Replace a Guitar Hero / Rock Band Kick Peddle Cable

When my cat chewed through my Guitar Hero World Tour kick peddle cable, I thought that I would have to buy a whole new drum set or try and cheat my warranty.

Luckily I found a way to replace the cable easily. I hope this helps others who need to replace their cable.

Note: While this worked for me and I imagine it will work for others, I can only say that this is a fix for Guitar Hero: World Tour for the Wii. Let me know with any comments if this works or doesn't work for any other systems or games.

Step 1: Build of Materials

Tools:
- Soldering iron

Parts:
- 6 feet of headphone cable
- Headphone jack
- Wire

Step 2: Getting to the Sensor -1

- First, flip the kick peddle over, you should see a fuzz pad at the toe.

- Carefully remove the pad, this should make the screw holes available.

- Remove the screws securing the kick sensor.

Step 3: Getting to the Sensor -2

Once the screws have been removed, remove the sensor from it's place.
Flip it over so that the wires are facing you.

Step 4: Remove the Existing Wires

Remove the white (silicon?) stuff from the sensor. This should expose the solder joints. If the existing wires did not break off the solder joints already, cut the wires off from the solder joints.

Step 5: Headphone Plugs 101

The kick peddle connects to the base of the drum set through a headphone cable with a mono jack.
The most common type of cable I could find had a stereo jack.

This is not a problem.

Both the top and very bottom part of the stereo plug (don't use the middle part) are compatible with the mono plug.

For your jack, consult the wiring diagram for your particular jack or test it with a multimeter. The second image for this step you can see how I my plug connected to the jack and what terminals were what.

Step 6: Solder the Jack to the Sensor

Solder the jack to the sensor so that the positive terminal (top part of the plug) of the jack connects to the positive (inner) part of the sensor and so that the ground terminal (bottom most part of the plug) of the jack connects to the ground (outer) part of the sensor.

When soldering to the sensor, use the existing solder joints.

I left lots of wire which prevents strain on the solder joints. The extra wire I just coil up inside the sensor case later on.

Step 7: Seal It Back Up and Plug It In

Place the sensor back in it's spot, screw it back in and stick the pad back on to cover up the screw holes.

If you have any wire sticking out you can probably shove it back in with the sensor.

I would recommend securing the jack so that it will stay in place and not pull on the solder joints.

Take your 6 feet of headphone cable and connect the kick peddle back into the drum unit and you should be good to go.

Comments

[drbencrazzy]

Just in case you need to open it again I used a hole punch on the toe pad on the bottom of the pedal then glue it back on never need to remove again

[rhancock3]

So now that you have a jack on the end of the pedal do you splice your headphone plug wire to the existing wire from the original setup? I guess I am wondering how you attach the cable to the back of the drum set. Could you also do this by taking the headphone jack wire and soldering it straight onto the sensor? If you did that which wire would go where?
Thanks

[Paul567]

I used a standard male-to-male audio cable. Similar to what you would use to connect the headphones from your phone/mp3 player to the AUX port of your car or stereo.

The base of the drum kit takes a male audio plug so connecting it there is easy.

Originally, the kick peddle had a tail (an audio cable directly connected to the kick peddle itself). This instructable shows you how to remove the cut/broken/torn tail and replace it with a female audio receptacle allowing you to use a male-to-male audio cable in the future.

The nice thing about this setup is that if your cat eats your new cable (or however it gets damaged) you can replace the one cable easily and not have to break out the soldering iron again!

[jeffreyhslin]

I just completed this successfully! I don't comment on the internet very much but I had to here. This procedure really works! I had exactly 0 experience soldering before I did this. The materials I used were really cheap. I bought all I needed from Radio Shack. For the jack, I used a Panel Mount Mono 1/8" Phone Jack which came in a pack of 2 for $1. For the wires, I just bought a D Battery Holder for $1 that had 2 wires about 6" long attached to it. I clipped off the wires for use and threw away the battery holder.

The only very minor feedback I would possibly add is a little clarification for step 6. The wire that is soldered to the inner part of the sensor goes to the prong that has the long contact piece for the plug (positive, top part of jack, closest to the opening); the piece that actually "clicks" or grabs the headphone plug. I'm not sure what the proper terminalogy is for this contact piece.

Kudos to Paul 567! Thanks alot! I'm pretty proud of myself and now I want to take up soldering for fun. Next, I'm going to try to resolder a broken button on my car key fob. Wish me luck!

[mudslide3]

My sons base stoped working when  I press doem on the base pedal should I get some kind of ohms reading on the end of the base pedal cable. What I am trying to find out is---is it the pedal or the drum set. Thanks for any help you can give me

[Paul567]

I'm pretty sure that it is a piezoresistive pressure sensor.

According to www.microsystems.metu.edu.tr/piezops/piezops.html this means that the resistance of the sensor should change as you press it.

I think you should be able to troubleshoot if it is the drum kit or the peddle by measuring the change in resistance on the cable from the peddle.

[lemonie]

So it's a piezo sensor. The pedal makes some kind of 'knock' when you depress it? The "white stuff" will be some kind of glue, not silicon, and probably not silicone polymer either. Did it just peel-off? L

[Paul567]

Being a piezo-resistive sensor makes sense. When the peddle is pushed down it comes in contact with the sensor. It's been a while since I played but I don't think the amount of pressure applied to the kick peddle makes a difference. While I did use a scalpel to remove the 'white stuff', it pretty much just peeled off.

[lemonie]

Thanks for the update. L

[crsunlimited]

I haven't done much work with this type of wire aside from repairing headphones as a teen. Would this process work trying to repair a cymbal cord? My 2 year old yanked the wire right out of my orange cymbal jack. It was a clean yank, no breakage. It had been working prior to this. I was going to disect the jack head and see if I could solder the wire back onto it, but somehow I don't thing that will work.

[Paul567]

From what I have read the strands of wire used in headphone cable have an enamel coating. If you wanted to try and solder the wire back you would have to strip or remove the enamel from each strand. That's a lot of work. I took another look at my drum stand and the process could work but you would have to take your drum stand apart and even then I don't know how the headphone cable would be connected. That being said, I would rather take the drum stand apart then try and strip the enamel and solder the wires back together.

[imgod22222]

take out a lighter and melt the enamel off. Then solder. Works like a charm. Don't melt the enamel with your soldering iron though--it ruins the iron. Put the enamel in the flame's heat, but not in the flame directly.

[einsteindkid]

Awesome, thanks so much.

[Cartermarquis]

This is a great idea! I might just do this to my RB2 set, because the pedal comes with a coiled cord that lifts the whole thing off the ground and is really annoying.