my new home made controller

[bohoki]

whew this took me all day (mainly the construction of the box

(out of an old hard plastic sign)

 

i ran out of plastic to make a bottom but it really holds to the carpet well

 

wico microswitch joy/leaf switch buttons but for the yellow which is a microswitch type

 

 

yep just using pots to center i almost have to center for each game (it makes choplifter easy cause i can have my copter kind of float)

 

the innards (yum spagetti)

 

 

my "deck" ,box o games,my crappy crane game joy controller shoved to the side,a little controller based on the altoid controller,and the "crown" controller with working turbo power(y adapter required)

 

 

yay i can play kangaroo now and jump over gaps

 

and it makes pacman feel like the arcade

Edited December 4, 2008 by bohoki

[Jess Ragan]

Looks like a solid stick! The pots are a nice touch... I can imagine them coming in handy.

[nathanallan]

Nice! That's what I need for all my games!! Great job.

[bohoki]

Looks like a solid stick! The pots are a nice touch... I can imagine them coming in handy.

 

 

with my circuit the pots are required

 

and nobody wants pole position constantly shimmying off to the left

 

 

couple little mistakes i got to come clean

 

i used the wrong holesaw 1 1/4 instead of the 1 1/8 so the buttons have a bit of fingernail gap

 

and if i could find some 10 conductor cable i could have the start pause reset in one wire instead of 2 8 conductors zip linked

 

 

a little secret the green button was from a starcon controller as with the keypad on my crane game joy controller

 

but as with all digital conversions it will not work with superbreakout,missile command,gorf,kaboom,star wars

 

well kaboom and superbreakout are playable wing the dial but not real fun since my pot is pretty stiff

Edited December 4, 2008 by bohoki

[BigO]

Made out of an old hard plastic sign. Nice. I love to hear about other pack rats repurposing old junk like I do especially when, like yours, it comes out looking like it wasn't made of old junk.

[cyberfluxor]

That's a nifty little stick you made. BTW, how do the pots work? Do you have them turned to left and down or something and touching the microcontrollers change, or something. Dunno but I'd like to also make a customer stick but don't know how to do the stick portion, which is kinda important.

[yoshilime]

sweet stick! now for the more arcadey feel!

[Paranoid]

On a 5200 stick, the pots must be a real nice feature. Now here is a question...

 

Rather than having to adjust the pots on almost all games, if you move the stick through its range will the 5200 autocalibrate to the setting of the pots?

[BigO]

On a 5200 stick, the pots must be a real nice feature. Now here is a question...

 

Rather than having to adjust the pots on almost all games, if you move the stick through its range will the 5200 autocalibrate to the setting of the pots?

The 5200 hardware doesn't do this. Such functionality would have to be built into the game.

 

I have observed behavior in some games that lead me to believe they do some amount of self-calibration. I don't recall now which games, but when I was working on a custom controller, I noticed the game appeared to adjust to recognize the extremes of the values coming from the controller. I don't believe it's a standard so wouldn't count on it being there.

[bohoki]

On a 5200 stick, the pots must be a real nice feature. Now here is a question...

 

Rather than having to adjust the pots on almost all games, if you move the stick through its range will the 5200 autocalibrate to the setting of the pots?

 

i may have been exaggerating on that point a little most of the games i can just set it and forget it digdug,moonpatrool,pacman,mspac,kangaroo

 

but choplifter and pole position always seem to want to head a tad to the left

 

 

i'm in the process now of adding a 9 pin male plug so i can plug in a 2600 star raiders pad to do the "phone pad" stuff in case i need to play countermeasure

 

or want to skip to level 8 on galaxian

 

 

as the the question on the pots they are the only component that makes this work basically the joy switches are either shorting or opening one side of the pot

short for left 0 ohm open for right 500k doing nothing gives it the resistance that is left on the dial in a perfect world it would be 250k but funny pole position and choplifter want their center near 280k but your "deck" may vary

 

the schematic is online somewhere just search out my posts

 

teh main problem is the 15 pin female plug end i ned to always cut off the metal shoeld that always comes with the 15 pin d and then the plastic falls apart unless you squirt some glue in there or what ive been doing is sealing the gap with my soldeing iron plastic welding i guess but then it leaves a very shabby looking end which i could cover with hot glue in an attempt to make a molded looking plug end or just put a little tape between the rows to prevent shorting when i pinch it to remove it

[bohoki]

On a 5200 stick, the pots must be a real nice feature. Now here is a question...

 

Rather than having to adjust the pots on almost all games, if you move the stick through its range will the 5200 autocalibrate to the setting of the pots?

 

i may have been exaggerating on that point a little most of the games i can just set it and forget it digdug,moonpatrool,pacman,mspac,kangaroo

 

but choplifter and pole position always seem to want to head a tad to the left

 

 

i'm in the process now of adding a 9 pin male plug so i can plug in a 2600 star raiders pad to do the "phone pad" stuff in case i need to play countermeasure

 

or want to skip to level 8 on galaxian

 

 

as the the question on the pots they are the only component that makes this work basically the joy switches are either shorting or opening one side of the pot

short for left 0 ohm open for right 500k doing nothing gives it the resistance that is left on the dial in a perfect world it would be 250k but funny pole position and choplifter want their center near 280k but your "deck" may vary

 

the schematic is online somewhere just search out my posts

 

teh main problem is the 15 pin female plug end i ned to always cut off the metal shoeld that always comes with the 15 pin d and then the plastic falls apart unless you squirt some glue in there or what ive been doing is sealing the gap with my soldeing iron plastic welding i guess but then it leaves a very shabby looking end which i could cover with hot glue in an attempt to make a molded looking plug end or just put a little tape between the rows to prevent shorting when i pinch it to remove it

 

 

it all seems to be good testing through my multimeter but when i hook it up the center column doesnt work or acts like it is tied to the first column

i'm testing with frogger and when i press 0 to select keypad it also hits fast slow and when i start i cant move up or down properly its like a random short/open anybody else run into this?

[BigO]

it all seems to be good testing through my multimeter but when i hook it up the center column doesnt work or acts like it is tied to the first column

i'm testing with frogger and when i press 0 to select keypad it also hits fast slow and when i start i cant move up or down properly its like a random short/open anybody else run into this?

Sounds vaguely like something I recall happening when I had a couple of the lines switched, but I assume you've double and triple checked all that.

[littleman jack]

Nice Work!

 

Frogger would be a joy to play with that one.

[bohoki]

it all seems to be good testing through my multimeter but when i hook it up the center column doesnt work or acts like it is tied to the first column

i'm testing with frogger and when i press 0 to select keypad it also hits fast slow and when i start i cant move up or down properly its like a random short/open anybody else run into this?

Sounds vaguely like something I recall happening when I had a couple of the lines switched, but I assume you've double and triple checked all that.

 

 

it was the resistors that connect the first 2 columns i only had my meter doing tones and didn't see the 9k ohm connection

 

then did a search here and found the answer to the touchpad keyboard connection

[Paranoid]

Hmnn...

 

I'd be interested in a more technical "last word" on if the 5200 sticks auto-calibrate based on GAME or on console hardware.

 

I've built a digital stick for the 5200 - the PMP 5200 RSI conversion you can find the schematics for around here, and actually did quite a bit of the documentation on the actual circuit schematic, although I only know a bit more than nothing about electronic circuits and schematics.

 

But the calibration issue has been discussed quite a bit, and the auto calibration seems to work, in my past experience. It was a awhile ago, so I don't remember exactly what the deal was - but running the stick through the range of play before the game results in better performance.

[BigO]

[...]

But the calibration issue has been discussed quite a bit, and the auto calibration seems to work, in my past experience. It was a awhile ago, so I don't remember exactly what the deal was - but running the stick through the range of play before the game results in better performance.

I recall it being only on certain games, but can't give a report right now as I have no working controllers. (One custom controller is on permanent loan and the other is in the hands of the local guy who is going to buy it and I don't like the stock ones well enough to rebuild one.)

 

It's really a rather subtle thing that you might not notice if you weren't trying to evaluate the functionality of some goofball controller you were building. I can say the games that I used the most for testing were Kaboom, Centipede, Missile Command and Super Breakout so it may show up in one or more of those..

Edited December 8, 2008 by BigO

[bohoki]

[...]

But the calibration issue has been discussed quite a bit, and the auto calibration seems to work, in my past experience. It was a awhile ago, so I don't remember exactly what the deal was - but running the stick through the range of play before the game results in better performance.

I recall it being only on certain games, but can't give a report right now as I have no working controllers. (One custom controller is on permanent loan and the other is in the hands of the local guy who is going to buy it and I don't like the stock ones well enough to rebuild one.)

 

It's really a rather subtle thing that you might not notice if you weren't trying to evaluate the functionality of some goofball controller you were building. I can say the games that I used the most for testing were Kaboom, Centipede, Missile Command and Super Breakout so it may show up in one or more of those..

 

 

i notice games kind of self center

 

i can do this one thing consistantly

 

i plug in super breakout

 

and rotate my pot to the right and it leaves a little gap paddle to wall but if i press left on the joystick and then right the knob will run the little paddle all the way to the wall

 

pacman and ms pacman work the same it seems there is no way to stop pacman but for running into a wall

 

digdug seems the most forgiving for pot of centerness

choplifter seems to be the least forgiving of centerness

 

 

wizard of wor and robotron seem to fix themselves from the start they will have a bias to a direction but a joystick waggle will make them normal

 

 

ps frogger is still annoying as hell since you have to press the button every time you want to move

 

i'm thinking of rigging up a stick to plug into the 9 pin keypad hole i added so i can select keyboard and have that joy make froggy move without button annoyance but its obvious that they had to do that with non self centering sticks

[+remowilliams]

It's definitely the individual game code that takes calibration/centering into consideration.

 

choplifter seems to be the least forgiving of centerness

Choplifter is quite picky about sticks being 100% calibrated hardware wise. But Bounty Bob is the absolute worst when it comes to that, the range on that game is so large that many sticks won't let you maneuver up or down.

[Vic George 2K3]

Nothing really fancy or stylish, but nice-looking.

[BigO]

It's definitely the individual game code that takes calibration/centering into consideration.

 

choplifter seems to be the least forgiving of centerness

Choplifter is quite picky about sticks being 100% calibrated hardware wise. But Bounty Bob is the absolute worst when it comes to that, the range on that game is so large that many sticks won't let you maneuver up or down.

Definitely any self-calibration would be in the game software. There's nothing in the hardware that would automatically detect and compensate for the min and max values.

 

I take it BB doesn't work with that homebrew controller you're using? Have you experimentally determined what range it wants (indirectly by using the test cartridge with controllers that work)? You may have told me and I don't remember. After some soak time, I have some thoughts about increasing the range of that homebrew controller.

 

I had been thinking that you'd have to adjust both ends, but the zero end should always be able to hit zero*. Changing the upper end won't affect that. A smaller capacitance should raise the upper limit. Putting a much larger value in series would lower the capacitance (not too intuitive, eh?). Of course replacing it with a smaller value would also do the same thing. Putting capacitors in parallel increases the capacitance, so you could start with a slightly too small cap (it would overshoot/be too sensitive) then add on small value caps to tune it.

 

*There's still that issue (my theory) of some games not holding the discharge condition long enough to discharge the increased capacitance (externally added) so I predict there are games that won't work with that scheme no matter how much you tune it.

[BigO]

Regarding that bit about "should always be able to hit zero". The stick I had in mind was going very close to zero which should generally work, but not every control will be able to get the resistance close enough to zero.

[bohoki]

Regarding that bit about "should always be able to hit zero". The stick I had in mind was going very close to zero which should generally work, but not every control will be able to get the resistance close enough to zero.

 

 

my ups and lefts are dead shorts except on my altoid controller i have a 10 k minimum because i used 240 k resistors and wanted center to be 250k so left is 10k center 250k and right becomes 490k same with ups and downs

 

don't have bounty bob i'd love to try it

 

my stick works great on montezumas revenge

and using my crown stick on controller 2 it makes robotron feel real arcadey

and wizard of wor is really good (what the hell were they thinking you press start on controller 1 and play the game with controller 2)

 

once again a list of the games that wont be fun with a digital controller missile command,superbreakout,gorf,starwars,kaboom

 

but if you have calibration pots kaboom and superbreakout are playable

 

 

ps i wasnt really going for fancy i was jsut tyring to get function heck it already looks like i spilled some skittles with the start,pause,reset

 

but i wanted a stick that didnt need a y adapter

 

 

pss another little secret when i got the arcade stick the cherry microswitches were bad so i replaced them with some microswitches i got out of a couple busted microwave ovens the up down are from a samsung the left right are from a goldstar

Edited December 9, 2008 by bohoki

[Crazy Climber]

i ran out of plastic to make a bottom but it really holds to the carpet well

I can make you a CNC cut plastic (composite) piece for the bottom for free if you want, just pay shipping. PM me if you are interested, I just need the dimensions and color you want

[bohoki]

i ran out of plastic to make a bottom but it really holds to the carpet well

I can make you a CNC cut plastic (composite) piece for the bottom for free if you want, just pay shipping. PM me if you are interested, I just need the dimensions and color you want

 

its 7x14 but then it would skid around like a sled thanks for the offer though i have some clear lucite if i get desperate

[Paranoid]

When making the PMP RSI 5200 conversion, I used Montezeuma's Revenge as my "test" game to check the tolerances.

 

Bounty Bob can be frustrating, but M.R. acts absolutely bizarre.