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Thanks, this will be very useful to many peopal at all 
slagcoin: Any chance you will be including pictures of PCBs of commonly used controllers and the button mappings?
I was thinking of creating a site solely for that purpose, seeing how the data is sparsely located in the padhacking thread. I’m sure the people who posted the original pictures wouldn’t mind (in a matter of fact, they’d probably want it if there was an organized source to find such information).
regardless, nice site man. This is something that people have been looking for a very long time, as you can see from the responses.
Yeah, I think I can do a subsection with hyperlinks to those images, and one hyperlink to all the images on one page, and note who submitted each image. I myself have already labeled a couple hacks on PS1 controllers I’ve done and plan on making hyperlinks for them so the section is not too bulky. There is definitely no way I can get around to doing a large variety of controller hacks, and this will help so others don’t get or screw up difficult PCBs.
Very very nice. Great addition to the community.
~Paik
Wow, thanks Paik.
Yea, I read through the whole site while at work. It was very well made. I’ve recommended it to just about everyone I know who loves arcade sticks.
In fact I just wrote about it here:
Well done!
Wow, really good stuff. I want to know how you came to the numbers you did for the percentages page. Something doesn’t seem right, but that just might be because even though they look the same in the diagram, the octo should be similar to the square.
This site has been a long time coming! A wealth of information. Thanks. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for this.
I looked at this question last night when I was tired and said “ugh”. I couldn’t remember how I did it after about 3 months, but now I’m remembering.
First thing though you need to keep in mind is that these images are very symmetric examples, and most joysticks are not gonna fit them precisely (I need to make better noting of this).
Though I took a lot more steps in solving this question originally, I’ll summarize more quickly using these links:
http://www.trig.ionichost.com/trig.php
Let “t” be the length of each of the sides on the octagon. This will be the reference for solving percentages of the whole.
The engage borders intersect half way on each side so:
Throw lengths on engage zones = t / 2
Angles on an octagon = 180 - (360 / 8) = 135 degrees
Area of an octagon = 2 * (1 + (sqrt 2) ) * t^2 = ~4.8284 * t^2
Note the angles where engage distances intersect are 90 degrees, and that there is symmetry that forms many isosceles triangles.
To solve the lengths on the diagonal engage borders and the area of the diagonal engage zones, we divide the zones into two equal triangles, note the angles are 135 / 2 and 90 / 2, or 67.5 and 45, and the length on the outside is t / 2. Plug these into a triangle solver using .5 as a representation of t / 2 and we get:
Diagonal engage length = ~.65328 * t
Diagonal engage zone area (two triangles) = ~.150888 * t^2 * 2 = ~.30178 * t^2
Diagonal engage zone percentage of the whole = ~.30178 * t^2 / ~4.8284 * t^2 = ~.0625 = ~6.25%
To solve the length of the engage borders around the deadzone and the area of the deadzone, we form an outside triangle by connecting the ends on engage borders making a triangle with two sides equal to t / 2 and a center angle of 135 degrees. Plug these into a triangle solver using .5 as a representation of t / 2 and we get:
Deadzone engage length = ~.92388 * t
Deadzone area = (~.92388 * t) ^ 2 = ~.85355 * t^2
Deadzone engage zone percentage of the whole = ~.85355 * t^2 / ~4.8284 * t^2 = ~.177 = ~17.7%
To solve the area of the primary engage zones, we take the area of the triangle just made and add it to the rest of the area, which is equal to the diagonal engage length times the deadzone engage length.
Primary engage zone area = ~.088388 * t^2 + ~.92388 * t * ~.65328 * t = ~.69194 * t^2
Primary engage zone percentage of the whole = ~.69194 * t^2 / ~4.8284 * t^2 = ~.143 = ~14.3%
Good stuff.
this needs to be stickied and someone needs to save it just incase the site dies in the future
That’s what I thought. Even with the actuator, that looks about right.
Science! It works bitches.
Amazing source of information. As many people stated, I wish this type of info was around when I had built my stick. In all honesty, I’m considering building another stick after reading through the site. Need to upgrade to amazing from ghetto! haha … thank you, hopefully this will inspire a new breed of custom builders. :tup:
This website is amazing, I printed off a bunch of pages and read over them, I’m getting ready to have at my own build, just waiting for a store to stock the right colour buttons I need.
Thanks for making the site, it looks like it’ll help many. Do you take paypal donations?
Brilliant. I’ll definitely be using this as a reference when I get started on my own stick.
Major kudos to you for you effort.
Good stuff. Thanks for posting.
I’m considering putting one of those “PayPal Donation” things on my website for those who just might like doing so in the near future. I could maybe put in advertisements in the future, but advertising and my personal philosophies don’t mix very well.
I’d like to keep the site up far into the future, and update the site at least once a month (at least twice a month for the next few months). This could maybe help keep me going.