Introduction: How to Make a PS2 Guitar Hero Controller Out of Scratch
This is a video of me playing the GH controller. The Song is called Holy Diver. I'm playing it on Hard. It demonstrates that it is working just fine (every part of it).
Note: I hadn't seen an original red octane controller (nor any 3rd party copies) at the time I made this controller, only on pictures.
Feel free to leave a lot of comments about my project, I'd like to have some response, and if you have any questions about anything according to my project, don't hesitate to ask (but please try to ask things that aren't covered in the instructable! Thanx!)!
Step 1: The Mentioned "scratch"
So here's what's needed for this project:
- a PS1 controller with analog sticks (important! PS2 controllers won't work with GH2, only GH1)
- trigger buttons of another PS1 controller (I used an old one with no analog sticks - i haven't used it for ages) or some sensitive micro switches for the guitar fret buttons
- some other switches and plastic pieces
- a whammy bar
- some csrews
- a tilt sensor, covered in my fist instructable, the correct one for this project starts at Step 4
- a longer flat cable consisting of 6 wires (it will be easier to glue it down) and a bunch of other shorter wires
- 2 pieces from a roll-top (guitar neck)
- a thick paper with fine surface on one side (guitar body shape)
- a long piece of wooden slat or more smaller pieces (body stability)
- lots of hot glue
- soldering-iron and some solder and of course soldering knowledge
- an electric drill, rasp, Stanley knife and some other tools
Step 2: The Electronic Part of It
It is really important to use a PS1 analog controller, because a PS2 controller just won't work with GH2. It doesn't matter for GH1 though, so you can make a guitar exclusively for GH1 from a PS2 pad. And so why is GH2 so picky? Beats me, but it needs a digital controller with analog sticks, and we all know that the PS2 pad is totally analog! Even the buttons, they are touch sensitive. So our only choice is a PS1 pad if we want to make it compatible with GH2 and the probable further versions (I mean beyond the Rocks the 80s, cuz' it worx the same as GH2).
I used a Typhoon 3rd party PS1 pad, because it had an ugly shape...
Ok, so here is "what goes where":
1. You have to solder the left d-pad - as if it was always pressed down - it tells the PS2 that this is a guitar controller (try to push it in the game, the tutorial menu will be unfolded).
2. GND - needed for all the switches. There are a lot of outlets of it fortunately.
3. up d-pad - strum up
4. L2 - 2 outlets for the motion sensor (star power)
5. down d-pad - strum down
6. select - I haven't found any other uses of it than star power
7. start - important for pausing the game and for the in-game menu
8. square - orange fret button (be careful, there's no little extra solder pad - but maybe yours will have)
9. R2 - green fret button
10. cross - blue fret button
11. circle - red fret button
12. triangle - yellow fret button
13. Y-axis of the left analog stick - whammy bar trimmer (connect it between GND and Ucc)
14. Ucc - the easiest place where it can be found
I won't go into details with these later, there will be a reference always in this step.
Note: I would recommend you to remove the rumble motors, because in GH they don't have a role.
Step 3: The StrumBar
This was the most interesting part of the whole process. I've tried a lot of things as the strum bar, but nothing succeeded. So I had to make one... I took apart a small switch, put a broken drill-bit into the upper part of the switch (not the electric, but the mechanical), because it is hard, so it won't break (it will be pushing the buttons). After that i cut the trigger-pad in half, soldered it (common GND!!) glued the button gums to the trigger pad, placed it to the switch as seen on the pic and glued the whole thing. It works perfectly!!!!!
Step 4: The WhammyBar
The WhammyBar can be easily made of the analog stick. Cut the CB in half (we'll just need one analog stick). Solder it like on the pic, so it would only move on one axis. Then solder the pins of the "!!!!still moving!!!!" trimmer like the diagram says on the 2nd pic. The direction shall be first tried before placing the analog to its place.
Take the plastic stick and drill a hole into it slantly, then place some bar into it. The Whammy is done!
Step 5: The Neck - 1
There will be 5 fret buttons, so you'll need 3 trigger button circuit boards for this (one button will be unused though). Take one of the roll-top pieces and measure those fret buttons and place them in their place as you wish - find out the comfortable distance between those buttons. Cut the fret wires according to that and solder them to the CBs. You need to have one common GND (so that's why you need a 6-wired cable) - note the white GND cable. Now glue the CBs down. Add some plastic pieces to hold the buttons in their places. Glue them and the wires down, too.
Step 6: The Neck - 2
Measure the fret distances again precisely now as they are glued down. Draw it on the other roll-top piece and drill the holes with the electric drill and work on them with a rasp until they have a square-like shape. Make sure the fret buttons fit there. Now you can make the head of the guitar from the same thick paper you'll be using for the body of the guitar. I made it of 3 layers then glued them together. Don't glue the neck together yet!
Step 7: The Body - 1
Draw your desired guitar shape on 2 of these papers (maintain the proportions to the neck). I chose the shape of Gibson Explorer (the shape of the original Xbox360 controller), because it is easy to draw, cut and stabilize with slat pieces.
So cut the shape out with scissors, make the edges finer. Cut out a piece of the slat, it's size must be the same as the length of the guitar. It will be the main slat. Make a hole for the strum bar - it must fit totally, still it must be stable! So measure it precisely. Make a hole for the wiring of the strum bar. Then cut it in a way, that the neck could perfectly be fixed on it by screws and some glue. Hot glue it on the back of the guitar (back paper shape). Now cut 4 other slat pieces, one to each edge of the guitar. Of course you need to measure the circuit board, etc. to make sure everything will fit from those slats. Glue and possibly screw everything together. Make some holes for the wires passing from one part of the guitar to the other. Now fix the neck to its place (with glue and screws). Don't spare with the hot glue because you'll regret it later.
Step 8: The Soldering
Now comes the soldering (or rather resoldering if you tried it out already whether it worx well). You have to cut every wire to its correct length to fit perfectly (not too short-not too long!!!). Solder everything to its correct place. Make sure everything worx well before proceeding to the next step!
Step 9: The Body - 2
Now you have to fix the electronics and the wires to their place and glue 'em there. Place the whammy bar, the start/select buttons, the strum bar and the motion sensor to their places and glue 'em there. I would recommend to glue the Whammy slantly, for the bar to look a bit up.
Cut the second neck piece as it is a bit shorter than the other. Glue the two neck pieces together now.
Now cut some strips of the same paper that you used for the body, with the same width as the thickness of the slats. Carefully glue it around the guitar (i guess it needs at least 2 people). It is the harder part of the whole process, i guess. Don't spare with that glue!!!
Make a hole on this strip for the connection cable. You can also add 2 holders for the guitar strap.
And now another hard task - cut the holes on the body cover very precisely. Then place it correctly on the body and fix it with 5-6 screws. Voila, done. Now for some design.
Step 10: Design
You may want to add some design elements - to make it look better and to cover the mistakes you made during the progress. I added some transparent plastic to the neck, some metallic and plastic pieces around the Whammy, some metallic piece around the StrumBar, some plastic pieces to the body (wanna' look like the bridge and the pickup...)
So that's it. Thanx for reading and if you would like to help me in my further projects or/and want to know how to get free stuff, please read my blog. Thanx and please save your comments about my blog to my blog comments. But still, feel free to leave a lot of comments about my project, I'd like to have some response, and if you have any questions about anything according to my project, don't hesitate to ask!
