Rock Band Pedal Repair

After the Rock Band pedal cable for Guitar Hero broke for the third time. I decided to try fix it right and document the steps. The first patch was after our puppy chewed through the cable. I just cut the wires, soldered them back together, and covered the patch with shrink tubing. This worked well for a few weeks but the pedal's velcro attachment to the floor was always stronger and so the repairs continued. I bought a new pedal for those Rock Band emergencies where the repair cycle takes too long. (The repair cycle starts with tell Dad (me) and place the pieces on the workbench. I'll get to it.)

The pedal is just a fancy switch. The cable attaches to the drum kit with a two conductor audio connector. The two wires inside the pedal's cable are very fragile. The insulation appears to be strong but the wires themselves are just small twisted copper threads. I'm not sure why they chose this kind of cable. I decided to just replace the cable completely with something a little stronger. I simply bought a new audio cable from Radio Shack and soldered it to the foot pedal's transducer.

Here are the steps for replacing the pedal cable. I used the tools shown in the picture: soldering iron, solder, screw drivers, wire cutters, needlenose pliers, wire cutters, and sandpaper. I also used a 1/4" plastic drywall anchor to replace the rubber grommet.

First, you need to get into the housing of the pedal. Turn it over and remove the top sticky pad. Underneath you will see two screws. Remove them with a small phillips-head screwdriver.

Next, remove the plastic cover from the housing on the top side. You will have to wiggle it out from underneath the foot pedal.

The housing holds the transducer. If the cable is still attached the transducer, you can cut the wires. The rubber grommet should be removed as well.

Now take a look at the wires inside the cable.

They do not appear to have any insulation but in fact the insulation is painted on. I had to use sandpaper to expose the conductor.

I did this to match polarity of the audio connector exactly with each wire's connection to the transducer. I'm not sure if there is any polarity dependency in the transducer or the circuit but I didn't want to take any chances. The outside connector of the transducer connects to the outside connector of the audio cable (non insulated wire).

OK, next prepare the transducer by scraping the plastic coating off of the solder connections with a screwdriver.

Now prepare the new audio cable. The store only had a full cable so I had to cut off one end.

This is a much nicer cable to work with.

The rubber grommet is now too small for the new cable. I improvised a plastic drywall anchor to replace it.

Cut the anchor in half and slide the new cable through it.

Next, solder the wires onto the transducer and place the new grommet in its spot.

Replacing the housing requires some more wiggling to make the new grommet fit correctly.

Replace the two screws and put the sticky pad back on. There should be enough adhesive to make it stick back together fine.

The final step is to connect to the drum kit and try it out.

Thats it. I took more pictures and uploaded them to a web album for reference. Unfortunately they are not in the order I took them but they may be helpful if you need to see more details. I've also repaired one of the cymbals in a similar way. The next time I have to do that I'll take pictures and post the steps here.