Star Power Foot Pedal to a Guitar Hero Controller

This instructable will let you make a foot pedal for attaching to your Guitar Hero / Rock Band guitar, so that when you want to activate Star Power, instead of waving the controller around wildly, you simply step on a real guitar foot pedal.

This project is part of the OpenChord.org Guitar Hero controller series, and in this instructable I'll be making the pedal specifically for the OpenChord V1 controller, who's instructions you can find here. However, this also works for any other guitar hero controller.

For more information, please visit www.OpenChord.org!

Step 1 Basic Theory + Parts

So this is a really simple project. In the guitar hero controller, star power is activated by a simple switch that detects if the guitar is pointed straight up or not. It's a little mechanical switch, so all we'll be doing will be soldering 2 extra wires to our foot pedal's switch and then connecting them to the place where that controller sensor is.

You'll need:

1 guitar foot pedal
2 long strands of wire, at least 4 so feet long - ideally, these strands will be connected together
1 Guitar Hero controller
Small screwdrivers
Soldering equipment
Heat shrink / electrical tape

Optional (and used in this instructable)

Small bits of wire
Wire connectors - I wound up using an actual guitar cable I had lying around, but if you have a male/female set of audio jacks, those will work nicely too. This will let you store the guitar and pedal separately.

Comments

[geekqueen2010]

where did u buy that gutiar? its so kawai!!!!!! i just love the rising sun motif and the pink and white color combo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i wish i can afford to buy an electric guitar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i miss playing guitar for real but im stuck just playing GH :(

[stuntkid223]

realluy sorry, but thats not a guitar hero controller, thats a guitar....

[Triworm]

it's a hack that made his guitar into a guitar hero controller.

[stuntkid223]

what i dont understand is why you would waste your guitar like that, unless it was broken. i mean video games are cool and that, but, as someone once said, real guitar heros play real guitars

[stuntkid223]

unless the process of turning the guitar into a controller doesnt wreck the guitar, in which case it is actually really awesome and you can ignore my previous comment

[FazJaxton]

Great idea!  I'd love to have a pedal instead of waving around.  Could you provide a little more instruction about what the mechanical switch inside the guitar looks like and where to find it? 

[NikonDork]

This instructable is very poorly executed. Just a bunch of busy photographs

[alan.chatham]

Um, this comment doesn't really help me very much. Is there something I could do to make the instructable more clear? Is there somewhere that needs more detailed instructions? Are the photographs confusing? I'm just not sure I know why you feel that this is a very poor quality instructable.