My home built metal DDR pad (Part IV)

SuRfReAk · Trick Member Joined: 19 Dec 2004

I've soldered a Dual Shock 2. It's no big deal, but a little difficult to explain without pics. Um.... the ground isn't a "solder point" persay, its just the bottom half of one of the larger circles of copper foil.... I'll try to get pics up, I did take some.
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SpaceMan · Trick Member Joined: 03 Dec 2002

Alright, so I went ahead and bought myself a cheap 2 dollar controller from Gamestop. I have a pretty good idea where I'm suppose to solder, but I just want to make sure, so can someone label it for me? Thanks.

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SuRfReAk · Trick Member Joined: 19 Dec 2004

My bad, I soldered a Dual FORCE, not shock. I'll label it for you tomorrow, but make sure you take a test wire (as described in my FAQ on 186 or 185), and connect the ground to the live points, just to make sure that they're right.

EDIT: Alright, here it is... I did it today. Make SURE you TEST the points, as I'm not an expert.

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pang · Trick Member Joined: 10 Feb 2005 Location: Sydney

I was taking my pad apart today to clean it and vacuum out all the dust and decided to take some pictures while I was at it:

http://img213.exs.cx/img213/4025/supportsandwiring5yf.jpg
http://img213.exs.cx/img213/299/padnoarrows19sn.jpg
http://img213.exs.cx/img213/3027/wrongarrows7ax.jpg
http://img176.exs.cx/img176/3244/finishedpad13it.jpg
http://img176.exs.cx/img176/5086/finishedpad34sm.jpg

Its based on riptides design, but instead of using pieces of 2 x 4, i used lengths of pine, and the controller is a pcb from a usb keyboard.

SpaceMan · Trick Member Joined: 03 Dec 2002

ch · Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2005 12:05 am Post subject:

basically you follow the light green traces. if you can follow it to another button, then its a ground. which automatically makes the other side "live"
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SpaceMan · Trick Member Joined: 03 Dec 2002

ch · Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2005 1:05 pm Post subject:

sure
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SpaceMan · Trick Member Joined: 03 Dec 2002

What if I found a common solder point for all the grounds? Will that work?

ch · Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2005 3:24 pm Post subject:

that would be much more convinient, as all the grounds are identical.
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CStarFlare wrote:

I approve of the direction this thread is going

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SpaceMan · Trick Member Joined: 03 Dec 2002

So would this be a common solder point for the ground?

ch · Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2005 3:29 pm Post subject:

absolutely. as long as you can trace it back to the ground side of a button, you can use it. be careful about what that bit of solder is attaching to the board, you dont want to fry it.
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I approve of the direction this thread is going

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SpaceMan · Trick Member Joined: 03 Dec 2002

Well, here's a doozy..

Is it possible for a wire to work when it's soldered to another one? I'm trying to resolder all the wires that were cut from my original pad. Will it work if I resoldered all the correct wires?

geckoinc99 · Trick Member Joined: 11 Feb 2005 Location: Chattanooga, TN

I'll try to fill you in on some electronic theory. If you solder two wires together, they become the same thing as far as a circuit is concerned. This would be the same as the multiple ground points for each button being the same electrically. If you have a multimeter with an audible diode tester, this is great for figuring out connections (even a non-audible tester will work, you just have to watch for numbers). Basically, if two points that you touch with the probes are electrically connected with no breaks, then they are the same. This will help you find your ground points. This is also a great way to test a solder joint to make sure you actually made a connection.

As for soldering to that one point, I would advise against it for a couple of reasons. One, the heat from the iron may harm the piece (especially if it's a transistor or an IC). Second, you risk breaking that connection, and that may ruin the entire board. The best thing to do is solder to one of the ground areas where the buttons are. They're more surface area and there are no components to ruin. If I had a picture of mine, I would show you, but I think you get the idea. Also note that you only need to make one ground wire. Let me know if that helps or if you need more info.

David
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SuRfReAk · Trick Member Joined: 19 Dec 2004

I wouldn't solder to that point, because you don't know what's under it, and you have to worry more about frying the board. I'd just solder to the copper, it's easier. Any of the ground points I labeled SHOULD activate all the directions (e.g. solder to one ground point, then solder that wire to 4 wires, creating 4 grounds, which go to the pad). As far as soldering wires from the controller to wires from the pad, I'd buy male/female Cat5 connectors at RadioShack. Yes, they're a little more expensive than soldering, but they're more reliable. I'm writing an FAQ on how to make multi-system pads sometime....along with my soldering a controller FAQ...it's on the to-do list.

pssst...geckoinc99... instead of buying an expensive audible diode tester, you could just take a short wire that's stripped on both ends, and touch the points together during a song

...
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mtwieg · Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2005 6:11 pm Post subject:

Alright I'm tired of waiting for thosze idiots at levelsix to deliver my usb convertor, so I've decided to just throw a usb keyboard into one of my pads. Can anybody give advice on how keys operate and how to find the proper soldering points on the circuit board, and if they use the common ground setup? I'd appreciate some help thx.

pang · Trick Member Joined: 10 Feb 2005 Location: Sydney

When you open up a keyboard, you should find the pcb, and 2 sheets of plastic, which will have circuits printed on it (be very careful when opening the keyboard or you'll have plastic spring thingys go everywhere). A keyboard works just like a controller, or any other type of switch; when you press a key, you complete a circuit. In the case of a keyboard, pressing a key makes the contact points on the 2 sheets of plastic touch, hence completing the circuit.

This pic shows the 2 sheets of plastic with the circuits printed on it.

Here is a close up of the connection points to the pcb. Its a bit hard to visualise the connection to the pcb, but my pcb is inside my pad. Sorry about the fuzzy pic.

To find the first soldering point for a key, trace the circuit from one sheet of plastic back to the connection point. Then repeat for the other sheet. While you could physically trace the circuits, a quick way would be to put one probe of a multimeter on the circuit point of a key and use the other probe to check the connection points to see which one conducts.

mtwieg · Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 1:36 pm Post subject:

I just cracked open an old keyboard, and it looks pretty much the same as what you descibed. However, I notice that there are only about thirty or so circuit wires coming from the sheets. Either, I'm not seeing all the button wires, or somehow there can be more buttons than there are wires leading to the pcb... I'm going to take this slow so I don't screw up, so I'll post once I make some progress...

pang · Trick Member Joined: 10 Feb 2005 Location: Sydney

It doesnt matter how many circuit wires come out of the sheets and the pcb; my circuit sheets had 25 and my pcb had 26 connectors. Just note which connections from the circuit sheet correspond to which connector on the pcb.

Next, to work out which pcb connectors to solder to: if, for example, both your pcb and circuit sheets have 30 connectors, we'll number them from left to right, 1 - 30. Now, say we want to find the connectors for the up cursor on the keyboard. We find the spot where the up cursor would go, and on the top circuit sheet, we follow the circuit from that spot all the way to the connectors, say the 1st one. Then, we go to the bottom circuit sheet and do the same, following the circuit from that spot all the way to the connectors, say the 30th one. This means that for the up cursor, we solder one wire to the 1st connector on the pcb and one wire to the 30th connector. These two wires will either go to the top and bottom sheets of metal for ddrhomepads design, or to the alternating screws in riptides design.

Jeremy37077829 · Trick Member Joined: 20 Jan 2005 Location: New York

instead of soldering directly into the keyboard, would there be any problems (such as lag or it not working at all) if i just soldered into the ps2 controller like normal and used an adaptor. im sure it will still work but i am worried about lag. can i have an answer from a person who has done this?
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