First, let me start with a reminder to anyone embarking on this project to read and follow the suggestions in Flash's how-to and the various posts of the geniuses that figured out how to get this all working.
I say this because I cost myself quite a bit of time making a simple mistake ... I forgot that we cannot wire to the piezo wires (those directly from the RB drum heads). This was pointed out many times and I read those warnings, but when I got inside the controller I spaced it. Really bad given the years of training as a BS and MSEE
Now, onto the difference I found between the PS3 controller and the descriptions in these posts. I must admit that I have not read all 99 pages, so possibly this info is in there somewhere, but I searched and searched for PS3 and Playstation and didn't find any clues.
So, in the wiring diagram and PCBA picture shown by Alesius27 (
http://www.rockband.com/forums/showp...0&postcount=38) the wires going to the MSA are connected to the 5 pad signals and ground. This would imply that the switch is breaking the ground line and when pressed completes ground.
On the PS3 controller that I have, one side of each switch is connected to a common pin ... 0 ohm reading from the switches to this pin (not including the bass pedal, we'll talk about that in a minute). The other side of each switch 0 ohms to a unique pin on the ASIC.
In my first attempt to hook this up, I wired to the 4 unique pins and then put ground with them at the MSA hookup. This did absolutely nothing.
After breaking back into the controller, I plugged it in to the PS3 while exposed (bit risky) and probed the common pin described above ... 5V. So, for this system, the switch is breaking the positive side, not the negative side. Luckily, since I'm using Cat5 cable for the connection, there was a spare wire, so a quick hookup to this pin and then wiring of this 5V line in place of ground for the 4 primaries and everything is working fine.
http://pix.myphotoalbum.com/s/su/sun...0598.sized.jpg
Pic1 is an overview of the wiring layout and Cat5 connector I'm using to connect when desired (wanted to keep the original RB controller in useable form for my kids' friends).
http://pix.myphotoalbum.com/s/su/sun...0599.sized.jpg
Pic2 gives us something to talk about.
1st is ground ... there was an empty via located (in this picture) in the lower right corner. This is connected with the Brown/White wire.
2nd is the Bass ... on the far left (and unfortunately partially obstructed from view) are the wires for the Bass pedal. Since this is a simple relay switch, we don't have to worry about the piezo business. The wires for this hookup are fed through the board and then soldered. The solder blobs directly next to the wires are the ones we want. The Blue/White wire is carrying our precious little Bass bits.
The 4 connections for the 4 switches are on the left side of the ASIC on pins 26, 27, 28 & 29. I'm counting starting with pin1 at the top left, so pin 8 would be the right-most pin on the top, pin 16 is the bottom-most pin on the right, pin 24 is the left-most pin on the bottom ...
And finally, the 5V signal could come from anywhere that 5V is available, but I wired directly to the common pin for the switches on pin 4. Brown wire.
http://pix.myphotoalbum.com/s/su/sun...0597.sized.jpg
Now, on the MSA side, I connected the 4 switches to 4 outputs, tied the 5V line into one output (6), and then jumpered the 5V from here to each of the other relays 0 to 5 (alternately the jumpers are on top and on bottom of the board). I put the bass signal and ground on relay 7, all by it's lonesome.
I've got a Roland TD-8 controller, so I'm handling the patching of multiple drums to trigger similar colors (like all toms on Blue) in the brain. Very, very easy to do.
Hopefully this makes some sense and helps anyone out there trying to hook up the PS3.
One general thing I would note is that I spent a LOT of time trying to get SysEx librarian to receive SysEx from the TD-8 through my Edirol UM-2ex ... couldn't get it done. Garage Band works fine, but no go with Librarian. If you're having trouble setting up a Roland brain, I'd suggest a reset and then the triggers (snare, HH, etc) are well documented in this thread. Search for Roland or TD3 for a complete listing, or simply jump in to edit your midi setup and start tapping drums, the brain will tell you what each device is going to ID as.
Good luck