Escapades in X-Box Controller Hacking

[WindDrake]

Breaking out the Mame Cab from storage to turn into an X-Box Cab, so I thought I'd share the information I've gleaned by doing this. I've torn apart a few pads, but the one that works the best, in my opinion, is the Intec Cyber Pad 2. It's about $19.99 anywhere you go, so it's not very expensive.


When you tear it open, it's not very complicated inside. The usual control PCB setup. All of the pads are very, very easy to solder to, as well. Here's a simple little helper datasheet that I managed to get together.

First thing's first, make sure, if you're going to use it, to unsolder the rumble motor leads and the analog triggers. The analog sticks can be undone as well, but it's not neccessary. You can just remove the tops to the sticks and leave it at that.

Note: All connections do not share a common ground. Grounds are shared between D-Pad button groups, ABXY/WB Button groups, and the start/back buttons.

DPAD:
Very easy, small nodules here and there off the main traces, but otherwise uses MASSIVE half-moon shaped pads of copper.

For Up/Down, the Left pads are ground, right is signal.
For Left, the Upper pad is signal, lower is ground
For Right, lower pad is signal, upper is ground.

Buttons:
A little different. They all have carbon over the upper left and right pads. Just scrape it off with a hobby knife. If you look at the connections, it's roughly an inverted "U" shape.

Lined up like so:
Wh/Bl
Y/B
X/A

They all have four pads as well in a square shape. The upper left and right are square, the lower left and right are rounded and look like droplets almost. There's only one exception, which is the upper most connection, white, which is turned upside down. The rounded points are on top, while the lower points are squared.

We'll only be working with the Square points that need to have the carbon scraped from them, so IGNORE the round droplet shaped points.

Now that you're familiar, all inside points are a shared, common ground. All outside points are signal.
Ie. Wh/Y/X, left is signal, right is ground
For Bl/B/A, right is signal, left is ground

LTRIG/RTRIG

Simple. There's three points moving in a vertical line.
Upper being one, center being two, bottom being three, on both Trigger points. Connect the bottom two points on either side and it registers a full depression of the trigger.

Start/Back

This is on a little daughtercard attached to the main PCB, lifted up. Ignore ALL the pads, as it's totally unneccessary to solder to any of them. If you look at the bottom, moving from left to right, there are eight pins, all of which are crudely labeled. What you want is pin 1, 2, and 4.

Pinout:
1: Start
2: Back
3: VCC (+3.3v)
4: Gnd
5: PL (Program function, no idea)
6: Turbo Function LED (Connect to ground, it lights up?)
7: Turbo Function
8: PRO (Possibly Program)

By grounding pin 1 or 2, you make the START and BACK signals, so you won't have to solder to the strange, easy to mess-up pads of Start and Back.


So, there you go. A nice little write up on how to hack a Cyber Pad 2. Hope it helps some folks.

[dema]

Thanks for the detailed write up. This is going to be very helpful for me when I start working on the Xbox controller hack in the next couple weeks. I already bought a couple Reflex arcade sticks to hack, but if they don't work out too well I'll give the Cyber Pad a shot.

I was doing some "homework" on the controls and I noticed that there aren't as many games that use the directional pad as I originally thought, except for the fighters and games like NBA Jam and such. Is there any way of hacking the analog joystick and then wiring it up to a 49-way joystick? After my game testing I realized that it will be much better if I could make the CP joystick analog functional.

[WindDrake]

Not sure, I think the sticks use 100k Linear potentiometers. So you could wire a normal stick up so that you generated a full pull to U/D/L/R. use a commmon ground between U/D and L/R (Center post) and just ground out center to pin 1 or 3 depending. I'll mess with the stick a little when I get a chance to see if that works.

Edit: Just checked it, works fine. Here's s'more info.


Analog Sticks:

LeftMost Stick's Pots are mounted to the left and bottom. Pin 2 is ground, which are both seperate.  For the U/D pot, pin's go 1-3 top to bottom. For the L/R pot, pin's are 1-3 left to right. Ground pin 1 on U/D or L/R to go U/L respectively. Pin 3 grounded will result in D/R respectively. This is exactly the case for the right analog stick as well.

[Demon-Seed]

if anyone sucessful does it let me know. I am interested in getting a pair off you!!

[dema]

Not sure, I think the sticks use 100k Linear potentiometers. So you could wire a normal stick up so that you generated a full pull to U/D/L/R. use a commmon ground between U/D and L/R (Center post) and just ground out center to pin 1 or 3 depending. I'll mess with the stick a little when I get a chance to see if that works.

Edit: Just checked it, works fine. Here's s'more info.


Analog Sticks:

LeftMost Stick's Pots are mounted to the left and bottom. Pin 2 is ground, which are both seperate.  For the U/D pot, pin's go 1-3 top to bottom. For the L/R pot, pin's are 1-3 left to right. Ground pin 1 on U/D or L/R to go U/L respectively. Pin 3 grounded will result in D/R respectively. This is exactly the case for the right analog stick as well.

I don't know what any of that means, but it sounds like you may have figured out how to hack the analog sticks. If you did, would you be able to post instructions with pictures and stuff, or I'd even be willing to pay you to do a couple hacks for me. I don't know if that's the case, but if it was I figured I'd ask.

Thanks for your updates, and please post any further progress.

[Demon-Seed]

Like I said i am interested in a few too please put me near the top of the list!

[WindDrake]

What this does, is it makes your Arcade Stick act just like an analog stick, without the analog. It now becomes a normal Digital U/D/L/R input. A replacement for the DPad, I suppose, or on games that require the use of the Analog stick input rather then the DPad. It's not making a fully Analog arcade stick, but it's giving you Analog Stick functionality. If you're still interested, I'll see about getting pictures and such.

[dema]

What this does, is it makes your Arcade Stick act just like an analog stick, without the analog. It now becomes a normal Digital U/D/L/R input. A replacement for the DPad, I suppose, or on games that require the use of the Analog stick input rather then the DPad. It's not making a fully Analog arcade stick, but it's giving you Analog Stick functionality. If you're still interested, I'll see about getting pictures and such.

I'd definitely be interested in pictures and a hack walkthrough for this simulated analog control hack, as would a number of others on the site, if you're up for it. I am going to be running a lot of the next-gen of games in my arcade off my Xbox and the problem I'm having is that there are only a small handful of games that are direction-pad playable. If I could hack a controller to get my Xbox to read the digital joystick for the analog stick games, I'd be in awesome shape. Any help you could provide on this would be immensely appreciated.

Thanks.
T.J.

[Dave_K.]

I don't think you understand what he is saying.  Hacking a happs 8-way (digital) joystick to a console pad's analog stick will not function the way you  may expect.  Moving the joystick in any of the 8 directions equates to pressing the analog stick full force in one of those 8 directions.  Its fine for menus and stuff, but not for playing games where you have to "walk" rather than "run" for example.

Have you read the Game Consoles FAQ on this site?  There is a section on analog controls, and a circuit you can build to hack the happs 49-way joystick.

[dema]

I don't think you understand what he is saying.  Hacking a happs 8-way (digital) joystick to a console pad's analog stick will not function the way you  may expect.  Moving the joystick in any of the 8 directions equates to pressing the analog stick full force in one of those 8 directions.  Its fine for menus and stuff, but not for playing games where you have to "walk" rather than "run" for example.

I understand how his solution works. Sort of an all-or-nothing joystick, which sucks for games that require precision movement, or walking. But there are other games that use the analog thumbstick and don't even need them. These are the types of games I'd also like to play. It doesn't fix all the problems with an XBox in an arcade cabinet, but it definitely opens up the functioning Xbox video game library significantly.

I did read the section in the BYOAC console section a bunch of times but I didn't see the results as being able to solve the dilemma I'm having. I wasn't sure if the analog joystick with the ultimate handle would work, but I'm sure I'd have to hack the actual Xbox controller or something even more complicated.

[exph]

the pelican universal arcade joystick would be a good candidate to use. it has a button to switch from digital to analog joystick mode. the analog mode is the "everything or nothing" type. here is a link http://www.the-console-corner.com/pelican's_universal_arcade_stick.htm.

there are other xbox arcade joysticks that can do this analog mode. look around.

the good:
-low price. i got mine for 19.99 from a local gamestop.
-connectivity. Xbox, PS1, PS2, GC.
-L and R triggers are digital(easy to hack to arcade buttons).

the bad:
-soldering to the area with start, back, analog/digital select may be tricky. i've only done start so far and the pads were pretty small.
-the xbox connector doesn't have the breakaway built in. so you can't use an xbox controller extension. i fixed this by cutting it up and attaching a breakaway from an extension i had.
-xbox to pc usb adapter doesn't seem to recognize this joystick  . at least with the hid drivers i tried.

.:exph:.  

[Demon-Seed]

I guess my thoughts here are if it can be done and work well I am intersted in buying or trading or something to get one. I just do not have the talent to do it myself. If anyone can assist msg me. I am glad this form is here cause its explaining to me how it works and where it is going.

thanks for the view points guys
Jim

[WindDrake]

Pictures made of disassembly and stripping. My personal webserver can't handle the bandwith outside personal uses, so anyone want to host them? I suppose I can put a little guide together over next weekend, if that'd be better. Any suggestions for a free webhost?

[WindDrake]

Learned something else today. Analog hack is only valid if you don't remove the 10k Linear pot on the board. Best bet is to leave the analog stick assemblies alone.

Hm. I'll have to replace two potentiometers..

[dema]

Learned something else today. Analog hack is only valid if you don't remove the 10k Linear pot on the board. Best bet is to leave the analog stick assemblies alone.

Hm. I'll have to replace two potentiometers..

Thank you so much for the updates and documenting. This is going to be a tremendous help for me, and I'm sure many others.

[dema]

WindDrake, do you have any further information on the XBox analog stick hack guide you were planning? I'd be interested in seeing how that is coming along.

[AmericanDemon]

I'm going to look a bit further into this also, but IMO the best two sticks you could potentially use to cover the analog stick would be a 49 Way or an Optical Stick.  Anyone else agree?

[dema]

I'm going to look a bit further into this also, but IMO the best two sticks you could potentially use to cover the analog stick would be a 49 Way or an Optical Stick.  Anyone else agree?

I was thinking that the best joystick option for the analog stick would be the 49 way joystick as well.