Berserker Barrage: The Marvel Vs. Capcom Stick Saga Part 9 – Wire, Wire, Pants On Fire

So, we have the 360 PCB padhacked, the leo wired up, the LEDs working, and all the buttons and joystick inputs wired to the appropriate places on the junction block. It was now time to tackle the data and power lines for both PCBs and wire up the battery. One of the earlier wiring schematics Gummowned worked up had the d+ and d- USB lines from both PCBs going to one of the dpdt switches, and the +5v USB line and a line from the positive battery terminal from both PCBs going to the other switch. More recent schematics use a 3pdt switch, and have the +5v USB lines chained together (360 PCB, Sixaxis PCB and USB adapter). This is probably the optimal setup, but I went on with the original schematic, for a few reasons. First, while I had managed to solder leads to the USB solder points on the 360 PCB, the solder points on the sixaxis PCB were much closer together, and I wasn’t confident I could cleanly solder wires on the points. Second, I didn’t want to run a chain of wires from all the +5v points, partly for aesthetic reasons, partly because I was beyond tired of soldering at this point.

These are some TINY solder points....

The plan was to cut one of my unused USB cables, using the mini-b end to plug into the sixaxis PCB, eliminating the need to solder anything for the USB lines. The other end of the USB cable would be wired to the appropriate switch terminals and ground chain using .110” QDs, then plugged into the USB adapter attached to the case. The leads that I had soldered to the USB points on the 360 PCB and the leads from the USB cable attached to the sixaxis PCB would also be connected to the appropriate switch terminals with .110” QDs. Once I had all those wires stripped, crimped and connected, I tackled the power lines. I soldered leads to the sixaxis PCD’s battery terminals and ran them to another piece of junction block, along with the battery terminal leads I already soldered to the 360 PCB. Since I still had the LEDs wired up from my previous test, I connected them to the junction block as well. The only thing left to do now was test and see if it actually worked.

Before going out of town for the week, my buddy Nick dropped off his Xbox for safe keeping. I told him I’d need it to test out the stick anyway, since I still don’t have one myself. I took a few minutes to hook the Xbox up to the plasma TV, then connected the battery pack from the sixaxis to the junction block. Moment of truth time. With the switches in the down position, I pressed the guide button on the stick. As it did before, the PS3 whirred to life. Great. Shut that system off. Now for the Xbox. The joypad that the PCB was taken out of had already been synced to his Xbox, so there shouldn’t be a problem there. Flip the switches in the upright position. Press the guide button and…… the green light on the Xbox came to life. SUCCESS!!! The buttons on the stick lit when pressed twice, then…..nothing. Apparently the battery needed to be charged. No matter. It’s nearly 2am and I need sleep. I’ll just plug it up to the USB cable and recharge the battery overnight. So, I flip the switched back down for the PS3, plug in the USB cable from the charger and…nothing. No blinking lights on the sixaxis PCB. That’s not good. Tried another USB cable. No dice. Disconnected the battery from the junction block and plugged it into the sixaxis. Still nothing. Plugged the charging cable into the sixaxis and...charge lights start blinking as they should. Odd. Wired the battery back to the junction block and plugged the charge cable to the sixaxis. Blinking charge lights again. Obviously, something is off with my wiring somewhere. But it’s now after 2am, and I need to wake up in 4 hours, unless my daughter wakes me up before that to have her diaper changed. So, I disconnected the charging cable, pulled the battery and charged it on my R/C lipo charger and went to bed.


Groggy and bleary eyed at work, I tried to figure out what could be the problem with the PS3 PCB not charging. Obviously something had to be off with the USB connection. So, it was onto the SRK forums to see what I could have done wrong. While I was typing out my problem, it occurred to me what the problem could be. Since I was using the USB cable, instead of leads from the USB terminals on the PCB, the cable would need to be grounded. When I attached the connectors and wired everything up the night before, I didn’t even consider the ground for the USB cable. If I had used the leads soldered to the USB points, I probably would have been OK, since the PCB itself was grounded. But with the separate cable, I would need to ground that as well. Now all I needed to do was make it through the next 6 hours at work to see if my theory was correct.

Once I made it home, I stripped some more of the USB cable to expose the ground wire. I tapped into the ground chain by desoldering the one of the QDs I was using on the ground chain, then adding another lead and soldering the QD to both. I then added a female QD to the USB ground wire and a male to the exposed lead on the ground chain. With the battery pack now fully charged I connected it back to the junction block. This time, the Xbox fired up and the stick stayed on. I played a few rounds of MvC2 on my buddy’s system, looked thru some of his videos, and changed his background, just because I could. This time when I switched to the PS3 and plugged in the USB cable the charge lights started to blink. Time to start doing my happy dance!

Now I was 85% finished with my little project. I needed to tighten up the wiring a little bit with some more wire sheathing and attach and wire a switch to turn the LEDs on and off. My original plan to run all the individual anodes to spots on the junction block didn’t look very clean, so I made one more wire chain, cutting the anodes short, attaching QDs and making a chain just like the one I made for the ground wires. It took another 2 hours, but it looks much neater. The only major thing left to tackle was the art for the control panel. Time to call in some more help…