year.

PC version will be out this summer.

Yep, supposedly in June.

[Namco]

For the connection to my Happ Ultimates, my cabinet has a DB25 connector that plugs into my iPac, so I had to make this hack with a female DB25 connector. To make this mod a little easier than my last one, I decided to use DB25s that accepted crimp pins. I saw them at the store months ago and knew that I wanted to use them in my next project. The idea is one of these special DB25 shells and a bag of pins. Crimp the pin to the end of the wire, use a tool to insert it into the shell, repeat x 24 times and Bob’s your uncle.


The pin attaches to the end of the wire and crimps on. Wrap the wire for a secure connection.


Inserting the wire/pin into the DB25 shell


The completed DB25 connector.


I left the wires pretty short because I knew I was going to use terminal strips and space wasn’t an issue. I wanted terminal strips because I was unsure of the button layout of SFIV and wanted to be able to make changes without heating up the iron. My first playthrough resulted in all of the buttons SW1 – SW6 reversed, which was easily fixed thanks to those terminal strips.


Here’s the board with completed controller hack, terminal strips, and some pieces of wood to hold the DB 25 connector in place.


Done with my joystick hack. Well, the player 1 side at least.

[foleykoontz]

That is so much cleaner looking than mine

[RetroGreg]

Does anybody have a link for those crimp connectors AND the tool used?

[Namco]

Does anybody have a link for those crimp connectors AND the tool used?

The packaging on the pins say:
HiDen Crimp Female Pins for Housing. DHD-PIN/F-HR-P1C.
Female HD-10 $4.49
DHD-P/F-H-P1C
High Density Female
RS232 Socket Pins
Gold Flash, QTY:100

The tool is:
HiDen Insert/Extract Tool for Crimp Pins
DHD-IN-EXT-H-P
DSUB HD PIN   $3.99
High Density Pin Tool
Insertion/Extraction
DHD-IN-EXT-H-P
Pan Pacific.

But honestly, I really didn't need the tool. The pins snap in easy enough and stay in when I plug in the DB25.

I don't have the info on the DB25 shell that they go into, but I've seen it often at the electronics store.

[Kaytrim]

Does anybody have a link for those crimp connectors AND the tool used?

Here is a link to some of the crimp tools.
http://www.google.com/products?q=crimp+tool+d-sub&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=HZWtSd7XJoyPngeCj-W3Bg&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

[Octo]

The tool is good to have in case you make a mistake and need to remove a pin. I used molex connectors on my first CP and a couple wires pulled out of the pins. Had to butcher it with pliers to get the pins back out

That looks really nice, always good to have quick disconnects too, rather than take everything apart to remove one piece...

[Namco]

The next chore was getting the Xbox crammed into the cab with the computer. I picked up a VGA cable to connect it to the monitor, and plugged in another powerstrip to power the lights and monitor. My power solution has to be completely reworked because it all relied on 12v voltage from the computer to power the relay and coin slot lights. With the computer off, I have to figure out another way to switch on the relay and power the coin slot lights.

Also since the monitor already had a cable with a male end, I had to go to the store to pickup a VGA gender changer to make the video connection. Here's a shot of the mockup with a VGA converter standing in for the Xbox VGA cable:


Here’s a shot SFIV running on the cab in gloriously blurry 480i. Playing the first time, the game convinces you to play with challenger mode turned on. On my first 5 games resulted in embarrassing losses. I only played 5 games. I think the loading screen was at most 5 seconds before some SFIV ace joined in and proceeded to pummel me.


To connect to the Internet, I have a Netgear Powerline adapter that I can use. It doesn’t work when connected to the power strips in the cab, but works on the power strip just outside the cab. Maybe it’s the fluorescent lights and 12v relay.

[Namco]

My next steps are to cleanup the insides a bit and redo the power. I might also get rid of the iPAC because the Xbox controllers are compatible with Windows so they can do double duty as MAME controllers.

Stuff I'll add soon/someday

• 12 Power brick to power the coin slot lights
• A few SPDT switches to toggle between using the coin slot 12v power brick as the relay power source, or the computer's 12V rail.
• A KVM that will let me switch the USB inputs and Video between the Xbox and Computer
• Headphone jack mod

I have this idea to add a headphone jack to my control panel that switches between the Xbox Live headset and the standard headphone jack. I already have the holes from a few missing carriage bolts that I can use to mount the headphone jack. I plan on using a jack that has the switch that toggles between the speakers and headphones so when nothing's plugged into it, sound will come out of the speakers correctly. Something like this:




EDIT: I'll have to change the diagram a bit as 4PDT switches are hard to find, at least in the size and price I want. I'll make it two DPDT switches instead.

EDIT2: Found some cheap 4PDT switches at allelectronics.com. 3 bucks each.

[RetroGreg]

Thanks for the info. 

[SNAAKE]

you can buy the connectors and pins here..
http://www.cyberguys.com/product-listings/?CategoryID=1027&attribute=7&IsAb=0&value=DB25+D-Sub

[Namco]

I finally finished soldering and wiring up the 2up side. Here's the finished joystick hack on it's backboard.:


And mounted into the cabinet.:


For some reason, the version of XP I had did not have the drivers for the sticks. They worked fine on my Vista box, but not on my XP arcade box. Probably due to the lighter version of XP I was using. I downloaded the driver for XBox accessories provided by Mad Catz, but they didn't work. What did work was downloading and installing Microsoft's Xbox 360 for Windows drivers.

Unfortunately now I have to redo the configuration for Mame and Mala. Also now I'm missing all the great shortcuts that Andy built into the iPac, things like hitting 1up and 2up start buttons together to quit Mala will be sorely missed.

Another annoying aspect is my choice to mount the DB25 cables and connectors facing downward. I didn't install the screw mounts for the DB25s so they keep wanting to fall out. A couple zip ties stapled to the cabinet walls help to fix that. Also, I used solid wire for the crimp pins for the DB25. They were a lot easier to crimp and insert, but they keep wanting to push out when I push the DB 25 connector in. I'm pretty sure it's because of the size of pins I'm using. They're a tiny bit smaller than the ones that were attached to the Ethernet plug in the shell I pulled them out of, and they barely click when I push them into their sockets. But they're in now and they all work after a bit of fiddling. But since I prefer my hacks to be a bit more bulletproof, I think I'll replace them with regular DB25s with solder cups.

One of the reasons why I wanted to switch from an iPac to another encoder was to fix a strange problem I have where I lose control of the emulation after a few minutes of play. I doubt that it is due to the iPac, but the conflict may be fixed by switching to another encoder.

[Namco]

Part of the fun of projects like this is engineering and building stuff. One of the problems that I had was how was I going to power the 12V relay with the computer off and the Xbox plugged in? What I decided to do was hack a 12V power supply (wall wart) that I had laying around for the purpose. To switch between using the 12V power supply and the computer's 12V rail to kick on the relay, I wired a DPDT (double pole, double throw) switch for the purpose.

Here's the circuit:


I had this great enclosure laying around, it held the electronics for the antenna/FM modulator for an XM radio. Once I threw away the guts, it makes for quite a great enclosure, heck it's even got the holes for my switches already.


Here's the first switch wired up. Not sure what I'm going to use the other switches for yet. I have a 4PDT switch on the way that will go in there for the headphones.



When the switch is up, the lights and monitor come on with the computer. When the switch is down, the lights and monitor come on with the always-on power from the 12V wall-wart. When the switch is in the middle, lights & monitor are off.


Fun stuff!

[Gatsu]

looking good man. I expect some video of that bad boy in action!!

[Namco]

Okay so it's all done now. I have my switchbox mounted into the inside of the cabinet for easy access from the coin door.


So far the only switch wired is the DPDT toggle for the powerstrip relay. In the future I'll add a XBox Live/ general audio headphone jack to the slanted underside area of the control panel and 4PDT switch to the switchbox.

Here's a picture of the inside of the cabinet cleaned up. The subwoofer on the computer sounds just as good as when I had it on the floor of the cab. I'm not worried about the magnet gauss messing up my hard drive or monitor. The box is far enough from those components and hard drives nowadays aren't really effected by magnetic fields like they used to be.

[Namco]

looking good man. I expect some video of that bad boy in action!!

And here you go Gatsu, here's a video of me playing the finished product and even some footage of me getting my frist wins in multiplayer, Ultra combo even! 

[Gatsu]

O_O WOW.... *drools*

I do have to say one thing though...I had the same idea for my cab using the D-25's to swap out different control panels. In this case it'd be 1 cp for happ....1 cp for sanwa.

That is an awesome setup. I hope I can get the wiring right in mine. lol.

[ViciousXUSMC]

Looks like the crimp/pin DB25's are not so bad.  I did not trust them so the last 2 projects I did I used the kind you solder too.  I was afraid the pins would move around side to side in the crip/pin type like cheap molex adapters on a pc do.  I also just thought it would be a safer/better connection.

Its not really hard to solder them and after doing it twice now I can do the 3rd one for my Wii/Gamecube adapter but for sure I will give this a shot.

They sell DB25 headers like this at radioshack, as my luck my have it they are out of the soldering kind at my store anyways (as they only carried two and I used them both)

[Namco]

Looks like the crimp/pin DB25's are not so bad.  I did not trust them so the last 2 projects I did I used the kind you solder too.  I was afraid the pins would move around side to side in the crip/pin type like cheap molex adapters on a pc do.  I also just thought it would be a safer/better connection.

Its not really hard to solder them and after doing it twice now I can do the 3rd one for my Wii/Gamecube adapter but for sure I will give this a shot.

They sell DB25 headers like this at radioshack, as my luck my have it they are out of the soldering kind at my store anyways (as they only carried two and I used them both)

On the 2up side where I used the crimp pins and solid wire with the female DB25 connector, when I push the male DB25 cable onto the connector, all the pins push out a little, almost out of their sockets. All but one of the buttons worked when I pushed the connector on and I was able to push them all back down into their sockets with the insert/extract tool. I think the reason was that I used solid wire and the pins themselves look a little smaller than the pins that I was supposed to use. The side where I used stranded wire and wrapped it around the pin holds on much better, I think because of the thickness of the wire strands wrapping around the pin.

  My 2up side works but the uncertainty of it is going to make me redo the connector using the solder cups instead.  

[ViciousXUSMC]

Looks like the crimp/pin DB25's are not so bad.  I did not trust them so the last 2 projects I did I used the kind you solder too.  I was afraid the pins would move around side to side in the crip/pin type like cheap molex adapters on a pc do.  I also just thought it would be a safer/better connection.

Its not really hard to solder them and after doing it twice now I can do the 3rd one for my Wii/Gamecube adapter but for sure I will give this a shot.

They sell DB25 headers like this at radioshack, as my luck my have it they are out of the soldering kind at my store anyways (as they only carried two and I used them both)

On the 2up side where I used the crimp pins and solid wire with the female DB25 connector, when I push the male DB25 cable onto the connector, all the pins push out a little, almost out of their sockets. All but one of the buttons worked when I pushed the connector on and I was able to push them all back down into their sockets with the insert/extract tool. I think the reason was that I used solid wire and the pins themselves look a little smaller than the pins that I was supposed to use. The side where I used stranded wire and wrapped it around the pin holds on much better, I think because of the thickness of the wire strands wrapping around the pin.

  My 2up side works but the uncertainty of it is going to make me redo the connector using the solder cups instead.  

OK thanks, I think I will stick with the soldeirng then.  Already did it twice I can do it again and its good solder practice.  I guess if the connection is near permanent then the pins method is more valid but if you expect to plug/unplug if on a semi regular basis the more solid solder connector is probably better (and after I solder it I hot glue it also)

This is my most recent adapter, it hooks my CP to my Dreamcast:



A better picture of how the connector looks from a close up of my PAC



My biggest hint to make life easy is to put solder in the pin holes first, and to actually mount the DB25 connector to something while working on it.  After you get 5 or 6 wires on there it starts to fall over or move if its not held down by something.

I do not have a solder station so I just screwed it down on a dirty old 2x4 from the back yard

The DB25 in my case was not for multiple control panels but for multiple systems with one control panel.  I currently have PC & DC (and the PC can emulate just about anything) but I have 2x encoders on the way that work for xbox, playstaiton, PC, playstaiton 2, gamecube, & wii.  they are wired to a switch so I can toggle it on the fly.  I had to use DB25 for my needs as its 2 players using 24 wires on the connection, however for individual player controls I plan to use RJ45, this last adapter I am about to build will be modular so each system will have a cable with a RJ45 end to plug into the adapter box.

I like your cab man, you have some neat gadgetry going on there.  My little project does not seem to have any attention because I am the odd one out that does not have a real cab lol.

[foleykoontz]

Hey my friend was soldering my controller and also screwed up the A button really bad so it's unusable so we're trying the same trick as you and using the button inside the joystick. The problem is we can't figure out how to use the wire and even which one it is. I think it is the red wire (the colors are red, blue, and copper) but its so small how do you use it? Did you scrape off the enamel on the wire or solder it to a bigger wire? Any help would be appreciated.

[Namco]

Hey my friend was soldering my controller and also screwed up the A button really bad so it's unusable so we're trying the same trick as you and using the button inside the joystick. The problem is we can't figure out how to use the wire and even which one it is. I think it is the red wire (the colors are red, blue, and copper) but its so small how do you use it? Did you scrape off the enamel on the wire or solder it to a bigger wire? Any help would be appreciated.

Here's a closeup of the button:



The light copper and blue/copper wires are the ones you want to look at for your A button signal. I can't remember which one it was that I used, but it's one of them. Test it out with the Xbox plugged in for you answer. Just touch a wire from ground to one of those wires and you'll find out soon enough. These wires are so thin that when you touch the soldering iron to it, the insulation just melts away. Solder it to another wire like it has no insulation and it should work.

[Uncle Monkey]

that's awesome man, and so far beyond my abilities. luckily SF4 will have been out for almost a year before I will ba able to finish my cab.......

[solid187]

Completely awesome idea and execution.  I'm addicted to SF again, and I love your cab.

[Namco]

I got my headset jack working today. The solder pinouts were right, but my estimation on how the circuit worked was wrong. Bridging AGND with SPK does not "activate" or "route" the audio to the headphones, but rather inside the headphone jack with nothing plugged in, SW and SPK are closed. When you plug in a headset, it opens the connection between SW and SPK and sort of breaks the connection of the sound going to the speakers and instead it goes through the headset.

What I did was plug a naked 2.5mm plug into the jack which routes the sound to the headset solder points. I also wired SW and SPKR to a toggle switch, so when I toggle SW and SPKR closed, sound routes to the speakers instead of the headset. I use a 3.5 female to 2.5 male stepdown adapter to connect the headset to the standard 3.5mm jack that I use. I couldn't find the jacks that have the switch integrated, thus the need for the toggle.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I bet the mic is always on with this setup unless I unplug the headset. I'll have to test that.

Thanks to this post for helping me figure it out:
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showpost.php?p=7253279&postcount=3

Here's the link to the correct jack that he mentions:
http://search.digikey.com/scripts/Dk...P1-2535SJCT-ND

...
I have this idea to add a headphone jack to my control panel ...
...


...