Since Playstation 2 to USB adapters for the Cobalt Flux stopped working around 32-bit Windows XP, and I've been deprived of ITG, I decided to completely replace my control box with an Arduino and a circuit.Since the Cobalt Flux is just a bunch of switches, this is really easy.
I've get my old Cobalt Flux out of the closet lately, after several years without practicing. My computer is no longer on Windows XP, it's on Windows 7. The Combalt Flux pad (with original USB adapter and control box) is not recognized: 'unrecognized USB device' is displayed, and no driver is found online.
What You'll Need
- An Arduino
- A breadboard, or any circuit board
- wires
- A solderable male HD15 (VGA) connector (optional but recommended)
First, you're going to want to flash your Arduino firmware to the most recent version if it currently isn't using this guide.After that, you can upload the code to the Arduino.
Since we can't send out keyboard input with the current firmware, we'll need to flash it (just like we flashed the firmware before) with USB HID keyboard firmware found here.
Once that's done, we can make our circuit.
Pinout
The mapping I have is as follows:
Ground is connected to ground.
Up is connected to D2
Down is connected to D4
Left is connected to D6
Right is connected to D8
Up Left is connected to D10
Up Right is connected to D12
Down Left is connected to D13
If you don't have a male HD15 connector that you can solder wires to, you can stick the jumper cables in the female HD15 connector attached to the Cobalt Flux.
The current mapping I have from pin to keypresses are:
Up is w
Down is s
Left is a
Right is d
Up Left is esc (default song exit)
Up Right is enter (default song select)
Down Left is shift + enter (default sort)
Cobalt Flux Usb Drivers
You can change these in your Stepmania settings to match the code, or change them in the code to match your Stepmania settings.
This guide is was only tested with the Arduino Uno. If you're using a different version, you might have to dig around for different firmware.
If you wanted to change the code uploaded to the Arduino, you would have to flash it back to the previous firmware so that it can be recognized as an Arduino.So for writing new code, the steps would be
- Flash the Arduino with the firmware used in this guide.
- Unplug it and plug it back in
- Upload your code
- Flash the Arduino with the USB keyboard firmware found here.
- Unplug it and plug it back in
If you wanted to change the code keypresses to follow your Stepmania settings, you would have to follow the USB HID keyboard usage table, found here.
I have firmware debouncing in the form of a 5ms delay between presses, so you may have to adjust your offset in Stepmania to compensate.
Cobalt Flux Usb Driver
keyboard firmware from here
USB HID reference
Cobalt flux pinout