Fried an xbox 360 controller hack yesterday, any idea why?

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capcomguru
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Fried an xbox 360 controller hack yesterday, any idea why?

Post by capcomguru »

Last night I went to play SF4 with a couple of friends. One of them was complaning that player 1 buttons A and B were not responding. I checked all of my wiring and everything was perfect, nothing came loose. I pressed the "b" button, and got shocked pretty hard, through the push-buttons plastic. The shock also resulted in white fuzz on the monitor for just a moment.

Any ideas what could have caused this? The controller hacks are currently not mounted in a project box, they were carefully just tucked in a cardboard box on the side of my cabinet. After I got shocked, I checked the box first, and noticed I had a spare stereo RCA cable that found its way in there. I'm thinking either the controllers touched each other and shorted out, or the RCA cable bridged a couple of spots accidently.

Could anything else cause this? The broken controller works great aside from the fact that A and B no longer respond. Is this something thats fixable, or should I just build in a new mad catz hack?

It should also be noted that the controller that shorted out got slightly damaged during dissassembly. The Pot that controlls the left trigger accidently got ripped off, traces and all. I did not put a resistor over the connection points, however in theory it should only give a bad signal for the Left trigger, which isn't even mapped to any of my games.

Please help so I don't do that again!
jpj
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Re: Fried an xbox 360 controller hack yesterday, any idea why?

Post by jpj »

this is what happens when you buy madcatz :awe:
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Devil Soundwave
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Re: Fried an xbox 360 controller hack yesterday, any idea why?

Post by Devil Soundwave »

First off, have your tried a good pad in the Player 1 slot on your machine to ensure the controller port itself hasn't been fried?

PCB: Got any pictures we can see?

On the ones that aren't working, check the wires from end to solder point with a multimeter to ensure the wire is good. If the wires are fine, then perhaps a trace has fried.

On the buttons that are no longer responding, are there any traces or nodes nearby that you can try soldering to instead?

Not got my controller to hand, but there are some ICs on an xbox pad yes? Perhaps one of these is screwed...

Once fixed, I suggest a nice thick layer of hot glue on every solder point, and project boxes wouldn't be a bad idea either.
capcomguru
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Re: Fried an xbox 360 controller hack yesterday, any idea why?

Post by capcomguru »

*Controller ports are still good, I've narrowed the fault down to the controller level

*PCB Pics: Don't have any yet, but I can post some... although I don't think it will help much. The project was working fine for many hours, and suddenly yesterday they shorted out.

*I haven't traced out the controller, however none of the wires have cold solder, and none of the traces/components are visibly burned.

The project box was the next "enhancement" that I had planned. All of the solder points already have hot glue tacking the wires down.

I think my best bet at this point is to just wire up a new joystick, and be sure to mount it in a project box!
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dmauro
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Re: Fried an xbox 360 controller hack yesterday, any idea why?

Post by dmauro »

You have to fix that trigger, or else map it to do nothing. If you leave it as the default of triple kick, this is why a and b aren't working. Since triple kick is already depressed (this is what happens without a 10k ohm resistor to replace the pot), a and b won't kick since they are part of the triple kick.

If you tore off the copper from the trigger connections where you put the resistor, it's easy enough to follow traces to another via and you can put the resistor where it would normally go, and then connect the resistor to the via with a tiny wire (use a strand from a stranded wire) or even just connect them with solder (the vias you need to connect to are only about 4mm away).
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Re: Fried an xbox 360 controller hack yesterday, any idea why?

Post by dj_johnnyg »

If it's a madcatz pad, look forward to soldering to some minute tracks.

The triggers work in a completely different way to the M$ ones, so the 10K resistor trick doesn;t work.

They basically work that the signal is either put to 0V (not pressed) or +V (fully pressed) or a value inbetween via the variable resistor.

The 0V is NOT ground, but a seperate point. I hacked a single trigger & not the other (just removed the resistor) and got **** signals coming from every analogue source on the board every time I pressed it.

Try plugging it into a PC & using the joypad test in control panel, then you should be able to see any issues from that.

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Re: Fried an xbox 360 controller hack yesterday, any idea why?

Post by capcomguru »

dj_johnnyg wrote:Try plugging it into a PC & using the joypad test in control panel, then you should be able to see any issues from that.
Ahh good point, I didn't think to test it under windows.

I think the fried joystick is a lost cause, I just have to figure out how to NOT fry another one...
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Xenepp

Re: Fried an xbox 360 controller hack yesterday, any idea why?

Post by Xenepp »

Also remember that when you plug it into your PC the mic port installs itself as your main soundcard on some systems.

I remember the first time that happened to me :lol:

-Joel
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