Solved Wiring up the integrated GC controller problem

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Been stuck getting the official gc controller working back again after cutting it up a few days ago. I've cut the board into two where the left analog, dpad and left trigger stays with the chip and the other half (c stick, face buttons, right trigger and z button) needs to be wired.
I dont have wires thin enough for soldering a cozy fit into the pins of controller chip so i have to make do with the wires from the controller cable. I've tried wiring the a and b buttons to their respective pins in the chip after scratching the copper trace just to test a response. But alas, they just wont function. What am i doing wrong here? Do i have to supply power and ground to the right half of the controller from the pins? Are my wirings simply wrong? Search far and wide on the archives of mod retro, gc forevers and bb to see if there are any diagrams for the traces or wiring for the integrated controller but have not found one guide my head can understand. Any advice or help would go a long way! Please and thank you.

And a side note, it is a hell of a job soldering those cable wires to the tiny pins of the chip especially with my amateurish soldering skills.

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Matthew

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Post some pictures. They help us understand your problem better and make it much more likely that we can help solve this problem with you.
 

Matthew

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Have you checked continuity with a multimeter? And from what I can tell you haven't actually connected the button to ground but instead soldered one of the wires to the A button on the IC and the other to the B button on the IC. Try connecting one of the wires to ground. This should complete the circuit.
 

Madmorda

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I agree with Chaos, you do seem to have one wire from A and one from B connected and that's it. Once you finish connecting everything up it should work fine.

I can relate to your difficulty in wiring though lol it looks you're using wires from a Nintendo gc controller which I've done before. Third party ones have thinner, straighter wires that solder much nicer. You might also look into magnet wire. I recently got some and it's a lifesaver. No more stripping it, and it's teensy.
 
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Much grateful for all the answers!! So so much. Sadly, my portable multimeter broke after leaving it open a few days. Thought it just ran out of juice but it never ran again after replacing the batt. So i have to just ground this thing and try it. Do i just solder a wire to a copper trace and connect it back to a 'ground' pin of the chip? Do i ground each face button or is one enough to complete all since ive noticed the traces seem to connect to each other? I apologize if these information i ask seem to be spoonfed in making my own gcp. Oh and the late replies too. Shameful. :\:\:\
 

Bakuku

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Much grateful for all the answers!! So so much. Sadly, my portable multimeter broke after leaving it open a few days. Thought it just ran out of juice but it never ran again after replacing the batt. So i have to just ground this thing and try it. Do i just solder a wire to a copper trace and connect it back to a 'ground' pin of the chip? Do i ground each face button or is one enough to complete all since ive noticed the traces seem to connect to each other? I apologize if these information i ask seem to be spoonfed in making my own gcp. Oh and the late replies too. Shameful. :\:\:\
The ground plane is connected to all buttos so one ground wire should be enough.
 

Matthew

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Sadly, my portable multimeter broke after leaving it open a few days. Thought it just ran out of juice but it never ran again after replacing the batt
There is also a fuse in each multimeter. You may want to look into that as well to see if you can salvage it. I don't know what you mean by 'leaving it open' but that could be a problem.

And like Bakuku said, you only need one ground wire. You don't have to connect it back to a ground pin on the IC (You can of course, but there's probably easier spots.)
 

Luke

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The ground plane is connected to all buttos so one ground wire should be enough.
May or may not be worth mentioning that you should be mindful of how / how close you trim the abxy board, because trimming could cause the ground planes to become separate. Probably won't run into the issue, but this has happened to me before where I did end up having to run separate ground wires (or just manually reconnecting the ground planes on the trimmed board).
 
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Finally got it working!!! ABSOLUTELY DAMN GRATEFUL for every help and advice!!! I've only wired the B button but its too damn satisfying solving this riddle.  :D:D:DWill get some sleep, then will finish the rest of the face buttons when i wake up. Yes, with these thick cable wires sadly. Last Q. Will the c stick and trigger need their own separate ground? Or will they share with the rest of the buttons (keeping in mind i havent separated the ground plane with my cut like Luke said)?

With only a functioning B button. Leon can only run like a bitch today. >:)
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Noah

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Since you're the second person to have a problem with the official controller in under a month, I threw this together tonight. Basically it's an easy-solder solution for controllers do you don't have to mess around with hot-gluing the wires down or epoxying them in order to hold them in place.

If there's enough interest I can do a quick run of 50 of these and put them in the store (I can do one for D-pad too)

And of course, there are holes so that you can mount these via screws for the perfect build quality.

Price for this board would be around $3 + shipping (usually like $2.50) so as I said before, if there's enough interest I'll do a quick run of these. Otherwise I'll just order some for myself on OSH :P
 
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Since you're the second person to have a problem with the official controller in under a month, I threw this together tonight. Basically it's an easy-solder solution for controllers do you don't have to mess around with hot-gluing the wires down or epoxying them in order to hold them in place.

If there's enough interest I can do a quick run of 50 of these and put them in the store (I can do one for D-pad too)

And of course, there are holes so that you can mount these via screws for the perfect build quality.

Price for this board would be around $3 + shipping (usually like $2.50) so as I said before, if there's enough interest I'll do a quick run of these. Otherwise I'll just order some for myself on OSH :P
These would have been a godsent man. Thank you but i doubt i could avail it. I only use Western union when paying online and i live SE asia. Soooo i guess shipping would be 4-5 times more expensive. :\

Update. Ive got the A and B to work. But i had to ground A as well now. Guess my cut messed up the ground plane too. Plus, i have this problem when i use in the integrated controller, the right trigger/bumper activates. Will tinker more later after work. :)
 

Matthew

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These would have been a godsent man. Thank you but i doubt i could avail it. I only use Western union when paying online and i live SE asia. Soooo i guess shipping would be 4-5 times more expensive. :\

Update. Ive got the A and B to work. But i had to ground A as well now. Guess my cut messed up the ground plane too. Plus, i have this problem when i use in the integrated controller, the right trigger/bumper activates. Will tinker more later after work. :)
If you are having a lot of trouble with this controller, honestly you should consider getting the GC+. It's small, cheap and super helpful. It solves a lot of headaches. I'm not sure what shipping would be but I bet it wouldn't be crazy expensive. It's probably less than getting another controller.
 
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If you are having a lot of trouble with this controller, honestly you should consider getting the GC+. It's small, cheap and super helpful. It solves a lot of headaches. I'm not sure what shipping would be but I bet it wouldn't be crazy expensive. It's probably less than getting another controller.
Call me impractical. But somehow, i kinda enjoy these problems. Makes finishing the portable all the more worthwhile. Its less of a waste of time, money and effort if i learn from this. Hey, if i still can't get mine running after maybe a week or three. I'd definitely get the GC+. ;):D:D:D

Won't give up on this baby just yet. <3
 
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I agree with Chaos, you do seem to have one wire from A and one from B connected and that's it. Once you finish connecting everything up it should work fine.

I can relate to your difficulty in wiring though lol it looks you're using wires from a Nintendo gc controller which I've done before. Third party ones have thinner, straighter wires that solder much nicer. You might also look into magnet wire. I recently got some and it's a lifesaver. No more stripping it, and it's teensy.
do u know how to wire the 5 pins from the switchblike analog stick from bitbuild with the lil pcb board with the 5 pinouts to gc+ v2.0. i can figure which pin goes to what pin. plz any help will mean alot.
 
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