Where to solder? Logitech Dual Action game pad

[Video_Drome]

hello everyone. Been playin arcade games on mame  for soo long and I figure it's time to build my own CP with some parts i got for free (only buttons, i had to buy joysticks from happ. but that was easy since it's only a 25 minute drive :] ) Plus i really want the expierence of wiring up a CP since i'm in the process of buying a dedicated mk2 cabinet and I want to convert it to play umk3 too.

got the panel done (went to Happ yesterday to pick up my joysticks and a few extra buttons) and I have the buttons and joysticks ready to go but I just can't figure out where to solder the ground connection to the pcb. I took a picture of it to share:




it's the pcb for this http://91.103.160.40/admin2/public/hardware/gamepady/Logitech-Dual-Action-Gamepad-100005.jpg
theres some wires that are coming from the PCB and I'm also thinking that if one of those was the ground wire that traveled down the cord to the computer could i just splice it there?

and is the button that turns the Dpad on and Off (when i play mame it's off and i have to press it to use the dpad and the light goes on) going to cause problems? am i going to have to short that circuit so it's always on? has anyone ever seen this? I know other game pads have this button

[CathalDublin]

Can you post a pic of the reverse of it please?

[Video_Drome]

heres the back

[Namco]

That's going to be a tough hack, man. If it's anything like this: http://www.slagcoin.com/joystick/pcb_diagrams/pc_diagram1.jpg , you're going to have to solder a lot of little ground wires. Plus scrape every pad to expose some metal. Looks like a nightmare.

Try to find a wired MadCatz Xbox controller for some easy to solder pads. Check all the PCB diagrams on http://www.slagcoin.com/joystick/pcb_wiring.html. Good luck with that hack.

Oh, by the way, I had Adblock Plus disabled for this website so I could support the website and its advertisers. Your avatar forced me to turn it back on and create a filter for http://i37.tinypic.com/*.*. Good Job 

[Video_Drome]

thank god its not like that one. YourMameMan did this hack on the exact same controller and he never mentioned anything about soldering individual wires for the ground (and neither did any of the videos i saw on youtube).


I think what i'm going to have to do is put the pcb on a non conductive surface, and then individually test each contact. On that diagram you showed me it looks like all of those contacts are like the shoulder contacts on my pad. Either that, or i'm going to have to take it to the guy who gave me my buttons because he seemed to know a lot about electronics (after all, he owns an electronic store that services arcade machines too)

....or i can just do what my tv says and go to ITT Tech. they may help me LoL



hahah Namco, i love my avatar. i made it ;-)


well, if anyone else wants to help me...please! other wise i'm buying an IPAC and i really really really don't wanna be lame.

and is anyone going to for see a problem with the mode button i mentioned in my earlier post?

[Video_Drome]

im gonna bump this because I really wanna know

[Namco]

Nobody knows. You're it. You're the man, man. Grab a length of 20ga solid wire, plug that baby in and start probing around.

Here's my best guess:


Green is signal, and yellow is ground. Green (signal) are the important ones because with ground, you only need one good, big one. Circles are places where you may be able to poke the wire through and solder really easily. But those are just guesses on my part. You may have to scrape the pads/paths and solder directly to them. I can tell I guessed wrong in a lot of spots. But pretty much, paths that touch more than one button are usually ground. Then there's all these places where they put the markings S1, S2, S3... which may be signal paths, but some of these touch more than one pad.

But the definitive answer is going to come from you because I'm pretty sure nobody's hacked that one yet.

[Video_Drome]

hot damn what an answer. thanks namco.


as for people hacking the same controller, i thought Yourmameman did the same thing but i guess his was a different controller without the "mode" button or the analog sticks. I can already tell the mode button is going to be a problem seeing as i had to press it to use the dpad when i started mame up. i may be able to get away with wiring up direction buttons to the shoulders and the start and select and leaving the dpad out.


ughhhhhhh

[JohnEDollar]

Hi Video-Drome.

Like you, I've been looking for a hack of the Logitech Dual Action Controller gamepad, that would allow me to use the controller with MAME.

After about two hours of testing the controller pcb with a multimeter, I figured out how to use the controller with MAME! 

I'd like to use your excellent photos of the controller (front and back) of my write up on this hack (with your permission.

More info to follow soon!

JohnEDollar

[D_Harris]

Has anyone ever posted info on how to do this hack?

Thanks.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.