Bacteria's project: "Project Unity"

[bacteria]

Pic of the controller casing section, which gets mounted onto the back of the master controller:

[bacteria]

Got the keypad installed and the keypad holder, which was made to press into place securely. Used clicky tact switches with longer sticks as easier to use in this application.



Now you can start to see "my vision" - before and after with an Intellivision controller overlay - i'll be printing my own of course, and where it says "Astrosmash", it will say either the specific game the overlay is made for or the generic console the buttons represent - for example, for many console systems, the Start and Select buttons will be here, and the "C" buttons (maybe Z too) for the N64, etc.





BTW, the reason the joystick on the left is over a bit is to make it easier to use as intended, the one on the right is easy to use there, if it was over more it would get in the way of the action buttons; the keypad is slightly over to the right so closer to the action buttons; so the positioning is intentional!

[thelolotov]

Got the keypad installed and the keypad holder, which was made to press into place securely. Used clicky tact switches with longer sticks as easier to use in this application.

Now you can start to see "my vision" - before and after with an Intellivision controller overlay - i'll be printing my own of course, and where it says "Astrosmash", it will say either the specific game the overlay is made for or the generic console the buttons represent - for example, for many console systems, the Start and Select buttons will be here, and the "C" buttons (maybe Z too) for the N64, etc.

BTW, the reason the joystick on the left is over a bit is to make it easier to use as intended, the one on the right is easy to use there, if it was over more it would get in the way of the action buttons; the keypad is slightly over to the right so closer to the action buttons; so the positioning is intentional!

Very nice, very professional, no offense, but it is much better than your first master controller.

EDIT: Woops, left a picture in.

[bacteria]

No offence taken, I fully agree with you, this one is miles better. It is taking a long time to make but the effort it worth it.

[bacteria]

Ignore the fact the joysticks are all over the place, only loosely stuck to the back with tape for a pic!




In reference to this pic:



...you see the slot in the black part - that's where the N64 traces board will interface between the controller casing and the master controller; you will have guessed that of course. The relevance of mentioning this is if that small board is responsible for holding the controller casing against the master controller, then it wouldn't be long before the other end of the case didn't rest against the master controller, and if it got caught during gameplay the leverage might be enough then to either remove contact between the two casings or damage the N64 trace board.

The solution is to provide securing to the opposite end to support and keep the units in place; good enough to do the job and also allow for easy insertion and removal of the controller casing section, no ugly hinges or similar, no screws and nothing sticky that will fail fast and look unsightly. Nope, the solution I have is a very strong magnet, strong enough to work through 4mm of Styrene (the two 2mm thicknesses of the Plasticard (Styrene as called in the USA)). I remembered a few months ago when I opened up an old computer hard disk for curiosity, there are two very strong magnets that control the movement of the hard disk reader arm; these magnets are so strong that if you they have direct contact to steel, or each other, you need to use a screwdriver or similar to pry them apart. The magnets are shaped like 1/4 of a donut, about 35mm long, 13mm wide and 2mm thick.

I don't believe in disposing of old dead hard disks as if you throw them away someone can still, will expertise, salvage them and retrieve data - you don't want confidential letters or financial information going astray, so I retain the drives (damage the boards but that's it) - means I had a few old hard disks spare - the one I used was an old 2Gb hard disk. lol.

Anyway, one of these on the underside of the master controller and a piece of steel (from grounding from an old console board) gives a free solution to the problem, and works great - also no cutting needed to the plastic either.

Only issue, which I won't know until I try it, is if the magnetic signals cause any conflict with the cable wiring; i'm mounting the strong magnet away at the opposite end to the N64 interface controller with all the wiring, by the entrance to the cable; so hoping will be fine. I'll secure the magnet in place with a few pieces of plastic to reduce the magnetic strength inside the controller.

Boy, this project has so many many considerations, and it isn't possible to think all them prior to starting the work either, you have to make plans as you progress - anyway, that's the thing with the worklogs, you can see what works and doesn't work while i'm experimenting!

[Niode]

Here's something I just thought that would be awesome (you may have already thought of it) for your project. Since you are using multiple consoles and you appear to be going for ergonomics and usability. I would make clear buttons on your controller and put RGB LEDs in there, and have it switch the lights depending on what console you are playing. Like for example red on the bottom button, yellow left, blue right, green top for Dreamcast, Yellow on the bottom button, green on the left button, blue on the top button and red on the right button for SNES. Then it doesn't get confusing when games use the colours for identification. Or even just have the top and left button off with the other two coloured red for the NES. It would be extremely useful for NeoGeo due to the confusing layout of the buttons and a lot of the games use the colours rather than the letter.

[thelolotov]

What Niode said!

Probably be a lot more work, but hey.

[bacteria]

It's certainly a very good idea, however would need the equivalent of a second cart slot just to tell the system what LED to illuminate - also, there would be issues regarding light bleeding, mounting the LED's, etc.

My thought was to have an overlay for the four buttons concerned with holes cut out so the overlay sat on the case itself, and a fairly thick band of colour around the button to show the button colour. Issue though it keeping it in place (have a couple of ideas here); or other idea was to make some sort of button cap to pop over the button tops which would indicate what the buttons are for and their colour (eg, "A" in blue). Not sure though how to make them. Needs contemplation!

[CRTGAMER]

You could just keep a somewhat default button layout.
Dreamcast, PSX and Xbox have identical positions for the primary four buttons.

For other consoles, the standard primary to last:
Button 1 or A - Bottom
Button 2 or B - Right
Button 3 or C - Left
Button 4 or D - Top
If default of Japanese PSX, exchange buttons 1 and 2.

That controller is drop dead gorgeous!

[bacteria]

Tried my original idea of this:



Didn't like it. Also, would be no use for Playstation that games would say "press square to continue".

Thought about LED lighting behind the four action buttons but that wouldn''t work well and would add a second cart slot to just tell each button what LED to illuminate; also thought about making caps for the buttons but they either wouldn't stay on, would rotate or stop the button pressing properly; thought about using magnets, but the top button piece would come off/slip and also rotate. Then had a great idea, screws - problem is though the screws would damage the screw hole after a short time as the plastic weakened, so instead, using nuts and bolts. This works.

First attempt:



Nice, but too tall, considering the button is now about 3mm higher than it was.

So, cut button in half, hot glued a bolt in place with a small acetate topping piece, dremeled off the surplus bolt height, and with a test button, used a Playstation button, cut in half, sanded flat, then with nut secured to bolt, put this over my gas kitchen hobs to heat the nut and then let it melt into the Playstation button, centered and level; when cooled, grips the nut nicely as the plastic has melted around it.





Here it looks in the casing...



This means of course, every button can be coloured as needed or labeled as needed, independent for each system if needed...