custom neo geo arcade stick

[jay_red]

I recently got a Neo Geo CD that only came with the CD joypad. Looking into getting another controller or arcade stick, I found that the prices were a little high for me right now, so I decided to make a project out of making one.

I started by finding out that there was an adapter that coverts psx to Neo Geo, perfect! I got it from here:
http://www.tototek.com/store/index.php? ... ucts_id=50
Shipping was pretty fast coming from China, took 7 days total.


Now I already had a couple arcade stick cases from the sale that Game Stop had on the TvC Wii sticks, which I gutted for my arcade cabinet. I wanted it to be as close to a neo geo stick as I could make it, so that meant "deleting" the extra 4 holes for buttons, and the upper left control panel. I used something called water putty to fill the holes, I used this for repairing my arcade cab, and found it to be pretty versatile. You can make it really thin to fill spaces, or keep it like playdough to form it, once it dries, its rock hard.


I took the template that MadCatz provides for these sticks to create my own "AES" artwork to put down. I then printed it at work, and laminated it. I have not attached it yet, but it looks like it will fit pretty well:

With everything in place, artwork is not stuck on yet, that damn lamination gives off so much glare!




I am going to pad hack a psx controller into the case, I will be using the stock MadCatz joystick, and some grey buttons I have kicking around. I might go all black later down the road to keep it closer to the actual AES stick, but for now I think it will do ok.

[8bit]

Thats really cool! Well done man!

[Drakon]

That's pretty much the layout of my mvs buttons when I run it on my supergun. Certainly an improvement over the regular neo geo stick(s)

[jay_red]

Yeah, as much as I would have liked to keep it like the original, this layout is much more comfortable.

[jay_red]

Got it all wired up and working tonight! I started on it last night, but at some point shorted out the controller I guess, as the face buttons were working, but when I wired up the start and select, nothing would work anymore. Dug out another PS controller (this time a third party that was much easier to solder to) and shes all working!




And the fruits of my labor:

[xan_racketBOY_fan]

Thing of beauty - well done!

[skate323k137]

Awesome work!! On a side note as to why wiring up the start button would fuck things up, some PS controllers don't use the "common" ground from the buttons for start/select. I've checked this with a volt/ohm meter, and often there's no direct continuity from the ground used for the buttons and directions to either one of the contacts for the start or select button. Just guessing that your pad was like one of the ones I had checked, that could explain it.

Of course, I'm assuming you hooked the same ground to everything. With that assumption, as a workaround in this situation, you could probably have just used 2 wires for start and 2 wires for select directly to those buttons so they're not grounded to the directions/normal buttons, but obviously, you've got it working so this doesn't matter for you.

On that note, if you know what type of off-brand controller PCB you used that does have a common ground including for start/select, please let me know, as they've become much harder for me to find locally. thanks.

[jay_red]

The controller I ended up using used a common ground for everything, if you look all points ground at the black wire in the center of the controller. The brand was one I had never heard of "Huskee" I got it in a bag of PS controllers from Goodwill for like 5 bucks. It looked like your standard third party controller, with turbo settings, and an ugly d-pad. It was much easier to solder to this one than the official PS controller though.

[sevin0seven]

great job jay_red, now if only we can have that meet-up to fully test it out..

[jay_red]

Haha for sure, I am pretty open, just gotta get you guys to take the short drive up here I got the MAME cab working, my game room set up, some Neo-Geo action, it would be a blast.