Make a Guitar Hero Kit for your PC

Step 4 Wire it up

To put it all together, I first had to make a "breakout board" to give myself some breathing room to work with. I first cut a piece of protoboard and bent some pieces of paperclip into it, one for each pin on the contact header for the controller board. Then I connected wires from each pin of the controller board to each pin of the protoboard. This gave me a safe set of connectors which are easier to work with, less chance of lifting or breaking a trace off the controller board.

Then i found a good spot for the controller+breakout board and used a small amount of hot glue to hold them in place temporarily.

Then I added a pair of wires to each button. These will be connected to the breakout board. Below you can see my setup with the wiring finished, but we're not quite to that point yet.

Comments

[badmoonrizn]

I have just recently made one of these the same way. One very helpful thing to do is after scraping the carbon off of the contacts on the key pad CB, soldier the wires on the contacts, being careful not to move it, Mix up some 5 minute epoxy and pour over the board. Let harden and no worries of the contacts breaking off. Also the following key mapping configuration is the only one I have found that works flawlessly with Frets on fire (ex. fret key combos) I can hold all frets down at the same time and still be able to pick! Pick: - Enter key Secondary Pick - Enter key 1st. Fret - 9 2nd. fret - 6 3 rd. fret - back space 4th fret - * 5th fret - 3 Hope this is helpful, and Good Luck ; )

[loonygamer]

I'm kinda confused about the "bent paper clips" part. Do you use it to hold the wire down (like hook it to the holes on the protoboard? Do you use the paper clip to solder the wires together?

[carpespasm]

the paperclips are just bent into a U shape, then put in the holes of the protoboard, and i then bend the legs of them together so it looks like someone put a staple in the board. I just use this as a large contact point to attach the wires to since i broke contacts off the first controller board i got by trying to put a mess of wires on the board's tiny contacts.

[loonygamer]

So you mean you use the paper clips as "staples" to hold the wires then soldered the bare wires? Sorry I'm not that DIY. I used to mess with electronics, but I got too much into PCs.