Building a PS2 dual-shock based Arcade stick

[CodeThief]

Hi all

I'm trying to build an arcade stick and use a PS2 dual shock "a-series" pad as the interface.  I have searched this forum and looked at every page on the internet I can but can't find anyone with the same problem I'm having.

I'm basing my hack on the "Spiffyshoes solderless technique" but I'm not having any luck.  When I have the stick plugged in, none of the controls work and the other pad plugged in also doesn't work.  When I unplug the stick the normal pad works as expected until the stick is plugged back in again.

I thought initially that I'd fried the controller so I tried putting it all back together but it works fine    I did notice that when I took the back off of the controller it still worked OK but if I slightly lifted the PCB off of the analog sticks the buttons suddenly fail to work until it's all pressed back together again!  Is that normal?

Does anyone have any ideas as to why nothing works when it's plugged in?

Thanks

Dave

[northerngames]

maybe a link to ol spiffyshoes solderless tutorial so we can see what your even talking about?

[Ginsu Victim]

Yeah, I was lost on that one too.

[spiffyshoes]

If you could take some pictures of your hacked controller and post them that would be great.  My first guess would be that some how your wires are not making contact with the PCB or are some how connecting together.  Are you using 26g solid wire?

http://www.spiffyshoes.com/dualshockhack/

[CodeThief]

Sorry, I figured it was mentioned so often on this forum everyone would know what I meant 

Thanks spiffyshoes, from the man himself!

I ended up taking my other PS2 DS2 apart and this one was a slightly different design on the main PCB (still 18 wires though).  Leaving the ribbon connected on this one worked a treat but I'm having trouble getting the wires into the slot along with the ribbon cable so I'm going to give the 4K7 resistor idea a go.  I believe you solder a 5kish resistor to pin 11 and to a suitable ground connection?  I need to look that bit up still.  I'll post up piccies when I'm done.

Dave

[fjl]

Timmoe does some PS2 controller to joystick hack/conversions. Some of the best I've seen actually...

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=66008.0

[CodeThief]

Thanks but i want to try building it myself, that's 3/4 of the fun!

Dave

[northerngames]

I never done any ribbon moddin so I am sitting this one out if you were soldering to the pcb I could help but I never even heard of this set-up before.

[Ginsu Victim]

It looks really easy. I went to radio shack today and they had no 26 gauge wire, though.

[spiffyshoes]

I ended up taking my other PS2 DS2 apart

Well that would be your problem.  As far as I am aware Dual Shock 2's are not hackable.  My tutorial was for hacking a Dual Shock 1.  It is possible some one has found a solution to hacking DS2's.  I have been out of the scene for awhile now so maybe I missed it.

I went to radio shack today and they had no 26 gauge wire, though.

Try Fry's Electronics or www.outpost.com that is where I buy mine from.

[Ginsu Victim]

I ended up taking my other PS2 DS2 apart

Well that would be your problem.  As far as I am aware Dual Shock 2's are not hackable.  My tutorial was for hacking a Dual Shock 1.  It is possible some one has found a solution to hacking DS2's.  I have been out of the scene for awhile now so maybe I missed it.

Oh, I was under the impression it was the PS2 controller as well, since I checked mine and it said "A".
Nevermind. I had a broken one I was going to use, but I'm not sacrificing a PSX controller.

[CodeThief]

I ended up taking my other PS2 DS2 apart

Well that would be your problem.  As far as I am aware Dual Shock 2's are not hackable.  My tutorial was for hacking a Dual Shock 1.  It is possible some one has found a solution to hacking DS2's.  I have been out of the scene for awhile now so maybe I missed it.

Nope, it's possible, I now have it partially working at home

For the DS2 controllers there is a resistor built into the plastic circuit that the buttons press on to (pin 12).  I ended up soldering a 4K7 resistor from Pin #3 of VR1 on the main PCB to the common ground for all of the buttons and then another wire coming from this resistor going in to pin 11 on the ribbon connector.  This was the only way I could get the DPad and buttons to work if I removed the ribbon cable. Leaving the ribbon cable in as well as the wires also works but is REALLY awkward to fit the wires in at the same time.

I did find that CAT5 24AWG wire was too small and went with 0.6mm (22AWG I think) and that fits in snugly.  I'm going to try finalising the wiring for this tonight so I'll photograph everything when it's done.

Dave

[CodeThief]

Woohoo, I now have a fully functioning prototype stick built

Thanks to the hard work of dev and Toodles in the Shoryuken pad-hacking thread, they set me in the right direction (unfortunately what they discovered didn't work exactly the same for me) and I've just had a quick match of Tekken 5 DR on my PS3 via a Logic3 PS2 to PS3 convertor.

The final wiring was as you'd expect for the controls but a little different for the ground wires.

1 ground wire daisy-chained to all of the controls apart from start and select.  This then soldered on to a 4K7 Ohm resistor which in turn is soldered to Pin #3 of the section marked VR1 on the main PCB.  Then another wire soldered on to the same resistor going in to pin 11 of the ribbon connector (the normal ground point for the controls).

For start, select and analog (if you need it), a ground wire coming from pin 10 on the ribbon connector daisy chained to the start, select and analog buttons.

Dave