Faulty Guitar Hero 3 Guitar?, Find the permanent and proper fix here! Options

[Kamakazie]

Why has this never been added to the sticky on the Hardware forum? This method of repair is the easiest and most reliable imo.

[geeksunny]

I did this fix with my guitar, and it seemed to work okay, but the green cuts in and out. Opened it back up and it seems that the first and third pin on the base's connector broke. The neck just barely budges, and if its not in the absolute perfect position, the green will not recognize.

My friends and I decided we're just gonna rip the thing open and hardwire it. There's no need for a detachable neck in the first place, anyways.

This'll be fun!

[dreddy71]

just... why didnt they make elongated contacts on the sides? they have plenty of room...

it is a shitty design...

[ljm180]

Dude, You Are A Bloody Legend, you fixed my guitar ILY!!! <333333 xxxxx

[Chronomicon]

Dude I just signed up to this forum solely for the purpose of saying THANK YOU! I was starting to get pretty choked on only the second day of owning Guitar hero 3 suffering from a wobbly neck and a hit or miss yellow button I was getting ready to go back to my wired Xplorer controller.

I'm happy to report that I was able to complete this fix in about one minute flat, I used a pair of household scissors instead of a screw driver to remove and replace the screws and it worked fine. My guitar neck no longer wobbles and all the buttons respond great.

You're an internet hero, way to go.

[shhhx]

Hi! First of all thanks for the solution, but I'm having a little problem: I followed every step but I can't put the fret board back into the guitar. I tried to push very hard but I just can't.

Have anyone had the same problem? thanks for the answers and sorry about my english

[xXBooshXx]

Ok, so our "PCB" has little holes drilled into each little gold circle I think due to too much pressure put on them by the closer location to the sensor things. So I hope you guys know about what's goin' on, cause I have no clue. Oh and just because this is the newest post, don't disregard the guy's post before me Ok thanks, cause yeah, I did this fix, and it worked for about a week, then instead of just the yellow button cutting out, now the red, yellow, blue, and orange buttons cut out So now I'm stuck with a faulty Les Paul, a faulty Xplorer (badly made, whammy bar came off), and a crappy Fender (one of the messed up Rock Band models).

[timbo101]

Ok, so our "PCB" has little holes drilled into each little gold circle I think due to too much pressure put on them by the closer location to the sensor things. So I hope you guys know about what's goin' on, cause I have no clue. Oh and just because this is the newest post, don't disregard the guy's post before me Ok thanks, cause yeah, I did this fix, and it worked for about a week, then instead of just the yellow button cutting out, now the red, yellow, blue, and orange buttons cut out So now I'm stuck with a faulty Les Paul, a faulty Xplorer (badly made, whammy bar came off), and a crappy Fender (one of the messed up Rock Band models).

Have not done the fix described int his thread, so Guitar is still standard, but on looking at the connectors in the neck I found that they too have in pin holes drilled in. I think I'm going to attempt to tin the connectors to see if that fixes it.

I noticed the the pins in the main body seem awfuly sharp (like needles). I suspect that this and the neck moving in the joint while being played may be wearing out the connectors in the neck. if this is the case then this is just going to keep happening. (Very poor design in my opinion)

[sicknasty413]

Thanks for all your kind words. I'm glad my tutorial has helped so many.

For those who have -not- found this tutorial useful, I apologize. Best of luck!

[350_pimp]

i did just like the directions said, but when i tried to put the neck back in place, it won't snap back

[panthersqb8]

[font=Comic Sans Ms][i][color=#CC0000]About half the time my frets work fine but the other half of the time either they all stop working for a second or just one or two of them will not work at all. I hope this works fix it works. I have noticed that my 3 or 4 of my bronze tabs on the neck have big black spots and dents in them more so than the others? Could some problems actually be with putting the neck in to hard???????????? I am getting really mad with this controller and i am not in the mood to waist money on a new controller with GH 4 comming out this fall

This post has been edited by panthersqb8: Jun 16 2008, 02:38 AM

[HackerSupreme]

Couldn't we just put solder on the copper circles? Just get a big mound on each copper connector? Maybe that and moving the PCB?

[Daryl0]

normally i wouldn't go to the trouble of registering an account just to say thanks but in this case i was so damn aggravated by my controller and it seems to be working much better now after doing your fix.

my green fret constantly wouldn't register as being pressed (the contact at the base of the neck is probably dirty so it was making poor contact) but the extra pressure seems to force it to make decent contact.

@panthersqb8 and anyone who has the issue with the neck not snapping back in place:
it won't lock in by just pushing it but if you hold the release switch all the way open you can force it in enough and manually close the switch all the way.

i just hope the next model doesn't have a removable neck....

[scars4eyes]

now that youve had this fix for a while, have you seen any issues come up since you made the mod?

thanks
-larry

[sephoratrading]

I disagree with the initial solution in this thread for the problem that a few people have mentioned. Moving the PCB forward of its intended position in the base of the guitar neck does put a significantly greater force between the pins and the contact points. The are spring loaded and if you know about springs, their resistence increases exponentially so it is unwise to modify this distance. It may work for a short time as the pins are pressed much tighter, but it will eventually wear holes right through the PCB completely.

Not to say that it is hard to repair the part of the guitar as it is just a simple transfer from the ribbon cable, but judging by most of the comments here that might be a little over the top for the average tinkerer.

My solution is to check the contacts and clean them first. Mine had worn down slightly without moving the PCB and I don't rock that hard, just do it a lot. So here is my solution.

1) follow the instructions for taking the neck apart. Just some Torx screws and two phillips holding on the button board.

2) pull the whole button, cable and contact plate assembly out.

3) wipe off the black contacts on the blue rubber piece, just a dry cloth will do. Just try not to create too much static.

4) wipe off the contacts on the button board with the same method, I found that there was some dust and grease on mine from playing with dirty hands.

5) Inspect the cable, especially around the hole they punched, I agree that is a ridiculous way of anchoring the cable, I am surprised they don't have 1 in 5 guitars coming off the line dead because of it. Maybe they did and that is why they were in short supply.

6) Inspect the contacts in the base contact plate. They will most likely be worn. My first suggestion is to rub them a little bit, perhaps with some soldering flux if needed. Remember to wipe off the flux first if you are not going to add solder. It should burn off any gunky non-conductive stuff though. If they still don't seem like they will work, use a VERY small amount of solder to replenish the ability to conduct electricity. Putting GOBS on is BAD. Not only do you risk leaking into the other contacts, but if the surface is not flat you could bend pins or there could be so much solder that there is not enough power to go through it and then you still have the same problem with connections.

7) Also be sure to inspect the pins on the guitar body and perhaps wipe or scrape them off a bit. Solder probably is not good to be added to the pins. Unless the pins are dirty there should be no need to mess with them.

My personal opinion for all of this is if you are not good at soldering, then don't try that method, get a friend to do it. If it is required that is. If you think are good at soldering and you really suck, then you are going to mess up your controller. If you don't want to waste the time and you take the advice of this article and move the PCB, you will eventually totally destroy your connection plate and then you are SOL.

I hope this helps.

This post has been edited by sephoratrading: Jul 2 2008, 02:16 AM