Bacteria's project: "Project Unity"

[bacteria]

Spent a few hours on this today to get it "just right". The levels are really critical, the base buttons with the bolts through are barely above the top of the case, any lower and they catch on the top; also the button tops have to be pretty accurate too so again don't catch: anyway, it works fine, just takes a few seconds each button to insert into place, and when on, it isn't going anywhere unless you want to remove it of course (unscrew it).

The first four buttons are made; the layout is SNES style in the pic; although of course the standard primary colours work for many systems, N64, SNES, CD-32, etc. The Playstation, Xbox, DreamCast etc will have to have their own ones of course and ideally, two different extra colours for the GameCube (two grey buttons).

Making the button tops is quite quick, now I have a rhythm - use a CD marker pen to mark out the height a button needs to be reduced to, sanding drum to make it so, rub along sandpaper to get it finished and smooth, then insert the nut into the bolt and hold these via a pair of pliers over a gas hob until the nut starts to change colour (ie hot enough), then press the nut into the reverse button side, making it sink into the button and remain level: just when the screw is warm to touch and not hot, unscrew the bolt from the assembly, and onto the next one!

[CRTGAMER]

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.

Very nice, a great idea! I can see if the triangle is a little off, an easy adjustment with slight more sanding.
Or even a little teflon tape on the threads to give a semi lock tight function.

[bacteria]

Thanks - I had a few methods in my mind to do this, however they didn't work out in practice, this method occurred to me when trying to think how the effect can be done. Niode's idea with different LED's configured for the button colours was an excellent one however wasn't going to be achievable, the method I used gives a similar effect in that the buttons can be uniquely customisable, which has the benefit of making custom buttons work (eg DreamCast, PlayStation, Xbox); NeoGeo is fine, uses primary button colours after all, like the SNES does, CD32, etc.

I'm going to have to start making video clips as the controller will have it's own video for the project.

Making this master controller is extremely time consuming but worth all the effort, especially of course as the master controller is going to be the main "wow" factor for the project.

[thelolotov]

Thanks - I had a few methods in my mind to do this, however they didn't work out in practice, this method occurred to me when trying to think how the effect can be done. Niode's idea with different LED's configured for the button colours was an excellent one however wasn't going to be achievable, the method I used gives a similar effect in that the buttons can be uniquely customisable, which has the benefit of making custom buttons work (eg DreamCast, PlayStation, Xbox); NeoGeo is fine, uses primary button colours after all, like the SNES does, CD32, etc.

I'm going to have to start making video clips as the controller will have it's own video for the project.

Making this master controller is extremely time consuming but worth all the effort, especially of course as the master controller is going to be the main "wow" factor for the project.

This actually seems like the best method to me, short of wiring up little OLED screens.

Very clever, and yeah, we need some video clips man!

[bacteria]

Been working on the overlay - this is with paper, will print final ones onto thin card.

Screenshot of my computer monitor showing work on the overlay!



Each overlay will probably need to be colour co-ordinated to the action buttons being used, although not sure the best colour scheme to use.

Did have "Alpha Omega" logo on the top of the overlay but looks better without.

On the back of the overlay, i'm going to print the button colours; that way, when selecting an overlay I know what to use.

[dsheinem]

I forget what you are doing about shoulder/trigger buttons. With that DC shell it would seem that the two on the back would be easy enough to integrate - but what about 4?

[AppleQueso]

yeah my only problem is how awkward that Z button will be in a lot of games...

[bacteria]

There are two analogue triggers on the case backing which i'm using, as various console systems use analogue shoulders (DreamCast, GameCube, Xbox, etc), however have incorporated a tact switch onto the part of the triggers so when depressed fully, activates these shoulder buttons (used in GameCube too BTW); this in effect means I have two analogue triggers and four shoulder buttons at my disposal. Systems like GameCube only use analogue, and one set of shoulder buttons, so could if I wanted use the other two shoulder buttons (the black buttons at the top of the case on the sides) as Z or whatever; or the keypad. Systems like Playstation that only use shoulder buttons (4) will also work, although the analogue triggers will need to be depressed to activate them, which is no issue.

Not sure if Z in the keypad is an issue on the GameCube, it isn't exactly in a good place on the controller anyway, and isn't used much from what I remember.

[DrCirno]

I've been following this for a while, and its looking great so far. The Amiga CD-32 was a suprise addition, but I'm eagerly awaiting the future to see everything working out. I hope your swan song mod works out great, with hopefully not many fires.

[bacteria]

The Philips CD-i will be another "surprise addon" and the other obscure system i'm going to do is the Amstrad GX4000 of course.

I too hope this "swan song" system will all work as I hope it will, it is certainly a complex project for sure. As "swan songs" go, it will be a big high - one of the most innovative, complex and integrated console modding projects on the net ever done!