home built xbox mat intermittentantly disconnects

nataku1 · Basic Member Joined: 25 May 2005

I would've put this in the home-built thread, but I think it's easier to put problems in separate threads. Anyways, I built a home built mat using riptide's design and everything is working fine, except that sometimes the mat will stop responding and the screen will show the "please reconnect controller...." message.

This tends to happen when I'm stomping on the bad really hard. I'm able to get AA's on light mode if I don't jump around too much (but step instead).

This is on DDR Ultramix 2 on xbox. I used a cheap ebay xbox ddr mat as the circuit board to solder on to if that helps. I've tried a number of things to diagnose this problem:

1) I've tried connecting the controller to a different controller port and the same problem occurs, so I know it's not that controller port on my xbox specifically

2) I've tried plugging in a standard xbox controller and playing with the buttons and it works fine with no problems, so I know it's not a malfunction in the motherboard of the xbox

3) I've tried soldering it to another xbox mat (I have 2 at home) and still the same problem. This leads me to believe it was not that that mat was screwed up specifically.

4) I've made sure the plug is securely in the slot and I've unplugged and re-plugged the controller many times to make sure.

The only thing I can think of is that my soldering job is not that great and I possibly fried something on the board; however, having tried 2 different boards, I find it unlikely I'd fry the same thing on both boards.

Can anyone think of anything else I can try?

Does anyone know exactly what would cause a controller not to be recognized by the xbox? (broken wire going to the xbox perhaps? Or something like that?)

Sinistar · Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 6:02 am Post subject:

The next thing to try is plugging in your cbox when it is not connected at all to the pad.

If you still get the disconnect message, the problem is the cbox itself. If the issue really does only happen during stomps, it could be that the circuit design isn't handling prolonged current very well. If you just stand on the panel for a while, does the same error occur?

And then, some Xbox pad circuit boards are just junk. I had purchased two Naki pads at one point and both of those had disconnect errors before I even tried to harvest their circuit boards. That's why it's usually a good idea to use something like a Mad Catz Xbox pad for the electronics - I've ripped the boards out of about 10 different Mad Catz pads and each one has worked flawlessly.
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CF cbox mods and more at the 'Pad'

tepp · Trick Member Joined: 07 Apr 2005

Hey! That error sounds just like the Afterburner cbox

Maybe when you get it fixed, you could let RedOctane know since they seem to be totally ignorant of how to fix this issue.

Sinistar · Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 4:42 pm Post subject:

Actually, it sounds like they figured it out. They're just waiting for new stock of the fixed cboxes to come in so they can start distributing them. That's probably why you have to wait until next week and are being put on a cbox waiting list.
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CF cbox mods and more at the 'Pad'

nataku1 · Basic Member Joined: 25 May 2005

Sinistar · Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 6:57 pm Post subject:

nataku1 · Basic Member Joined: 25 May 2005

well, I tried stepping on the arrows and holding it down for a long time to see if the disconnect window popped up, but it didn't. Yeah, it's mostly when I do more difficult levels that it disconnects. I can't think of a reason why it would occur like that. I can get AA's on light mode easy on most levels, but if I go standard or higher, it will disconnect at least once in that level....and it will never disconnect for more than a second or 2

nataku1 · Basic Member Joined: 25 May 2005

well, if anybody's interested, I think my problem is fixed. At least, I haven't had it disconnect in the past couple days after a couple hours of playing.

What I changed was, I noticed that one of my arrows was held down (this didn't happen before in the first couple weeks of testing, I'm not sure why). So I disassembled the down arrow and found that the corner was rubbing, I trimmed that down a little to make it move more freely. After that, I haven't had any disconnect problems. I'm not sure why that would affect the disconnect thing, but I'm glad it works fine now