LOGITECH GUITAR MOD GUIDE

This guide will show you how I modded a Logitech PS2/3 Guitar to work with clone hero
(I did not have the receiver/dongle so had no choice to mod)

You will need the following items to follow this guide:

Zero Delay USB Encoder (Buy from ebay or local electronics store)
Some unclad punched laminate (a blank PCB basically)
Adhesive Copper Tape (5mm). 2 Mercury switches (or similar). A Rotary Tool Kit.
Plenty of small gauge electrical wire, a soldering iron & solder & plenty of patience!

STEP ONE - DISASSEMBLY:

To get the fretboard off, gently pull the green, yellow & orange buttons out to reveal the
screws underneath.

(This is the underside of fretboard:)

Unplug all of this. Gently pry the START button up to reveal screws underneath and remove
the whammy/start button assembly:
Congratulations, the guitar is ready to be modified!

Continued below...
STEP TWO - MAKE A NEW FRETBOARD:

Cut out a piece of the unclad punched laminate the same size as the fret button pcb:

Clip the two together and use a rotary tool to drill out the holes:
Make sure the rubber feet from the fret membrane fit:

Apply the copper tape to the board and solder the 6 wires, we are using a common ground
and 5 more wires for the buttons. Make sure you place the tape on in the correct locations
and leave an extremely small gap between the ‘common strip’ and each button strip.
These wires will need to be long enough to reach from the board, down the length of the
neck and into the body.
To make it easier to feed the wires through the neck and into the body, I used a straw. I slid
the straw through the body into the neck and then fed the wires through the straw and then
pulled them back through.

I then joined the wires to the plug wires with solder and I used some hot glue to insulate and
strengthen the joints. NOTE: only 1 of the USB encoder plugs needs the ground wire (the
white wire), you can clip the ground wire from the other 4 plugs
To test that the wiring was successful I used the Game Controllers utility in windows. To run
this, press WINDOWS KEY + R, then type in JOY.CPL and press enter. Connect the USB
cable to the Zero Delay USB Encoder and plug it into your computer. Once connected select
properties. In the properties window the ‘buttons’ will turn bright RED when a button press is
registered.
STEP THREE - MAKE A NEW STRUMMER BOARD

Just like the fretboard I cut out another piece of the unclad punched laminate the same size
as the strummer pcb, clipped the two together and use a rotary tool to drill out the holes and
then made sure the rubber feet from the strummer membrane fit:

I applied the copper tape in the following pattern again they must be close but not touching:

Green line: Down strum, Red line: common ground, Blue line: Up strum
(NOTE: to fold the tape properly, fold 90 degrees OPPOSITE direction of turn, then Fold
again in correct direction)
I then cut out 2 small circles of the copper tape and applied them to the inside of the
strummer membrane:

Finally I soldered the common ground and strummer wires to the board and attached the
membrane (i clipped off one of the ground wires again):

I then reattached this to the guitar faceplate (I connected the plugs to the JoyUP and
JoyDown sockets) and tested it with JOY.CPL.
STEP FOUR - START BUTTON

The Start Button PCB (Behind the Whammy Bar) was a simple case of cutting the old wires
and splicing/soldering into the wires of one of the plugs that came with the USB Encoder.

STEP FIVE - WHAMMY BAR MOD

The Whammy bar had a Potentiometer as most guitars have and I could only see 2 ways to
mod this and turn it into a ‘Keyboard Whammy’. The first choice was to remove the Pot,
crack it open, scrape off some of the carbon/tracks and reassemble it so that a pressing the
bar would turn the pot far enough to register as a button press. I broke it when I pulled it
apart so that plan went out the window… Let’s try plan B.

Firstly we remove the Pot:

Notice the gap between the white semi-circular plastic and the black housing (bottom right)?
That is where the fun begins. Unscrew the Whammy mechanism from the base to pop out
the white plastic section. NOTE: Make sure to understand how the springs sit in here!

Attach some Copper Tape to the housing as seen below:

Attach some copper Tape to the White Plastic ‘drum’ as per below:
Now get another one of the plugs that came with the USB encoder, Strip the end of the wire
and Solder the ground to the black housing:

Then Solder the other stripped wire to the white plastic drum:

Put some hot glue on these to strengthen the connection. Test yet again with JOY.CPL

STEP SIX - SELECT BUTTON/STAR POWER MOD

The select button just needed the old wire replaced/spliced with the USB Encoder supplied
wire to have the correct size plug. Very straightforward and easy to do (like the start button
mod above). However I wanted to be able to tilt the guitar to activate star power as well so i
added a tilt sensor into the mix.

Replace/Splice the wiring on the select button, now get 2 mercury switches and solder them
together at 1 point. Bend the switches so that they sit about 45 - 60 degrees opposite each
other. Splice in an extra wire each for the ground & live wires and solder that to the other
legs on the mercury switches (see below):

Hot glue the mercury switches to the guitar’s faceplate, pointing towards the neck
(important):
Again test with JOY.CPL to check that your wiring is correct etc.

STEP SEVEN - MORE HOT GLUE

Now that everything was wired up and tested OK in JOY.CPL. I Hot glued the Zero Delay
USB Encoder to the faceplate below the strummer:
Next I hot glued the USB cable through the base of the guitar to keep it in place. (Note: get a
USB extension cable if you have to, as the supplied cable isn't very long)

Then i put the guitar back together, fired up clonehero and proceeded to shred!

This is where i connected all the wiring on the USB encoder:

Obviously this guide is for the Logitech guitars, but lessons learnt here can be applied to
other guitar models with the odd modification here and there.

The Logitech guitar did not have micro switches for the strummer, it had a couple of infrared
sensors that detected a little bit of plastic blocking the path, hence why i had to get a bit
more creative there. Most guitars will have switches and would probably only need the wiring
spliced.

I also did not bother with the mini-direction pad and power on button. Could have spliced it in
and added another button, but honestly did not see the point.

Hope this guide helps and or inspires you to do some repairs/mods for yourself.

Good Luck!