diy budget guitar controller

[Fighting Fish]

Hi,

I am making a guitar controller for use with the guitar hero clone, frets on fire.  I have a bunch of microswitches, and a gravis gamepad pro (usb).  Thing is, I don't know where to solder the micro switch wires to on the gampad.  I can't tell the power connections from the grounds.  Could anybody help me here?

[NiN^_^NiN]

It's quite simple
For you to use a switch you need to solder to either side of the button on the pad

You need to solder to one of the half circles with the 2 lines in it

Then to the half circle with the 1 line in it

Se how they dont touch? well thats how the button will work if you solder onto each side the microswitch with trigger the pad button

[Barry Barcrest]

You might also want to look for the game Guitar Zero, it's much better IMHO.

[CapriRS302]

ya, its just like what nin said, just wire the switches to complete that circle.  I made one for frets on fire out of a real guitar (and it was a real bi%^h) and after much work, I realized that the button I chose were too hard to push.  I used "soft touch" button from radio shack, and they work great.  I also took a toggle switch apart and jerry rigged it to a couple of micro switched for the strum button.  I'll post some pics for ya later.

BTW, you are lucky to have used the controller that you did.  I bought a brand new logitech wingman controller, and nowadays logitech has taken to coating their PC boards with some type of clearcoat which the solder will NOT stick to.  I ended up throwing the thing away and using one of my old wingman rumblepads (which I hated to do, they are the best controller ever made) but they worked great, and they looked quite similar to yours.  If you are decent with a soldering iron you should have no problems.

[CapriRS302]

here are the pics of my guitar.  I have frets on fire set up on my MAME box, and it works GREAT.  I even have it set up to start through MALA.


http://www.fretsonfire.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=1;t=5963;hl=caprirs302

[Fighting Fish]

Thank you for all the replies guys!

I only needed to wire up five buttons.  Which is good, because I've read that using the four diamond layout colored buttons on gamepad pro's results in ghosting.  So I used the R1,R2,L1,L2,and Select buttons.  I'm using the D-pad for strumming.

The total cost of this project was $0.  I had the gamepad and switches laying around, also had the wire and solder.  To be honest I think this project may be the most punk rock thing I've ever done.  I made the guitar out of cardboard.  Not just for ease of use and lack of sawdust, but for maximum endurance durring jam sessions due to it's light weight   I still have some tweaking to do, and I may actually make a wooden guitar in the future.

[CapriRS302]

lol, you don't have to go all out, but please go a "little" further.......

seriously, try out your guitar, and if you get the soldering thing right, go to Wal-Mart and buy yourself a little toy guitar for about 10 bucks.  My first guitar was a kawasaki toy guitar.  I took it apart, used the buttons it came with (they are programmed to just make guitar sounds) removed the guts and wired it to my gamepad.  The damn thing worked great, I mean really good, I just wanted a little more so I gutted it to make the one I have now.

[Fighting Fish]

Yeah, my fiancee actually seems upset by this 'card-tar' i made.  Hah!  She want's me to go to goodwill or walmart and get a toy one to modify.  I'm thinking of making my own though.  I would like to design one in the 'flying V' style. http://www.rocknrollvintage.com/prodimages/1981%20gibson%20flying%20v%20large.jpg

But in the mean time, this 'card-tar' works really well.  The strummer is a suction cup ontop of a screw.  The screw threads right into the gravis d-pad. 

[csa3d]

...by this 'card-tar' i made.

 

I love this project.  It's so ghetto and so perfect.  I wanna see the "Card-Tar" version of TrashCade meets Kneival's Guitar Hero Cab.

-csa

[HairyDVD]

Excellant use of materials laying around the house (of particular interest to me as I work in a cardboard box factory) - its a shame you are not in the uk as I could have got you a guitar made of cardboard cut on the cad desk at work.

I did my own frets on fire guitar at the weekend using an old xbox controller (converted with usb plug to work on pc).  I purchased a childs toy guitar from a local shop for 3 GB Pounds (about 5 US Dollars), stripped it down and soldered wires from the controller onto the buttons on the frets an voila - verrrrrry cheap electronic guitar.

The only thing I has a problem with was that I mapped the buttons originally to left / right / up / down - and when you think about it you cannot press left and right or up and down on a dpad at the same time, so I had to change them to the XYAB buttons.

If anyone can tell me how to add pictures to posts I will post a couple of piccies

Nice to see someone thinking outside of the "box"   lol

 

[Fighting Fish]

I am soo budget.  Didn't anyone notice thie Blatz 15 pack in the background??  Anyways.... I'm gonna design a flying V design in the near future.  In the mean time this card-tard...will work.

I'm just hoping the fiancee doesn't break it off because of this project.  On the plus side, she loves the flying V style!

Here's a link to my budget mame-cab build: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=73362.0

[Franco]

Is that marble contact paper you have on your floor?