Description
Jasen’s Customs TE EZ MOD Drop 3 – Pre Orders Open – In production
** IMPORTANT INSTALL NOTES FROM DROP 2 – The USB Cable has been corrected for Drop 3**
Please review the following article before install! TE EZ MOD Install Notes: Jumpers and Slider Switches! and finally MCZ TE EZ MOD Urgent Install Note
** END IMPORTANT INSTALL NOTES **
Modify your Madcatz TE/VS/TE-S/TE+S/Brawl Stick/Fight Stick Pro to use any of Brook’s PCBs easily. Will also allow install of custom Pico Fighting Boards that have been adapted to the Standard Fight Stick PCB layout. This EZ MOD is allows for MINIMAL modifications to your MCZ stick replacing the home area PCB and connecting to the new fighting board using the included wiring. You will need to modify (cut and strip) the ribbon cables that come off of the button PCB in each of these sticks and connect them to the screw terminals on the Brook PCB, but that’s the hardest part.
This EZ MOD does work on all MCZ sticks that use the “home” area easily, with one minor difference for the MCZ SE sticks. The SE series has a small PCB for the START and SELECT buttons with connecting wires that require some splicing. Its’ not hard, but it should be noted that does require a splice for the lock out ground.
Recommended accessories:
- Brook PCB (any works) or Pico Fighting Board
- PCB feet to mount your fighting board of choice to the case.
Recommended tools:
- Phillips screw driver
- Allen Key Set
- Wire cutters and Strippers
- Small exact knife for cutting a “fuse” on the EZ MOD based on the stick you are using.
My Live Stream where I installed this into a MCZ VS stick:
Johnny Wong (verified owner) –
Just finished installing this EZ Mod into a PS3 Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 TE1 and I have to say I was amazed at how easy it was to get a PS3 stick like this one working with my PC with X-input and my Switch with a Brook Zero-Pi PCB.
The only tough thing that most people will probably have issues with is scraping the jumper for either SJ2 or SJ3 for the LEDs, but if you have a multimeter and can test continuity, it’s not a problem. In any case, I would highly recommend this if you have an old PS3 MadCatz TE lying around and want to make it useful again with a modern Brook PCB.
DesiacX (verified owner) –
I installed this into a Madcatz TTT2 TE-S and it works exactly as described. With the exception of one step noted below, the installation was very straightforward and offers a lot of freedom for those trying to upgrade their TE that it wouldn’t have otherwise,
During my installation of the USB Adapter, a mistake on the adapter itself cost me a UFB. The installation video notes that this step is a super easy process, follow the letters on the PCB. However, the letters on the PCB were printed reversed from what they were intended to be, which led to my board being fried. I understand that DIY mods are an at your own risk hobby, but to have lost a pricey PCB from an oversight on a mod that is intended to be EZ is incredibly disappointing.
Jasen Hicks –
I’m sorry this happened. We posted an article about it, emailed all affected users the fix, and highlighted the fix in the listing on the website.
Mark Winckle –
I bought two of these to make my TE 1 fightsticks work with a brook UFB. Any modding process is tricky, even an “EZ” one, but you should take the time to read all the material on this site, and to watch the full mod video. This will result in a fight stick that works on any console with seemingly no modifications on the outside, and no soldering required on the inside.
George Cepeda (verified owner) –
I was reminded of how tricky mods were this past week!
It took me FOUR HOURS to install a new PCB in a TE base that had been inactive for years!
I had to solder an LED and a resistor to a circuit because there was no ready-made solution for a combo Turbo LED/Turbo button solution. I was competent enough to handle a soldering iron and figured out what resistor I needed and how to to place it in the circuit loop (solder onto the anode leg of the LED). I also had to hack an existing TP-L3-R3 4-pin harness for this job because it was far cheaper to mod an existing 4-pin harness than to buy the tool and new hardware (crimper, JST housing, pins, etc.) to make a new Turbo button/Turbo LED 4-pin harness from scratch! When the cheapest crimper is at least $15-$20 AND you have to buy JST housings in kits as well as pins, it’s far more economical and more efficient to just mod a pre-made harness.
So my modded harness worked out fine but the problem I had was fitting the PCB and harnesses into the TE case! I had modded the case already and created room for the PCB but they must have changed the 20-pin harness from the last time I installed a Brook PCB in a TE case (which must have November 2019). The new 20-pin harness was WAY short on the JLF wiring so I had to shift the PCB close to 2 inches left (towards the joystick lever) to get it to fit and not be stressed so much! On my last installation, I had a LOT more harness to work with and looped it around the columns (where the 8/32 screws secure the halves of the TE case middle). Whoever makes the 20-pin harness got REALLY stingy on the directional wire in the last 3 years! I guess I could have spliced more signal wire in to lengthen the lever harness but that’s something we shouldn’t have to do on our end! Of course, “shouldn’t have” is one thing but HAVE TO is sometimes a necessity!
FYI, for the Brook Fighting Boards (all of them), you have to use a 150 ohm resistor that’s 1/8 W (for head dissipation) for a red Turbo LED like mine (rated 2.0 V to 2.2 V forward and 20mA current). The Brook Board itself supplies 5 V power? It indicates 5 V by the VDD/VCC spots on the PCB. The average suggested resistor (by math; you can plug your numbers into the electrical equations you can find online is 150 ohms but most people use 330 ohm resistor which is a bit overkill. (They don’t wanna do the math! LOL) Different color LED’s have different specs and you have to look them up by manufacturer IF you’ve kept the LED packaging that has the manufacturer/product name. You can’t presume that 150 ohms is enough resistance for a green or orange LED like it is for red. You also have to account for wattage.
I was tempted to go 330 ohms myself but I figured a higher than suggested resistance would dim the red LED. The calculations I ran all said 150 ohms, 1/8 W was enough for my LED’s specs. I went a step up and bought a pack of (25) 150 ohm resistors rated for 1/4W. The wattage (resistance? I don’t know the proper term!) is about 0.06 W (60 milliWatts) calculated for my LED running off the 5 V Brook PS3/PS4+ Fighting Board but I figured “Hey, the 150 ohm, 1/4W resistors don’t cost anymore than the 150 ohm, 1/8 W models so why not be more conservative just to be on the safe side?”
I’ve run the Turbo function with the LED for upwards of at least 10 minutes at a time and it still works like new after 4-5 shooter game sessions. I must have done something right!
I use the Turbo function for an arcade shooter I play in emulation. Hint: It’s based on the most popular English-dubbed anime of the 1980s which is NOT Voltron, Starblazers, or TranZor Z (the terribly edited English dub of the otherwise excellent Mazinger Z) for goodness sake!
BTW, there is NO INDICATION in the Brook Board manuals I’ve seen (which are the diagrams every website carrying the PCB’s posts!) of what the built-in resistor support for the LED’s might be. The feedback from other Brook owners seems to be you have to install a resistor in your harness loop for the Turbo LED at least; at least one person indicated he burnt his Turbo LED when he didn’t use the resistor for his Brook Fighting Board.
The P1-P4 LEDs may be a different story. It seems Bit Bang Gaming makes an LED Kit specifically for the Brook Board that supports P1-P4 LED indication. This Bit Bang LED kit I think should work for the Integrated Pico Board Jasen is selling as well as ANY of the Brook Fighting Boards that support P1-P4 LED display. The pictures and videos I’ve seen appear to indicate that you DON’T need to install any resistors for this kit — it’s plug-and-play.
There MIGHT be built in resistors in either the Brook FB’s or the Bit Bang Gaming LED Kit (although I doubt that for the LED kit!). The Bit Bang LED kit is $15 and convenient for people who don’t want to solder or seek out parts and do all the math like I had to for one stinking Turbo LED! LOL
I’m glad that with the Integrated Pico Board being sold that I don’t have to worry about soldering a resistor to protect the Turbo LED!
It’s those little things they don’t tell you in the specs and manuals that can ruin your day!
George Cepeda (verified owner) –
I got my second and third EZ Mod kits and just installed my second one in my original Mad Catz TE Rd 1/PS3 joystick!
This joystick’s stock Mad Catz PCB was damaged this past winter (March) on a day where my PS3 was acting up. The console itself was not permanently damaged but it transmitted a shock to my MC’s PCB — my PCB began constantly signalling “gentle right.” An unfixable situation with the Rd 1 TE PCB’s!
I’m an anomaly, I know…. I had that joystick for 14 years with no issues other than forgetting to set my sliders for stick mode correctly from time to time. This joystick is from the original production lot that was sold through the GameStop chain stores. I am a first-round, first-generation MC TE owner. I didn’t use it a lot for quite a few years (4-5?) until late last year when I finally bought a Brook PS3=>PS4 converter and started using it with PC emulation a lot. THEN, I also began using it to play SSF2 HD Remix. Nice joystick! Unfortunately, the old PCB was made of glass. Things like this have NEVER happened to my Hori and MC Cthulu joysticks!!!
Anyway, Jasen’s EZ Mod does exactly what he says — it restores all the functionality of your MC joystick. If you decide to upgrade your Brook PCB OR sell it, you can still use the EZ Mod with virtually any Brook PCB Fighting Board out there OR the new Integrated Pico Fighting Board (except for the LS-DP-RS cables; there’s no connector for that on the IPFB but there’s a software trick you can do to change the joystick configuration between LS, DP, and RS modes). The EZ Mod kit really does have great value. It may seem expensive to some people but when you think of all the hoops and hurdles you have to jump through to do homebrew mods, it’s a great value with EVERY cable you’d ever need.
[I still prefer using the 4-pin cable for Turbo. You can mod the other four pin cable and install 0.110 QD’s to plug it into a 24mm or 30mm pushbutton for Touch Key function.]
I definitely recommend this kit for people wanting to “rehabilitate” their broken Round 1 and Round 2 TE joysticks.
I bought a second EZ Mod kit with my last order because I have one more MC TE Rd 1/PS3 joystick left — the Femme Fatale LE. I don’t like dead joysticks and I have a bad feeling based on Mad Catz’s record that I’ll be needing that spare EZ Mod kit in the future!
George Cepeda (verified owner) –
Posted July 18, 2023 after Midnight Eastern Standard Time.
NOTE: This is NOT a review but an ADVISORY.
There is an issue with the current Brook firmware for the PS3/PS4 Fighting Board Plus PCB. I don’t know if this affects the other Brook Fighting Boards but it’s an issue for the PS3/PS4 Plus PCB.
When you download the new firmware and install, it disables TURBO function. I have NOT been able to get the TURBO to work and I’ve checked my connections!
To double-check, I reinstalled the firmware I installed LAST year in my other EZ Moddded/PS3-PS4+ TE. (By lucky chance, I had a copy of the older firmware installer on my PC so I was able to downgrade both PS3/PS4 Fighting Board Plus PCBs.) Testing confirmed that the TURBO dysfunction is due to the new firmware. The old firmware works!
Unfortunately, I don’t see an archive on Brooks website to let you install the older firmware which does work. To be clear, it’s the TURBO that I’m seeing doesn’t work and it’s a software issue NOT hardware.
There is NOTHING wrong with your EZ Mod hardware. It’s a software issue that affects the Brook PS3/PS4 Fighting Board Plus PCB. The EZ Mod does not have any firmware to update and acts as auxiliary/slaved hardware to the Brook Fighting Board.
The old lesson relearned is this — if your gear works as-is, don’t F with it! It’s a lesson I’ve learned with Windows 10 again and again! I NEVER install the “suggested” or “optional” updates and security fixes until they force it. I’ve done the “Beta Tester” route and have been burned at least twice! Luckily, I was able to REMOVE the faulty updates and get my computer running normally again!!!!
George Cepeda (verified owner) –
Confirmed after a day of testing —
Ver 2.4 of the Brook PS3/PS4 Fighting Board Plus firmware definitely disables the LS-DP-RS switch and Turbo function of the EZ Mod.
((I’ve had issues with Brook firmware in the past. For a long time, I couldn’t use Turbo with my first Mad Catz TE modded with the EZ Mod + PS3/PS4 Plus PCBs. Again, the issue turned out to be the Brook FB firmware. After I flashed the Brook Board with the Ver 2.3 firmware LAST YEAR, I got the full functionality of the EZ Mod. Again, the issue is the Brook FB, not the EZ Mod itself!))
IF you roll back the firmware to Ver 2.3 (last year’s version of the firmware), it restores the full functionality of the EZ Mod — all the slide switches and bubble buttons work again!
I don’t know WHY they changed the firmware to begin with! Ver 2.3 seemed to work perfectly. Maybe something happened with the PS4 functionality?!? Ver 2.3 firmware functions perfectly with the PS3 and PC. I admit I don’t have a PS4 right now and use the EZ Modded TEs on PC and PS3 at the moment.
I double-checked on PC and the LS-DP-RS switch is working perfectly on Windows 10. I conducted tests under “Devices and Printers” in my Win 10 Control Panel. The switches are working just like they would with their equivalents on the Hori joysticks. The EZ Mod + Brook PS3/PS4 FB+ seem to be perfect now.
Frankly, I find it MUCH less frustrating to use joysticks in PS3 mode than any other mode with Windows. The button assignments stay consistent and the functions I want seem to perform flawlessly in PS3 mode. Who knew Sony product would work better with PC than XBox 360-spec controllers?
If you want Turbo and LS-DP-RS functionality, stay away from Firmware 2.4 that was posted this past June (June 2023) on the Brook accessory website.
I don’t know how you’re going to get Ver 2.3 Firmware unless you saved it in your hard drive like I did! Brook doesn’t post links to old Firmware revisions.
Neil M. (verified owner) –
Great drop in replacement for TE models. I was content on not having the control panel until every SF6 tournament I’ve been to is on a PS5 and requires a home button to turn the controller on. The kit comes with wiring and is for the most part straight forward. The LS-DP-RS works fine on the UFB with UP5 add-on with the latest firmware.
The only issue is now I need another one for my other ps3 TE!
George Cepeda (verified owner) –
The latest revision of the PS3-PS4 Fighting Board restores Turbo functionality (it’s Firmware V2.4 M1) BUT the LS-DP-RS switch is still inoperative on PC; you must set the LS-DP-RS switch to LS before plugging into the PC OR the joystick will be set to DP or RS function depending on where the switch is. The rest of the TE EZ Mod works fine — LED functions as it should, the Home and Turbo buttons ARE working.
With PS3-PS4 Fighting Board Plus and most Brook boards I’m aware of, you can get LS-DP-RS emulation by inputting your joystick direction Left, Up, or Right while holding START+SELECT buttons. Left Analog stick (what you want to use most of the time) is LEFT + START + SELECT. D-Pad is UP + START + SELECT. Right Analog Stick is RIGHT + START + SELECT. You have wait 3 seconds while holding those inputs for the Stick Mode to switch to what you want. I think this software emulation/reset overcomes the issue the EZ Mod has with the LS-DP-RS switch being disabled; ie, if you plug the controller into the PC without setting to “LS” switch position first, you can overcome that by software forcing (LEFT + START + SELECT) the Stick Mode back to “Left Stick” input. A lot of fighting now require you to use “Left Stick” mode to play. Some PC games like Typhoon (a Tempest 2000 clone) will NOT recognize stick inputs in “Digital Pad” mode.
I don’t know WHY the Brook firmware disables the LS-DP-RS switch on the EZ Mod board. I will say the switch has only worked for me with Firmware Rev 2.3 for the P3-P4 FB+ PCB. You can no longer access Firmware Rev 2.3 online; you only have access to the latest Firmware Rev. 2.4 M1. Last year, you COULD still install Rev 2.3 and even downgrade from Rev 2.4 (which was the previous latest Firmware release before Rev 2.4 M1 with the Turbo functionality fix) but this is no longer the case. They removed the Rev 2.3 firmware from Brook’s download section.
I had to recently upgrade to Firmware Rev. 2.4 M1 on one joystick after an incident involving static or electrical surge. An electrical event can scramble your Flash ROM (and if you’re lucky that it’s not damaged) and force you to reinstall the firmware. Fortunately, the PCBs installed in that particular Mad Catz TE (modded Rd 1) weren’t damaged permanently. All the buttons and stick input seem to be working as well as all EZ Mod switches except the LS-DP-RS switch as previously mentioned. Just be careful and DO NOT play with these controllers are night when the temp drops below freezing! Static is worse at night when temps outside drop below freezing!
I cannot absolutely verify that the LS-DP-RS harness input terminal on the PS3-PS4 Fighting Board Plus has not been “fried” but I swapped out and tested the EZ Mod board on another joystick that has Rev 2.3 installed on that P3/P4 FB Board Plus and that EZ Mod PCB seems to be fine. I tested the LS-DP-RS harness cable and that seemed to be functioning normally, too. I think with everything else functioning and the history of the Brook Firmware revisions on the P3/P4 PCB that it’s probably a software issue (the Rev 2.4 M1 firmware for the PS3-PS4 Fighting Board Plus PCB) affecting the LS-DP-RS switch.