Help with homade DC Arcade Stick W/pictures
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jackspicer
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Help with homade DC Arcade Stick W/pictures
I just ordered a set of arcade parts to make my own dreamcast Arcade Stick from this place http://www.ultimarc.com/controls.html .... picked the j stick over the happs super because of some of the things ive herd about the j stick, and it was just about 50$ for the stick and 7 pushbuttons. I probably should have just bought an Agetec but who cares. I was just wondering how wire the pushbuttons and joystick to a dreamcast gamepad, the four face buttons dont look hard to do but how do i wire the pushbuttons to the shoulder buttons. Its not impossible is it? i don't want to buy another arcade stick just for the guts
Last edited by jackspicer on Sun Aug 17, 2008 5:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Tricky but not impossible.
The face buttons and the joystick on your standard Dreamcast controller work a little like this (simplified of course)..
Again, like a 5 year olds drawing of a control pad, but it's just to illustrate a point.
The push buttons and d pad will all be this sorta circle with a groove cut out. One side of the circle is the common ground, the other is the button voltage.
You can tell which is which because the common ground will be connected to each button while the button voltage will only go back to the encoder (maybe stop by a resistor or two, but... it won't touch another button).
In my illustration the common is green.
What you'll do is find a good place to solder a wire to the ground. You only need 1 spot. Put that wire aside for now.
Next solder a wire to each button (the other half), set those aside.
For the shoulder buttons, the shoulders are potentiomenters. They have three solder points. Normally its designed to restrict voltage for variable signals. What you'll want to do is find which solder spot LEADS to the encoder chip. One of the solder spots will be a ground (again, you already have a ground ready). Solder a wire onto the one that is headed to the encoder. By grounding this wire, you'll short the button press and it'll just register full voltage.
Okay, so you now have:
1) Ground wire.
2) 11 button wires (Up, Down, Left, Right, A, B, X, Y, L, R, Start)
Everyone with me?
Okay!
You run the button wire to the NO pole of your microswitches on your joystick and arcade buttons (they also have 3 poles. NO, NC and Ground. You want NO). One wire for one button.
Next wire the ground up to one of the buttons. Then wire that ground to ANOTHER ground button. Repeat. This is called a "Ground Loop". Eventually you'll come back to the start and wire it back up so it's like a lasso.
You can solder directly to the microswitches (not recommended) or use quick release tabs.
Leave the VMU board alone. I don't know for a fact that you can hack it out and have the controller work fine. I wouldn't be surprised either way.[/img]
The face buttons and the joystick on your standard Dreamcast controller work a little like this (simplified of course)..
Again, like a 5 year olds drawing of a control pad, but it's just to illustrate a point.
The push buttons and d pad will all be this sorta circle with a groove cut out. One side of the circle is the common ground, the other is the button voltage.
You can tell which is which because the common ground will be connected to each button while the button voltage will only go back to the encoder (maybe stop by a resistor or two, but... it won't touch another button).
In my illustration the common is green.
What you'll do is find a good place to solder a wire to the ground. You only need 1 spot. Put that wire aside for now.
Next solder a wire to each button (the other half), set those aside.
For the shoulder buttons, the shoulders are potentiomenters. They have three solder points. Normally its designed to restrict voltage for variable signals. What you'll want to do is find which solder spot LEADS to the encoder chip. One of the solder spots will be a ground (again, you already have a ground ready). Solder a wire onto the one that is headed to the encoder. By grounding this wire, you'll short the button press and it'll just register full voltage.
Okay, so you now have:
1) Ground wire.
2) 11 button wires (Up, Down, Left, Right, A, B, X, Y, L, R, Start)
Everyone with me?
Okay!
You run the button wire to the NO pole of your microswitches on your joystick and arcade buttons (they also have 3 poles. NO, NC and Ground. You want NO). One wire for one button.
Next wire the ground up to one of the buttons. Then wire that ground to ANOTHER ground button. Repeat. This is called a "Ground Loop". Eventually you'll come back to the start and wire it back up so it's like a lasso.
You can solder directly to the microswitches (not recommended) or use quick release tabs.
Leave the VMU board alone. I don't know for a fact that you can hack it out and have the controller work fine. I wouldn't be surprised either way.[/img]
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jackspicer
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fastbilly1
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HeavyMetalMe
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jackspicer
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Dreamcast arcade stick help W/picks
Where do i start to solder at? and why do my shoulder buttons have magnets
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The Apprentice
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Analog parts like the thumbstick and the DC's shoulder buttons use magnets and electronic sensors to work. The closer the magnet is to a sensor, the stronger the magnetic field and thus the stronger the output of the button.
Hatta wrote:Die Hard Arcade has Deep Scan in it. That's like retro inside retro. They must have heard we liked retro (dawg).
Jrecee wrote:What I like to do is knit little sweaters to put on the games.
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jackspicer
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skate323k137
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This is the inside of a PS2 stick I wired.
Hope this helps, it should get you through the D-Pad and first four buttons. you only see wires soldered to one of the contacts on each button because the other contacts are grounded together, and the ground is attached elsewhere to the ground loop on the buttons.