Guitar Hero Arcade Repair History

Luckily the USB is a standard USB cable so cut the end off a printer USB cable and you can splice it back on matching the same colors.

I do not know the history of my machine since bought used. 

Someone ran 5 cables inside the hose.
Spliced to the connector in the guitar and spliced to a USB connector using non standard colors.  So this list only really relates to me:

• White————->White
• Orange ————->Silver Ground Shielding
• Red——————>Red
• Black—————>Black
• Blue—————->Green

Again if you have the original cable installed the colors should match any standard USB cable.

I recommend soldering them together.

Before looking at the wiring diagram I decided to try and figure out the what wire is used for player 1 and 2 start and what wire is used for LED lights.

The start lamp is location in question

I figured it out but shorted the wire wrong resulting in a burnt chip on the I/O board.  See 09.

The board still works just fine.  I don’t notice anything not working on Guitar Hero at the moment but will update here if something changes.

I have ordered a spare I/O board as well to be on the cautious side.

Optiplex 740 back of computer

A.  Power Cable
B.  Audio Splitter (scroll down for more info)
C.  Connects to Watchdog PCB (Coming Soon: How to make your own cable. Go here for now.)
D.  USB Ports (USB Key, Guitars, and Watchdog PCB plug in here.  You can use front USB also)
E.  Serial Cable Connects to I/O PCB
F.  DVI Monitor Cable

Watchdog PCB
Notice USB cable near the bottom and power cable for location D
At location P7 on the board that goes to location C
**Correction: I think the correct location is P2 actually (the one next to the USB connector)
The game is onsite now so I cannot confirm but I know it is not P7

I/O PCB
Hard to see in the pic but on the far right a 3.5mm cable plugs in there from location B
Also near the bottom of the board is where the serial cable plugs in to location E

I/O Expansion PCB
This board plugs into the I/O PCB with the ribbon cable.  Take note of the red line on the cable to know what way to connect it

Sub Amp PCB
On the very right side there is a coax cable that plugs into location B. (Keep scrolling for more information about the audio connectors)

Audio Cable Parts
Getting these items worked for me

I got this from Walmart

Male connector plugs into location B
For the first female connector I bought this 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable (which plugs into the I/O PCB)

For the second female connector I had these items (Which connect together then connect to the Sub Amp PCB on the far right)

• 3.5mm to two RCA
• One RCA male to two RCA female

Maybe this cable will work at replacing the need for the two cables above but I did not feel like waiting and I already had them lying around the house

I built my own cable for the two player start buttons since mine was missing
Basically I had a 6 prong connector that would plug into it then I divided the cables up based on the wiring diagram in the service manual

This is not connected to anything and appears to be for future use

Most of the cables come labelled and say what area they connect to on the boards.  This one was a typo for me.  The cable says P4 but it actually goes in the P5 spot on the expansion I/O board

Parts Purchased:

1 x Arduino Uno
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Arduino-UNO-R3-Board-SCM-MCU-With-USB-cable-328P-16U2-ATmega16U2-For-Arduino-D1/322455301247?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649
1 x Relay Switch
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2PCS-1-Channel-DC-5V-Relay-Switch-Board-Module-for-Arduino-Raspberry-Pi-ARM-AVR/322465448278?hash=item4b14704156:g:dzgAAOSwSlBY2bTH

I found two pins that when shorted turned the TV on so I soldered two wires to those pins:

Relay Pin Out

The red and black wire from there connected to the NO side of the relay

IN went to pin 3 on the Arduino Board
VCCwent to 5v on Arduino Board
GND went to GND on Arduino Board

Here is the code I used (Wait 10 seconds, engage relay, done):

/*
* Created by ArduinoGetStarted.com
*
* This example code is in the public domain
*
* Tutorial page: https://arduinogetstarted.com/tutorials/arduino-relay
*/

// constants won’t change
const int RELAY_PIN = 3; // the Arduino pin, which connects to the IN pin of relay

// the setup function runs once when you press reset or power the board
void setup() {
// initialize digital pin 9 as an output.
delay(10000);
pinMode(RELAY_PIN, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(RELAY_PIN, LOW);
delay(500);
digitalWrite(RELAY_PIN, HIGH);
}

// the loop function runs over and over again forever
void loop() {

}