Hacker for hire!!

Ok I ordered a controller online from the USA from a guy called Lee Speer (HARUMAN) at the Arcade Controlls forum I joined for info..

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=76185.0

Ok so after a strange delivery from the US postal system who sent it to Indonesia by mistake instead of the UK!! the 3rd party controller has arrived and it was time to get this Madcatz rubbish checked out..

The Madcatz intact...




Get the cover off this baby and get the pcb out and stripped down and we are left with...





Not too shabby, and with a common ground its fairly easy to wire up.. this is what we should end up with..





Haruman has added some plasticy glue over the contacts to protect them..




Ok So what have i got for my money, I have the contacts done, analogues have been have been left intact but i could have nullifyed them with 5ohm fixed resistors, and shoulder buttons have been converted to digital instead of analogue triggers..

Just gotta get the connector blocks sorted and we'll get to wiring up the box panel..

Before that need to build the box.. Now i've got everything to go into it, i can get to start sizing up and sawing all that wood up..

Check back for more..

Have a look at my bits....

Ok the bits have begun to arrive, so lets get the box open, get down to wickes and see what we've got....

First of all, I guess i'll need a mask to protect my weedy lungs from the poisonous MDF dust, did anyone else know it was toxic, nope me neither, oops..

Got me some connector blocks, these will be used to connect the 360 controller guts to the arcade stick and buttons, as you'll see later!!

Wires and crimps for connecting to the microswitches on the arcade bits, the non crimped ends will go into the connector blocks..

Check out my balls.. ok ball, this is the handle for the stick, as my stick will be white and red, i'm going for a red ball..

A couple of mini buttons for the pad, i'm going to use these for the back and start buttons, they'll be seperated by a proper Guide button which i'll rip from the madcatz and bodge together somehow..

I decided to get a proper arcade cradle/cable to connect the stick properly, as it has a pin out connector it makes sense to use one of these rather than hard wiring it....

And the Buttons for the controller, i was going to go with all white, or all red, but then at the last minute decided to copy the xbox style colours A.B.X.Y shoulders etc, its going to be a 360 stick after all so i might as well try to emulate the styling as much as possible..

Finally, the mother of all sticks, the Sanwa itself, smooooooooth...

So thats it all for now, i've got the MDF sheeting and some adjustable drill bits to make the button holes, now all i need is the Madcatz pcb out of the 3rd party controller, to wire that up and to start to build the box..

After that its painting and decorating (again).. ;-)

And so it begins...

A NEW PROJECT!! woot...

Ok, I'm sick of my 360 controller, sick of its shitty d-pad and its random analogue stick and mostly its lack of ability to let me EVER pull a fucking fireball, super or ULTRA in street-fighter4.... Sick to the back teeth..

Soooooooo, i decided to get myself an arcade stick.. Until.... The Price..

The rubbish "Madcatz" have hyped everyone into buying some new piece of tat, by putting a shit one up alongside a mega expensive one with a load of expensive Japanese parts in a madcatz box and calling them the Fightstick (the cheaper option) or the Tournament Edition. (The one you should buy!!)

Well at £80 and £150 notes I'm not that hyped after all.. And even if i could afford one, it seems they're not ALL they're cracked up to be after all....

Option 1, The Fightstick..



Whats good, not much, most people will see it as the younger brother of the TE and think its got the same bits under the hood, well it doesn't actually contain ANY arcade machine parts, the external controls and internal components are from madcatz themselves, and as such is pretty much a standard stick with cheapish clunky buttons, it doesn't review that well, it isn't easy to find, is overpriced IMHO and most people when they realise its not a patch on the TE then say you should buy it, gut it and put in a proper stick and buttons from Sanwa at extra cost.. WTF!!!


Option 2 : THE TOURNAMENT EDITION!!

Whats good, Well it looks the bollocks, contains actual arcade Sanwa parts (though not the "best" ones you'd really really want for the double price) but again is rarer than a vegetable on Lee's dinner plate and now seems to sell on eBay for about £500 instead of the proper £150..

The verdict...

Neither!

So i went looking, why bother buying the madcatz sticks just for the expensive parts if you could just rewire a standard 360 controller, get/build/make a box, buy the parts yourself from japan and bingo your own arcade stick... Just how you want it, and at about the same cost as the standard fightstick with superior parts to the TE..

A lot of googling, head scratching about how wireless, wired and the 3rd party (i.e. cheap) 360 controllers work, how and if i could rip one to pieces and solder it to proper arcade parts so the 360 sees it as a standard controller, how and where to get those arcade machine Sanwa and Haap associated Joysticks and Buttons from, so not much of a project really, more of a breeze!! Get bits, chuck in box, stir, add a bit of solder, bish bosh, done..

But seriously, I've investigated and found the information I need, I've got most of the skills (and what I dont have i can learn) to do the hardware work, and as such I'm ready to embark on my new project... A home made, but hopefully quality Arcade Stick for the 360!! And as such "so it begins"... More as I progress..