got an old gamepad controller, what to do?!

[basspenetrator]

hey guys..

i got an old speed link game pad from a friend of mine. i opened it and am pretty eager to do some kind of midifighter with it.

the thing is, i don't know where to start.
how can i solder for example arcade buttons to the button connections (see picture, the buttons just press some kind of plastic on the pcb to connect.

do i need this big chunky metal parts, which are connected with black/red wires, they don't send any signals (in junxion) and are for weight issues, i suppose.

is there any possibility to implement pots? the thing has 17 buttons and the 2 playstation thumbsticks

thanks very much in advance..
wp

[faeruithir]

http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/mods/e...er-buttons.htm

This may help you. Its for an Xbox 360 controller but it seems relevant.
I'm currently modding a Mixman DM2 Midi controller and the buttons look similar to the ones you've shown. The thread is here: http://djtechtools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9046
and it shows how i soldered a button on. That might help too!

[djrubbishbin]

Hacking the ps2 style pads can be really easy. The only problem you can run into is if the face buttons that used to be the x, square, triangle and circle were once analog style, in which case in order to convert the signal for wiring to arcade buttons will require some resistors, but i think what you have is all digital. To wire to the arcade buttons just scrape off the black stuff on each contact until you can get to copper, and then solder to the exposed copper. Once you do that and plug it in it should just detect each button press as a signal.

And the metal chunky parts are the rumble motors, they spin when rumble receives signal, and the off balance weight of the disk causes it to rock.