Monday, May 3, 2010

TEasy Mod Project, Part 7, Prototype 2... descendant of Prototype 1

Well, big update. All I can say is that I'm happy with how things have turned out this time around. My measurements were near dead on this time.. allowing me to have a flawless install into a Madcatz 360 TE.




So you can see that there are some obvious differences between this and v1.0. The end header annulus sizes are bigger, and I was worried about them being TOO big. They ended up being just right, so I'm really happy with that. Also, I added silk screen labels to the USB points, and also changed the size and shape of the outlining silk screen.

The last picture shows it sitting inside of the case, the important thing to note is that the holes are DEAD ON to the built in stand offs. I'm super happy about that, as well as the next parts of this update.



Before tearing into the soldering, I made sure of a few things. The first picture shows the press fit nut, I made the hole a little bigger than the recommended size..and it fits PERFECT. A little downward force from some pliers and it goes right into the board. So now if there's any bending at all I should have no problems correcting it.

The second and third picture show the alignment of the pins in regard to the header spots. As you can see I'm pretty much dead on in L-R alignment, there's a slight error in the vertical alignment, but it's not enough to throw the whole installation off (like last time).

Last picture shows the PCB clipped in place, the important thing to note is that the header is no longer in the way of things. Turns out that's not entirely true, and extending the board another .25 mm wouldn't hurt. The top left clip can't open up all the way because of the shrouding, so I'll make that small adjustment and it should be all good.





In order to solder the pins and have them be as straight as possible, I tried stacking multiple PCBs on top and clipping them together. It worked pretty well, and the pins were straight enough to my liking when it was all over with. Although I need some practice soldering this thing together, the receptacles are a pain in the ass since there isn't a lot of pad to solder to. I ended up having a solder joint I couldn't remove because they were so close. So I took an exacto knife and cut between them until there was no more continuity. It's dirty, but it works.

The last picture shows the board installed into the case with the anti-bend screw installed. It worked tremendously well, there was absolutely no bend in the board whatsoever. However, after putting everything together I found that without the bend, the force goes BACK into the TE's PCB. Which is a worse problem.... so for now I think the board bending is an acceptable issue unless someone shows me a prototype that's snapped in half or something.

Now on to installing the board. I wanted to make a demo video to show people just how easy this thing is to use. To make this even more enticing, I shows how to make a dual mod completely solderless. I did this by cannibalizing the B end of a USB cable, and splicing it to the stock cable. I did this because the TE isn't mine, and I didn't want to be drilling a hole where the cord is just to fit the B end of a non-rigged USB cord.


Kind of a chop job, but it works.

Now for the fun part:


Yeah, I crimped another ribbon cable and this time it was long enough to turn the Dual Strike around and angle it enough that the gigantic B end of the plug would fit. I mounted the Dual Strike with some #4 screws and 1/4" spacers, they hold quite nicely.

The best news of all though, it's tested and works 100% :)

That doesn't mean there isn't a little more tweaking to do, but my proof of concept has been created, and I think it's time to go public with this guy. If you've been following my progress, thank you for the comments and encouragement... I'm so close to finishing I can taste it!

I'll also link the video here, but I don't have it uploaded just yet.