Anyone ever do a padhack, with another pad?

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RottenToTheGore
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Joined: Sat Jul 10, 2010 6:07 pm
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Anyone ever do a padhack, with another pad?

Post by RottenToTheGore »

A friend of mine really likes his Madcatz Street Fighter wireless fightpad for PS3. But because it uses a proprietary dongle it doesn't play well with any of the Brook adapters he has, even the PS3>PS4 one. Recently he bought a second controller brand new that was defective, and after he got a refund from the seller he gave the controller to me so I could mess around with it for fun.

The dongle itself seemed fine, so it's probably something on the controller PCB. Not too sure where to start diagnosing it, but I did test continuity and found all the buttons went to test points just fine.

It'll be quite the project to get it working and making it fit in the shell, but I was thinking about getting a secondhand ps3 controller and connecting it to the points on the fightpad PCB. That way he has a PS3 controller that will be recognized with his adapters.

So where do I begin? I'm assuming I could remove the majority of components on the fightpad PCB to make room (the wireless component juts off the board taking up lots of space for example). From there is it just button to button? I'll have to dig into if I'm able to remove any part of the PS3 pad PCB that isn't needed such as where the analog sticks would have been. I know that will be the hardest part, making sure not to lop off any traces that are necessary.

It would make a great gift for him, any insight?
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Konsolkongen
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Re: Anyone ever do a padhack, with another pad?

Post by Konsolkongen »

Yes that would work fine. The only problem could be if the controller doesn't use common ground, but you can just connect those together if that turns out to be a thing.
Just remove all components and solder to pads connected to the buttons, preferably away from the button so your wiring doesn't interfere with the rubber membranes.

I'm demonstrating this here in a project I made some time ago:
https://github.com/Konsolkongen/Arduino ... n-GameCube
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matt
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Re: Anyone ever do a padhack, with another pad?

Post by matt »

If you can get all the parts to fit in the shell, it will work. Aside from that, it's a tedious job but in the end you'll get the controller you always wanted.

I did a some pad hacks like this years ago with model 2 Saturn pads. I still have one for the SNES and one for the Playstation. The PS1 pad is one of my favorite controllers ever, but making it was a huge pain in the butt. Basically, I took a PS1 digital pad, cut down the PCB as small as possible, and removed the IC from the Saturn pad. The PS1 controller guts are small enough to fit on top of where the Saturn chip used to be, and are connected to the relevant points by a bird nest of kynar wire. At some point I added an autofire circuit and a d-pad rotation switch (to play Raiden Project in tate mode) which made it even more complicated. It's now 20 years old and I've had to repair it numerous times as parts have worn out or broken. I've thought of making another one but haven't had the nerve to do it.
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