Dual Strike hack confusion

[Gray_Area]

I decided it would be neat (and somewhat in the spirit of preservation) to use a male end plug. I've been refering to the various links in the wiki for this, but they all go the route of clipping off the female end, and not explaining exactly where *all* wires go.

I'm confused between these two images:







- I have the triggers correct.

- I have the 'red' wires shown in image 1 going to ports 5 and 6.

- I have the black wires from those twisted together and going to port 10.

- I guess the 'ground' in figure 1 goes to port 12.


So where do the leads for ports 9 and 11 come from?

[bencao74]

do you mean the Microsoft Sidewinder Pad? : http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-C32-00006-SideWinder-Dual-Strike/dp/B00002SX0B

[bkenobi]

Are you following 1up's guide?

http://web.archive.org/web/20080603153722/http://1uparcade.robandmitsue.com/projects-dualstrike.html

I had some info that was a little better than that page when I did mine.  I don't remember which guide I used, but I know I looked at a few.  I think I might have primarily used UncleT's guide:

http://unclet.arcadecontrols.com/MomsArcade/MomsArcadeDualStrike.html

Here's the list on the wiki:

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Dual_Strike_Hack

[BadMouth]

- I have the 'red' wires shown in image 1 going to ports 5 and 6.

Shouldn't those be going to pin 9 and the white wires (wiper/center) to the pots going to pins 5 & 6?
5v needs to get to the pots somehow.
  
There are 2 different ways of wiring them depending on the joystick you're hacking, but both require 5v to the pot.

- I have the black wires from those twisted together and going to port 10.

Looks right according to the diagram.

What pin do you have the common wires from the switches going to?
That looks like what pin 11 is for.

[bkenobi]

Just to be clear, you do know that there is no single common for this controller.  For whatever reason, each group of controls seems to have its own ground that does NOT connect to the others.  I saw someone post a scheme for making things work with a common ground, but since I had already wired everything up, I no longer know who did it.

[Gray_Area]

- I have the 'red' wires shown in image 1 going to ports 5 and 6.

Shouldn't those be going to pin 9 and the white wires (wiper/center) to the pots going to pins 5 & 6?
5v needs to get to the pots somehow.

That's what I was getting the idea of.

What pin do you have the common wires from the switches going to?
That looks like what pin 11 is for.

That would make sense in light of the above. There's only one common on the PCB for the switches, though, right?

[Gray_Area]

Well, I removed the reds from 5 and 6, and twisted them togther and put them in 9. I then put the yolk 'middle' wires to 5 and 6, respetively. And lastly I put the single common above the trigger/thumb pins on the pcb to port 11.

Hooked it up to a PC, and the DS is seen.

There's nothing in-game. And in the gamepad properties, only the right thumb and left trigger register - on the hat button left and right, respectively.

[BadMouth]

only the right thumb and left trigger register - on the hat button left and right, respectively.

That would be correct according to the diagram above.  (L U D R next to the wires).
You'll have to go by Uncle T's hack instead if you want them to register as the thumb & trigger.
If those don't have a common ground though, you'll have no choice but to cut the connector.

The hack you're using looks easier and should work.  Your buttons will just register as D-Pad presses.

I'd check the other buttons for continuity to assure they're working.
If you can get to the pots, test them to make sure the correct wires are going where that pinout says they are.
It might help to concentrate on getting one thing working at a time.

[Gray_Area]

Yeah.....I was hoping it would just work. My meter says there's voltage at the USB header on the pcb, but I get no nothing from port 9 or the corresponding points on the pcb. Any of the others read about .4v.

[Gray_Area]

Okay, I found out some interesting things. There's between 8 and 10 volts each on the 'main' common, yoke L/R 'red', and yoke U/D 'black' (?). (Three of the leads on the same 'strip' as those for the L/R yoke register 8v, too.)

[Gray_Area]

Some progress here. I have both axes. Only one of the yoke 'hot' wires is needed to power them. (I'm not surprised, actually.)

Comparison: the rototron and urbaninteractive examples have the y axis 'hot' at the bottom; mine is at the top. Urbaninteractive has the x axis 'hot' at the bottom, which is the same as mine; rototron has it at the bottom.

Point being, check your own DS before you hook anything up. I just stripped the ends of the pcb wires, checked voltages, then stuck the ends into the yoke plug. Bingo.

Now to the buttons. In the rototron example says

I could only use 1 of the hat buttons, because they do not function like normal buttons. The hat buttons report a degrees to the computer in 45 degree increments. This works well for a regular joystick, because the stick operates the same as a hat. This will not work for buttons because you can press button combinations that do not translate to a degrees.

So no wonder those didn't work right before. Fortunately, I have another use for the hat buttons. Stay tuned.....

[Gray_Area]

Really strange behavior here. I connected the 'down' of a stick to the 'right thumb' and main ground of the DS (as shown in figure 1), and in any game other than Star Wars it registers as "button 6 and 7, Hat L1". In Star Wars, it doesn't register at all - not as a button, nor as dec/inc for the analog directions.


Edit: gosh I feel foolish. Somehow, joystick was *not* enabled in only Star Wars. Looks like that was half my issue....Jeez.

First, though, the above-mentioned discrepancy between ground and hot was still getting in the way of axis input registering. And pulling the connections apart, I think my crimping wasn't very good, which is why buttons weren't registering. Ah well. Makes life interesting, doesn't it?

[D_Harris]

Good grief! Did you work through the night on this?

The existence of this thread obviously means that the documentation on this specific hack is poor.

I never understood why there is not one good documented hack for these conntrollers that visually show every connection you need to make.

I have one I want to hack also, so I hope you post your own image laden instructions once you are done for us newbies.  

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

[Gray_Area]

Good grief! Did you work through the night on this?

The existence of this thread obviously means that the documentation on this specific hack is poor.

I never understood why there is not one good documented hack for these conntrollers that visually show every connection you need to make.

I have one I want to hack also, so I hope you post your own image laden instructions once you are done for us newbies.  

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

Yeah, I did.

There would seem to be slightly different designs between models - or somebody(s) didn't get their documentation right. Compositing the two images above, and making some adjustments, I made my own documentation.




Aside from the triggers/thumbs, I'm a little iffy on the connection of more buttons. I may explore this more...

[alfonzotan]

That's very helpful; I'll be hooking up one of these this weekend.  Thanks for the extra research and update.