I think I tried it with my Sanwa Flash1 PCB back in the day and it did work.
Here is my take on these things:
It should work with any PCB that uses same ground for all four directions. Cthulhu is perfect for this, I use Sanwa Flash1 PCB myself with a Cthulhu.
It is about the same size as the PCB on a stock JLF. It fits in an Agetec no worries (maybe needs a little dremel work to get the JLF body in if I remember correctly).
Maybe it could be done but it has to do with demand. I dont think Toodles wants to make another plastic mould, atleast not yet ^_^. I could be wrong though…
hey toodles, awesome you’re actually going forward with this! i wanted to suggest something not just to you but all the people who are interested, is it possible to create the PCB such that the engage zones are equally distributed, like 8 slices of a pizza pie, for either a circle or octo gate? that is not the case with the regular jlf. i know i would like this very much. i’m assuming this is possible but i don’t know for sure, and of course you have to consider what everyone else wants too. just thought i’d ask.
By itself, nope. It’d require the same kind of conversion any common ground stick (p360, suzo inductive) would need along with tapping a proper ground. In short, a powered anything in a wireless controller is a bad idea unless you’re awesome with the electronics.
Yup.
None. It replaces, and takes up the same space as, the original JLF microswitch board.
LS-32 would require whole new board and whole new housing. There aren’t any plans at the moment for one.
Unless you know ways to bend light through air, no.
I had what I thought was a brilliant idea the other day: using a zener diode as a voltage regulator. The idea is that if the voltage is below the zener’s threshhold (3.3v in the one I was looking at), then the voltage is unchanged. If the voltage is higher than that threshhold, then the zener would act as a shunt and the current would flow through the zener so that the voltage above it would remain at that same threshhold voltage. The idea is that if this worked, I could make sure the voltage to the LEDs was a steady 3v or whatever no matter if it was connected to playstation power or everything else power.
I drew it all up in spice and tested it out. It looks like the current limiting resistor before the shunt can be tweaked to choose a particular voltage point, so that the voltage and current before the point go up as the input voltage goes up. Once that point is hit, the voltage and current to the LEDs remains steady, but the current going through the shunt zener increases linearly. Based on the constraints I have to deal with (3.0v - 5ish volt inputs, no more than say 90mA total current draw), I can’t figure out a way to keep the total current drawn by the device at a reasonable level without there being big changes to the LED current at both ends.
Parts are inbound. I’m going to test out the LEDs at different currents and voltages to see how well they behave. I may have to just determine a resistor value for each LED that supplied enough current at 3.0v and not too much current at 5.0v.
The main thing is, I don’t see any reasonable way to put a DC-DC converter on the board itself. Whether looking at cost, difficulty, potential for failure, everything, its just not worth it. It’d be better just to try to keep the board itself able to function in the voltage range.
Since you’ve apparently already acquired the CNC mill if you’re doing a small run, you could look into milling them yourself. Though you might have trouble finding inexpensive stock.
Excellent work as always, Toodles. For me, I think the DC-DC converter is no longer important. I’m sure there are a lot of legacy PSX players out there so it might be important to them, but if it is going to make this project go belly up or raise the cost substantially, I say drop it.
Even though I don’t play games anymore I’m sure I’ll buy a decent amount just to have on hand. I would say 4 or so if they come in around $50 or less for the assembled kit. I’d go with unassembled for me.
http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/3075/dsc01945vb.jpg
The prottoypes were done and picked up. There was some problems with how their software saw the .STL file I sent them, so there are a number of faces that simply don’t exist on the part itself; some small sections of walling are just missing. Those holes around the center hole shouldn’t even be there. We pulled up the file in a viewer while I was there, and they agreed to do another run for me in the near future and gave me these for free.
But, even with those problems, I can still check stuff out and see how it fits. It may seem silly because the measurements of the housing were taking from the measurements of the pcb I drew up years ago, but its just really cool that the housing fit on the pcb seemlessly. I can run a finger alongside the two together, and I can’t feel where the pcb ends and the plastic begins. That’s pretty sweet. The holes the clear plastic gate go into are a bit too tight for my liking; I’ll be widening them up slightly. But otherwise, I need to assemble one of the flash pcbs and put it together to throw in my ST cabinet to play with. There’s only one small section with there is a missing part that could interfere with the light (or more accurately, doesn’t properly restrict the light) but I have high hope of having a playable assembly by tomorrow. Then I’ll make tweaks, get a second batch of protos, and retest.
Yep that is a real microswitch keyboard. It has snap switches that actually click for better tactile feedback. Most keyboards made now are built like a PS2 pad with a membrane and rubber conductors. That keyboard is like the discontinued flash stick we are trying to get him to make… well sorta. They got those $80 unicomps keyboards for replacements.
