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Electronics Odd USB wire colors

Discussion in 'Modding' started by Tsen, 29 Apr 2006.

  1. Tsen

    Tsen Steeped In Romance

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    Well, I was tearing apart a USB cable and an XBox dongle to make a USB XBox adapter to use dance mats/XBox controllers on my PC. Should've been moderately easy, since the USB and XBox wires ought be identically color-coded. For some reason, though, my USB cable's colors are out of wack and I don't know which is which. The USB, once the outside has been stripped, reveals red, white, brown, yellow and blue wires. There ought be red, white, black and green wires.

    [​IMG]
    (Sorry for the cruddy picture: Cheap digi cam + thin wires + shaky hands = bad picture)

    So, which wires are which?
    I'm guessing that the blue is the other data wire (should be green), and brown is the grounding wire (should be black). I'm hazarding another guess, that the yellow wire serves the same purpose as the yellow wire in the XBox cable. Again, not entirely sure.

    Help would be appreciated.
     
  2. Xiachunyi

    Xiachunyi What's a Dremel?

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    If you have a continuity tester, you can go through the process of matching and elimination to find which wire is which.

    A multimeter set to diode test or passing a voltage through and measuring which wire the voltage appears on will work as well.

    You can match against the diagrams on this website.
     
  3. Tsen

    Tsen Steeped In Romance

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    Unfortunately, I don't have any of the above at the moment. Luckily, the engineering lab has just about anything I could ever want, so I can test there and report back Monday. Until then, I've got guess-and-check or nothin'. :p
     
  4. Tsen

    Tsen Steeped In Romance

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    Alright. I'm not one for patience. Ever. So I just ripped the freakin' cable open (it'd only cost a buck or two for a new one anyway) and traced the wires. Here's my tentative solution:

    Red cable- 5v power. Same as a normal cable
    Brown cable- Data (-). Normal cables are white
    Yellow cable- Data (+). Normal cables are green
    Blue cable- Ground. Normal cables are black

    The white cable led to the rim of the USB device, and isn't necessary for what I'm doing (I think.)

    So. One freakin' messed up cable.
     
  5. zmodder

    zmodder What's a Dremel?

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  6. wilkyboy

    wilkyboy What's a Dremel?

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    Nice returning post! should help me atleast, alot!
     
  7. Tsen

    Tsen Steeped In Romance

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    Yeah, that was a much clearer guide than most I've seen. There were some other complications with the old USB cable I used (the one with creepy colors, which I found out was made by Pelican, a cheap third-party game company. Explains why it was so stupidly designed), and it wound up dying. I'm sure I did the wiring right, but it didn't work anyway. Still, I've got another USB cable ready for use, and with the correct colors this time, so there should be no problems getting things working.
     
  8. Tsen

    Tsen Steeped In Romance

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    All right, one final update. After playing around with the wires a bit more and troubleshooting the X-Box controller drivers, I've managed to get an S-Controller and a Dancepad both working perfectly. Thanks for the links and tips, guys
     

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