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Does anyone know if you can gut a 360 guitar hero controller and use the PCB for a stick?

FrothyOmen

FrothyOmen

P!
as the title says, I have an old wired 360 XPlorer guitar hero controller i will never use again... can it be gutted and used as parts for a stick? Anyone know?
 
RomeoBravoDelta

RomeoBravoDelta

Noob
I would imagine that would depend on how the controller is set up and if it's compatible with any buttons, and there's no way to know that without busting it open.
 
PND_Mustard

PND_Mustard

"More stealthful than the night"
Premium Supporter
i know someone who did it in the past, but i dont know for certain.
 
axeman87

axeman87

Noob
Never played GH, or seen one of their controllers, but regardless its safe to say the PCB must have the same generic inputs.

At the end of the day all you is Up, Down, Left, Right, the face buttons, and 2x triggers. Should be a easy as. Bust it open... show us some pics.
 
FrothyOmen

FrothyOmen

P!
I'll try to figure out how to get it open after work today. It's only held together by a handful of screws, but there are extremely deep wells before you actually reach the screws and i don't think i can get my screwdriver to reach them that far down. We'll see though; maybe I can jimmy rig something with tape that can get deep enough to get it all open. I'll put up pictures once I get it open.
 
FrothyOmen

FrothyOmen

P!
NkdSingularity axeman87

You guys expressed interest in pictures... here are the guts of the controller. I don't really know what to do from here, I'm strongly considering just keeping the guitar hero buttons and either ordering a stick or getting more buttons and making the world's most ghetto hitbox. I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing but I guess I'll just figure it out. I'll update with more pictures as progress (slowly) happens.

http://imgur.com/a/fzelV#0
 
M

MK9 Player

Noob
Shouldn't be too hard if you've any experience with electronics. All you'd need is enough buttons and some way to mount it. I mean, I guess there could be an issue with how the controller is wired as far as what happens when you depress the buttons since a normal controller is pressure sensitive (they are, right?). But if I had to guess all you really have to do is complete the circuits and it should work. Too bad you don't have a rock band guitar, that second set of fret buttons near the body would make a pretty sweet hitbox if you split the neck from the body, wired them together and rested your hands on the guitar body using those extra two buttons on the body. I've got an extra rock band controller and a busted ps3 pad I might try and cram together in to some abomination or other now. Course, this could all be the booze talking, in which case feel free to ignore it.
 
M

MK9 Player

Noob
Well, still shouldn't be too bad. Electronics and wiring really is pretty simple unless you're trying to make it actually do something or perform a series of tasks. All you're doing here is completing a circuit when you press a button. Although, I would wager you'll need an actual controller to hook this monstrosity up to, since the game won't be looking for a guitar. But you take a button on your guitar controller that will have a connection on either side of it...and connect those to the ones on the button for the good controller. I've never tried something like this, so this is all assumptions on my part...I'm about to crack my busted ps3 pad open right now and look at it.
 
FrothyOmen

FrothyOmen

P!
MK9 Player Haha have fun. I kind of think that I can do this with just the GH controller though; the five "fret buttons" are actually labeled "A, B, Y, X, and LB". They all worked normally in other games too, assuming they could be played with the xbox face buttons and dpad. I think I can make this work
 
M

MK9 Player

Noob
You should be golden then. I think I was getting confused with hooking an electric drum set up to play rockband, GH with. Then, you'd need a controller. Course, I gotta do it the hard way since my rockband guitar is for the wii, but it would still be a fun project nonetheless.

So what are you planning on doing with this thing? Putting it in a new enclosure or what?
 
axeman87

axeman87

Noob
Looking at PCB ... yeh that will work, except you will only have 5 buttons to play with. If thats not an issue is as simple as soldering directly onto the PCB as required, then fitting it inside a box connected to your buttons and joystick.

I would test each connectiion with one button to start with so you'll know where the Earth connection is. Daisy chain the buttons and just find one Earth. A JLF needs only 1 Earth connection as well.
 
FrothyOmen

FrothyOmen

P!
MK9 Player

Yes, I'm planning on building my own ghetto arcade stick out of it, so i'm gonna get some wood, make me a box, put some hinges on dat box, put a lid on dat box, put everything inside somehow, drill some holes for buttons, and call it a day lol. i wish i would have tried playing MK9 with just the guitar, how hilarious would it be if i showed up to a tournament and actually played with it LMAO. I'll bust out solos while xray-ing people hahaha

axeman87

Sounds easier than I originally thought. I don't know anything at all about stick building/electronics in general, what do you mean by "daisy chain the buttons"? also what is "JLF"? I know what the earth (ground) is in your description but that's it, hah... I feel so dumb not knowing any of this.
 
axeman87

axeman87

Noob
FrothyOmen said:
Sounds easier than I originally thought. I don't know anything at all about stick building/electronics in general, what do you mean by "daisy chain the buttons"? also what is "JLF"? I know what the earth (ground) is in your description but that's it, hah... I feel so dumb not knowing any of this.
Click to expand...
Not dumb, no one is born with knowledge about building fight sticks, you gotta start somewhere and the only way to start is to question.

Anyways.... JLF - This is a brand of Joystick from Japanese manufacturers Sanwa. JLF's joysticks are in all arcades in Japan and for most people the joystick of choice when building a fight stick. This is personal preferance of course and other leading manufacturers such as Seimitsu and Happ also make good joysticks.

Daisychain - this is when you link just 1 Earth(ground) signal from 1 destination to another directly, borrowing the signal if you will. For joysticks, its used when installing the buttons, for example.... In an 8 button fight stick you could have 8x Ground signals from each button to the PCB. However, you could just have 1 button grounded (to the PCB) then run the ground signal from this one button to all the others. The ground signal doesnt need to be indipendant to the PCB and can run from any number of connections.

Here is a good site that will pretty much tell you everything you need to know. http://www.slagcoin.com/

Here is my latest build. Its finished I just havent updated the post yet. http://www.testyourmight.com/threads/my-custom-mk-stick.14197/
 
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