RJ-45 MC Cthulhu+ IMP+ Xbox 360 Dual Mod Tutorial Diagram

[rtdzign]

Edit: Now add 3DO (1player only, no daisy chain) and Dreamcast (no VMU support) to that list.
edit 2: Too lazy to update for Imp Version 2. That version autodetects. Here is another tutorial for it.

MC Cthulhu + Imp v2 + Madcatz xbox360 + RJ45 custom stick + ArcEye2 + Toodles FGwidget LED control

Hi SRK members. I would like to start off thanking the community for the help I’ve got from all the tutorials and guides that can be found on SRK forum. I would like to thank Toodles help, rtdzign’s tutorials, info from one of Phreakazoid187 post and TRNG padhacking thread. I would like to thank purplearms for his ArcEye 2s I would like to thank Art Hong for his great plexi and custom art cut outs. These are some of the tutorials and threads I got info from http://shoryuken.com/f177/rj-45-m…

So many people have been wanting a tutorial or guide for the Ultimate Stick setup:

The RJ-45 MC Cthulhu + Imp + Xbox 360 Controller Dual mod.

The goal of this tutorial is to visually show how to wire up the PCBs, and provide links to other tutorials/info pages for the other needed info like making ethernet cables and hacking random Xbox 360 controller pcbs. I also must emphasize; I don’t recommend that you take this project on as your first joystick mod. As tempting as it sounds to get a stick like this setup, if you have no soldering experience, there is a good chance you will screw up and short a part of your PCB. Obviously do this at your own risk.

Parts:
MC Cthulhu
Xbox 360 Madcatz Fightpad PCB or Madcatz common ground Xbox 360 pad
Imp Kit (no usb jack) or DPDT switch
Soldering Iron 15-30 watt with a fine tip recommended
Soldering wire
Desoldering spring action pump. Just in case you mess up or need to remove solder
Digital Multimeter (cheap category I with audio continuity check)
Cat 5e cable or Cat 6
Neutrik RJ-45 pass through.
Switchcraft RJ-45(best for wood), or any RJ-45 (and 24mm drill bit, forstner or spade bit for wood, holesaw for metal)
Ethernet Jack crimper
Extension cables for systems you want
Stranded wire (reccommend 26 gauge stranded in as many colors you can find)

Drill free option Update:

Instead of a 24mm hole to mount a neutrik or switchcraft RJ-45 jack, you can feed the ethernet through a notch and use a ethernet coupler. Recently I modded a VLX but this can also be used with a TE or any stick with a cord notch. I didn’t want to drill into my VLX case so Instead I used an Ethernet coupler and hid that away in the cord compartment. I tied a knot in my ethernet cord so that the cord would not be pulled out of the notch used for the default usb cord.
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww301/rtdzign/VLX%20360/th_1b827ab6.jpg http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww301/rtdzign/VLX%20360/th_2cf280a1.jpg

Prerequisites!!!

First off I would have you also refer to the following tutorials for prerequisite knowledge information:

Know and understand everything about PCBs on slagcoin. I hope you have at least done one pad hack stick, or at the very least wired a plain old cthulhu by itself and have made a working stick.
http://www.slagcoin.com/joystick/pcb_wiring.html

The often referred to Bomberman Dual Mod Tutorial while awesome, it is specific to madcatz sticks Edit: Looks like the thread is lost forever. =(
Installing an MC Cthulhu and Imp in an Xbox 360 SF4 SE stick
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=184787

(Official MC Cthulhu forum)
The official Cthulhu/ChImp board thread
http://www.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=162026

(More info on how to make system cables)
My RJ-45 ver 2 rewrite with new console info.

RJ-45 Multi Console Cthulhu Arcade Stick Tutorial Ver.2

Edit: Photobucket doesn’t allow free image hosting anymore so this thread/tutorial is probably done for. I don’t have the time to move my images to another free hosting service. I feel this thread is possibly horribly outdated as it doesn’t cover this generation at all. If anybody wishes to copy my images and update this thread to a new thread, you have my blessing. Here is my photo album for this thread. [image] Edit:Also Dreamcast and 3DO Intro Th…

(If you are using a regular madcatz pad)
How to padhack an 08/09 Madcatz 4716 Common Ground Xbox 360 Pad

How to padhack an 08/09 Madcatz 4716 Common Ground Xbox 360 Pad

I’ve been telling people on IRC that I’d do this, so here I am. I will post pictures in a little bit. This guide is incomplete until those pictures are here. EDIT: I’m tired and need to do some work. I’ll finish this tomorrow! Materials Required: -Madcatz 4716 2008/2009 Pad -Soldering Iron -Solder -Desoldering Equipment (Braid, Solder Sucker, your preferred method) -Flux (optional, but recommended) -Solid and/or Stranded Wire (I personally use 24 AWG solid and 26 AWG Stranded) -Small P…

For this Tutorial, You should already know basics such as hacking a common ground PCB or know how to hook up a cthulhu by itself. Go to slagcoin.com or the cthulhu thread because I won’t be going over that kind of basic info. In this diagram I am reccomending a Madcatz SF fight pad, for ease of hacking (especially of LT and RT) and nice PCB size. I have an MC Cthulhu board minus the componnents for the lables. You can use a Madcatz 4716, a Madcatz Retro Stick PCB, or a SE or TE PCB, you just have to know where the solder points are for those. Here are the signals for the 360 fightpad.

Step 1: Piggyback
In this step refer to theMC Cthulhu documentation paper that has the holes labeled. I first solder the A-H and 1-9 on the MC Cthulhu and solder it to the appropriate button signal on the xbox 360 according to the document. I use a multimeter to constantly continuity check, and use many colors of wire to help me out in labeling.

Alternately, you can also solder or screw into the button signals to the screw terminals on the MCC, it is electrically the same. This might be easier if you are dual modding a 360 TE.

Before you solder off that USB cable off of the Xbox 360 pad to solder on the Vcc, make sure you write down or draw or take a picture of what order of colors the USB cable attach to the PCB. If looking at if from the front left to right it should be red(VCC) White (D-) Green (D+) Black (Ground) if using the fighting pad pictured

Aside from piggybacking the buttons and directions, make sure that you also connect the Vcc (A on MC Cthulhu) to the Vcc (red cable on USB on x360 pad) .

For wiring Ground, I like using one of the big contacts on the dpad on the Xbox 360 and wire that to the MC Cthulhu (hole “C”. It says to wire to USB black wire on 360 pad and that is fine too. Since Grounds are common all over the board it doesn’t matter where you solder too so long as it is one of the common grounds)

Copied From Welcome Doc

This board is fully common ground, so can be used in dual pcb setups. The tight two rows of unlabeled points (labeled A-H and 1-9 in the image above, but unlabelled on the board itself) can be used as extra places to access the signal lines for making a dual pcb setup. The pinout and recommended connection to a MadCatz360 pad is below. This is an advanced mod, and NO help will be available to do this:
A - VCC. Connect to the spot the red wire from the 360 USB cable went
B - D-pad Down
C - Ground. Connect to the spot the black wire from the 360 USB cable went
D - Select
E - D-pad Right
F - Roundhouse/3rd Kick. Recommend at RB.
G - Fierce/3rd Punch. Recommend LB.
H - Jab/1st Punch.
1 - D-pad Up
2 - 4th Punch. Recommend RT.
3 - D-pad Left
4 - 4th Kick. Recommend LT
5 - Start
6 - 2nd Kick/Forward.
7 - 1st Kick/Short
8 - 2nd Punch/Strong
9 - Home/Guide

Of course to do it neatly I solder the wires to the back side away from the bottom and try to keep it neat.
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww301/rtdzign/MapleWithBalls/th_DSC03329-1.jpg

Step 2: D+ and D- to Imp

I am going to make MC Cthulhu Primary and Xbox 360 Secondary. You can switch it around if you want. The primary (MC Cthulhu) will be default, and holding Guide will use the xbox 360 PCB. I reccomend that you have a dedicated button for Guide/Home as opposed to Sel+Start = Guide/Home. I am not sure what happens when you set Select+Start to be Guide, because by default Sel+Start on bootup enters bootloader mode. And Guide on bootup switches to option 2.

Take the D- from the MC Cthulhu (in this case column D, row 1 pictured) and wire it to one of the “1 D-” on the Imp. Take the D+ (use column E, row 1) and wire that to the “1 D+” on the imp

Do the same for the xbox 360 but to “2 D-” and “2 D+”

(Option B) Step 2B: Wiring to DPDT switch.

Alternatively, You can use a “Dual Pole Dual Throw” or DPDT switch if you don’t want to use an Imp. You will have to drill a hole or cut a slot into your stick depending on what type of DPDT switch to mount the case. That or train a hamster to live inside your case to switch the DPDT for you, just be sure to clean the poop. If doing this step, skip step 3 and go straight to Step 4 option B. The imp was made for people that did not want to drill a hole in their stick or rework a wood case. Reworking a wood case takes some effort,tools and skills that some people don’t have.

Step 3: Connecting Ground, VCC, and Guide/Home to Imp

You can take the Ground from anywhere from either the Xbox 360 or MC Cthulhu, doesn’t matter, but here I’ll choose this screw terminal and solder that to the Ground.

Connect the VCC on the MC Cthulhu to the imp, I used A on the Piggy back connector holes, but the VCC screw terminal will work too. In the case I ever find an optical joystick that requires a 5+V Vcc at a reasonable price, I’ll keep the VCC screw terminal open.

Connect the Guide from the MC Cthulhu to imp. I chose to solder to 9 on the piggy back connector, but you can also use the home screw terminal or solder to the guide on Xbox 360.

Step 4: RJ-45

This is where it is gets hard to wrap your head around it. The Imp is used to control the D+ and D- from each pcb when using USB. So we wire all but two wires from the RJ-45 out jack to the MC Cthulhu. Those two wires we route to the output D+ and D- on the imp. I think the picture will explain it better. Once this is done you can plug the RJ-45 into the pass through port. If you are using a keystone jack then you have to punch down the wires into the proper terminals. Just so you know most Cat 5/6 cables are color ordered in type “B” layout as shown below, so make sure that you look into the end of your jack and the color layout matches up to what I got here.

(Option B) Step 4B- RJ 45 with a DPDT switch.

Wire the 5 (D-) and 6 (D+). The Blue/White wire should line up with the other two white wires and the green wire should line up to the other two green wires. The switch will only activate one pair of D+ or D- lines.

Step 5: Wire up your buttons and Joystick

Assuming you are attempting this mod you should already know how to wire up a joystick and buttons. Use the Screw terminals to the appropriate buttons and joystick connectors/harness wires. If you don’t know how to do this then I’m just going to point you to slagcoin.com and look up PCB and Wiring.
http://slagcoin.com/joystick/pcb_wiring/custom_setup.png

Now look at the mess of wires. It is no wonder that despite there being a tutorial already, this mod is hard to follow.

Hi Res wiring Examples (some have variations in wiring but as illustrated above is best):

Dhalsim stick with 2009 pad with trigger invertors:
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww301/rtdzign/Dhalsim/th_DhalsimHiResGuts.jpg

Blue Aluminum Stick with 2007 Madcatz pad:
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww301/rtdzign/AluminumCNC_sticks/th_BlueAluminumHiRes.jpg

Using DPDT Switch with Retro PCB:
http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww301/rtdzign/RedOctagons/th_AluminumStickHighResGuts_DPDT.jpg

Step 6: Make a cable

I am going to just refer to this thread:
RJ-45 Tutorial ver.2

RJ-45 Multi Console Cthulhu Arcade Stick Tutorial Ver.2

Edit: Photobucket doesn’t allow free image hosting anymore so this thread/tutorial is probably done for. I don’t have the time to move my images to another free hosting service. I feel this thread is possibly horribly outdated as it doesn’t cover this generation at all. If anybody wishes to copy my images and update this thread to a new thread, you have my blessing. Here is my photo album for this thread. [image] Edit:Also Dreamcast and 3DO Intro Th…

My RJ-45 ver 2 rewrite with new console info. Skip to post 2 for the creating cables part. Look for the stop sign that reads “Making System Cables”

**Edit:Picture for Imp Version 2 **
Too lazy to do a step by step, but hopefully this pic will help out with the different changes. With the newer Imp Version 2 you get autodetection, so you don’t have to hold a button on plug in.
Taken from this thread by Bapex215

MC Cthulhu + Imp v2 + Madcatz xbox360 + RJ45 custom stick + ArcEye2 + Toodles FGwidget LED control

Hi SRK members. I would like to start off thanking the community for the help I’ve got from all the tutorials and guides that can be found on SRK forum. I would like to thank Toodles help, rtdzign’s tutorials, info from one of Phreakazoid187 post and TRNG padhacking thread. I would like to thank purplearms for his ArcEye 2s I would like to thank Art Hong for his great plexi and custom art cut outs. These are some of the tutorials and threads I got info from http://shoryuken.com/f177/rj-45-m…

RJ-45 pinout.

[Torta]

So… that’s the setup for using 360 , and mc cthulhu with just 1 RJ45? that’s makes me HAWT

[bigsexyc420]

Thanks for this Ritz, a visual guide is def what people needed to make things alot easier. 'Specially bieng a visual learner myself, I can say that it makes it much easier.

Good Job man.

nominated.

[Ikagi-chan]

rtdzign, this is a great tutorial! I was wondering how people were doing the 1 RJ-45 port mod for everything for a while and I guess I know how to now! I’m not sure if you know, but since you’ve been pretty involved with the Multi-Console Cthulu project, does having the RJ-45 jack take care of the USB connections as well make you lose any opportunity for other consoles on the MC Cthulu? Like for instance, are you still able to use the newly implemented NES and SNES controller support with this variant of the RJ-45 mod?

[Kreeeee]

Of course you can use the SNES/NES using this.

This basically gives you full MC functionality using the RJ45 port, but allows the PS3 USB cable you make to work on a 360 if you hold the guide button down. No offence but I’d make sure you fully understand what’s going on before blindly following a mod like this as it saves a load of problems occurring further down the line.

Personally I did this to a 360 SE, making the RS switch activate the PS3 mode, so DP or LS is for the 360, and RS is used for all other consoles.

[Ikagi-chan]

Of course you can use the SNES/NES using this.

This basically gives you full MC functionality using the RJ45 port, but allows the PS3 USB cable you make to work on a 360 if you hold the guide button down. No offence but I’d make sure you fully understand what’s going on before blindly following a mod liek this as it saves a load of problems occurring further down the line.

Personally I did this to a 360 SE, making the RS switch activate the PS3 mode, so DP or LS is for the 360, and RS is used for all other consoles.

If the “No offense” bit was directed at me, none taken at all! I have however done RJ-45 mods (to 3 sticks actually, all for my friends) but I never did one with just 1 RJ-45 port for all functions. Usually, I’d be using a USB cable on the side for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 support, but I might have to try this if it can still retain the full console range provided by the Multi-Console Cthulu (though it’s not like it matters; neither my friends nor myself need compatibility for the NES, SNES, or Xbox 1! :lol:).

[rtdzign]

Yeah I tested this out with SNES/NES and every console that the MC Cthulu supports, with the exception of original Xbox, I have an xbox cable made from a busted controller, but never decided to dig the system out of storage.

[shrimpnoodles]

I didn’t read the whole thing, but looking at the pics, I don’t think you show the connection between the vcc/ground from the x360 to Cthulhu or imp. only Cthulhu to imp. so only 1 pad is powered right now. or it’s not clear. try to make important things like that as clear as possible otherwise, you’ll have a lot of posts asking why it doesn’t work. the kick to kick punch to punch, that you can be vague about.

[jdm714]

I see it.
+5V of Xbox 360 PCB is connected to Unlabeled VCC on Multi-Console Cthulhu.

[rtdzign]

I didn’t read the whole thing, but looking at the pics, I don’t think you show the connection between the vcc/ground from the x360 to Cthulhu or imp. only Cthulhu to imp. so only 1 pad is powered right now. or it’s not clear. try to make important things like that as clear as possible otherwise, you’ll have a lot of posts asking why it doesn’t work. the kick to kick punch to punch, that you can be vague about.

It is done during the piggyback step 1. Vcc is A on A-H. Ground is connected through piggyback as well. As long as all of the piggy back holes are used then this is taken care of. Nonetheless I decided that it was worth pointing out in the step via text, but doesn’t need an extra picture.

[DeepThoughts]

How did you determine which SNES lines (clock, latch, data) went to which cthulhu columns (A, B … ,F)?

[Toodles]

Good shit son. The diagrams look absolutely perfect.

[Gasp]

im about to do this mod too

just in time!!!

is there a link how adding the ps2 to this works i never quite understood it

[Matskat]

I thanked you via PM, but gotta do it publicly!

GREAT JOB…I finished mine this afternoon - started working on it around 10am.

Perfect tutorial.

I built a Mushihimesama Futari stick and finished it today, just in time because the game arrived in the mail moments after I got the stick to register on both my PS3 and 360.

Perfect timing…I’ll post the stick later…I’m gonna play!

[b15sdm]

Excellent tutorial for those that never quite understood how to undertake a dual mod. The fact that you also showed how to wire the RJ45 cable is a bonus.

Brilliant work!

[networkingyuppy]

Good stuff rtdzign!
I was wondering about one thing though about the VCC hole of the USB jack on the Imp board; Where should that line be connected to?

[gahrling]

Where should that line be connected to?

It wouldn’t.

[hikarutilmitt]

Damn, you beat me to it. I was going to make a diagram, too.

I think the only thing I did different, for sake of being thorough, was solder the “fat ground” from the 360 PCB to one of the large usb grounds on the imp (more or less like how it’s done with a chimp). I noticed early on it didn’t seem necessary but it’s a good “just in case” in the event someone mixes the two ground wires up and is wondering where the fat ground goes to.

Either way, awesome. Now I don’t have to mess around with Gimp. :rock:

[rkmx52]

I have a question for the small slots in Cthulhu, when you soldered them to connections like A-H/1-9 or the columns for RJ-45, what kind of soldering technique did you use. Did you strip the wires, tin them with solder, then put it in with solder applied on the connections or did you just leave the wire unstripped? What I did was I stripped the wire at least about an inch and insert into the slot and bend the stripped part, then I solder the connections and cut the stripped part off. I didn’t really have anything else to make sure the wires stay in place, so I was wondering what methods you used.

[System_1]

Originally Posted by Kreeeee

Personally I did this to a 360 SE, making the RS switch activate the PS3 mode, so DP or LS is for the 360, and RS is used for all other consoles.

How did you wire it to do that?