The unofficial custom arcade stick customizing thread

Tech Talk
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I’ve started this thread in order to answer certain questions regarding specific non-standard arcade stick work. Examples of this would be having a stick that supports multiple consoles AT ONCE, adding realtime led’s so that you can physically see when a button is sticking, understanding how the pad recognizes that the button is open or closed. Power requirements(proper voltage, sufficient current).
An idea a friend came up with was to have 2 boxes, one for the controls, another with the pads and actual electronics inside. This is a great idea, since there would be a cord attaching the 2, of any length you want. So you could finally sit 30 feet away from that big screen without having the DC sitting in the middle of the room. And it would allow for a very clean controls box.

For example, I currently have 2 joysticks. One supports DC and USB, and draws about 10 mA when playing. The other draws anywhere from 30-70mA depending on how many led’s are lit. They look very similar but have vastly different specs. One has the start button right above jab and medium punch, and can be hit when mashing, so it has an on-off pushbutton switch mounted on the side of the stick.

Basically, this thread will deal only with the theory of customizing custom arcade sticks. Please, no beginner questions like: how to solder, how to wire a P360, or any common query.

led example:
http://www.geocities.com/alainprice/ownzord1.jpg
and
http://www.geocities.com/alainprice/ownzord3.jpg

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The idea of using project boxes is old and has been around for quite some time. There are many examples of them actually.

Maybe the need for a second thread isn’t as useful as you can may imagine.

People will always keep on asking the same questions over and over. I’ve only been active on this board for a short time and I’ve seen the buttons, P360 vs. Micro switch, Which Happ stick argument way too many times already.

Standard vs non-standard
Official vs Unofficial
who’s all to say anyways…

3

Good input.
I’ve seen the projects you’re talking about.
One was for a joystick supporting DC only, but the pad was seperate from the human controls, connected with a DB-15. I think their incentive was to able to plug in a memory card without having holes on the joystick box.
The main reason for starting this thread is to discuss theoretical ideas. Joystick selection is obviously a matter of taste and there is no right answer.

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I can think of almost half a dozen people that made external modules for the encoders. I myself wanted to only see a cord go to the console so I decided on the flip-top method. I like the fact that I can put away all of my cords without pinching them when done. The case acts as a box for all of my encoders when put away.

It’s by far the most “usable” methodology for multiple consoles IMHO.

I just think that theres not so much content to separate everything into multiple threads. These things aren’t that complicated actually and only the same topics keep on creeping up. The only things that I’ve gleaned off of here lately are those french manufactured project cases. aluminum and ABS… can’t wait for mine to come.

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Im think about going into the joystick selling business, but using a different approach than everyone else… Using the ABS cases i found or a modified wooden laptop desk… I dunno though, since every builder has a different specialty. Im skeptical about doing it though…

shrugs I should post pics of my stick… Its a modified wooden laptop desk that was sanded, then Bondo (yes car body filler) all over, sanded down, then painted. I still need to finish up my underlay though… Just been too lazy to do so…

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My boxes have always used MDF, except for that one box I made from plywood(prototype). Using 3/4 wood and dimensions of 4.5 x 9 x 13, I end up with a 12 pound joystick.

I’m a little worried that ABS will be too light. You would need some VERY soft rubber feet to hold it in place.

Armadillo, for you and I, treating a gamepad just like any other electronic device and being able to workaround whatever gives us the impression that this is easy. And for any electrical engineer, it damn well should be. But that doesn’t stop me from seeing posts like "I blew my DC controller port fuse and twisted the leads together. Now I’m gonna plug in the stick that blew it in the first place. Anything wrong with this."
We would obviously say “YES”. But then again, we would not need to ask these questions on the boards.

One thing is for sure, I’ve yet to see anyone accurately describe the function of a simple action button on a pad. Do you know why there’s about 3v when the button is not pressed? That’s right ladies and gentlemen, it’s called a logical high. That means you can use it as an input or output to a combinational circuit. You could potentially do some fancy electronics and come out with a joystick that performs a massive combo when certain combinations of buttons are pressed.

Just a thought. I wouldn’t do it myself, I’d rather learn the combo and use my logic IC’s for other stuff.

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Since you know alot about voltage and what not, Shin Ace. Do you know if the size of the wire matters? Or type of wire. I wan’t to know if there is a stipulation where the wire will work, but the signal will be slower, or weaker.

Thanks.

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No, the size of the wire will make no difference. I use 22 or 24 gauge solid wire personally because it’s easy to strip. You could use 30 awg, or even 18 awg. Whatever your comfortable working with.
The pad itself senses the voltage on one wire. Either it’s HIGH, about 3v, or LOW, 0v. It’s not like a traditional switch where the current is interrupted.

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the led thing is very impressive.
would you say it’s hard for a beginner to hook up?

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Nah, the pcb for it is about 2"x3" and there are only two 14 pin IC’s. The pain is soldering the 11 wires for inputs(from switches) and 11 wires for outputs(to led). Then you still have to daisy chain all the grounds for the led’s. Let’s just say the inside of this box is a mess.

The theory is easy. Use a 74ls04 or 74ls05 hex inverter. Just a chip that converts 3.5v to 0, and 0v to 3.5. Each IC has 6 gates, so enough for 6 buttons and 6 led’s.
To wire it all up, you’d have one ground going to all the buttons and also each IC. Then you need to tap into the 5v to power the IC’s. After that, it’s as easy as crimping two wires in each disconnect and running one to the pad, and one to the IC. Repeat for each button.
A wire from each button(the signal wire) is connected to the input of each gate. On the output, we solder a small resistor to limit current to the led, and then a wire from there to the light.
Each IC also needs a ground and 5v connection. They share these with the pad or pcb.

A fuzzy pic of the board without any wires, just the IC’s and resistors soldered in place:

pin 1 is marked with purple, 5v with white, ground with black.
inputs are green, outputs are red. Seeing the bottom wouldn’t help you much, either, just a lot of solder points.

If you measure with your multimeter, you’ll see that each wire for a button carries about 3v when not pressed and goes low to 0v when the button is pressed.
In a sense, the negative edge is the first edge and the positive edge is when you release the button. So we use an inverter to convert an active low circuit to an active high circuit. At the same time, the IC will be able to supply enough current for an led.

I used super bright red’s and each is getting 3 mA.
A 74ls05 is an inverter with open collector ouputs, it allows you to get each led up to 20 mA, although this will only tax your console.

To mount the leds, assuming you used 3/4" mdf, simply drill a 5mm from outside to inside(cleaner hole) and push the led in from the back. Seeing the light shine off the wood of the hole is a better effect than having an led blind you midgame.

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Are you sure a 74ls04 chip will work? The 74ls05 has open collector gates, but the 74ls04 doesn’t have the open collector gates, it just has gates outputting the specified voltage. I’m not an EE major, but I know a little bit about electronics, so feel free to correct me, I’m interested to know what the difference is between the open collector gates compared to the regular gates, so if I’m wrong in my reasoning, definitely explain as much as you know.

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Am I sure it will work?? yes, yes it will.

For a USB only pad, I’d probably go with some 7405’s and get the full 20 mA per light. But like I said, a 74ls04 will work at 3 mA per led.

Also, this can be implemented(one stage) with NOR, NAND, NOT and XOR gates. All of these will drive an LED, but the 74ls04 is perfectly suited for our purposes.

13

Ahhhh alright, so the 7404 is capped at 3 mA per LED, as where you can get up to 20 mA with the open collector gates. Btw, are those 3 resistors that are brown instead of blue a different resistance? or are they just a different brand cause you ran out or something?
-btw its awesome to see some real electricians here, a lot of stick builders don’t know a whole lot about what is going on with the hardware they’re messing with, although it doesn’t matter too much.

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Frankly, I’m surprised at how few people understant the basic operation of these things.

I used 2 values of resistors. 560 ohm for red(and blue), 330 for green. Green leds seem to require more current to get a good color and brigthness. At least 10 mA, unless you’re using a really good super bright green led.

This is not identical to the board I have in my stick. The pic is a spare I have laying around. My joystick itself has normal red leds, super bright reds and a couple greens. Only the super bright reds get a 560 ohm resistor.

It’s as simple as taking a 5v supply and trying different resistor,(while measuring current) to find the right one.

15

Very nice idea with the LED mod…if I could find some decent clear buttons I’d do a light up button mod for the new psx stick I’m trying to make.

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I finally found the link! These two tutorials could go hand in hand pretty easily:

http://erikruud.freeservers.com/arcade/buttons.html

As long as you’re not afraid to do a little drilling on your pushbutton, that would be a pretty awesome setup, it’d look like your controller was having a seizure when you do a AHVB.

Shin Ace - yeah it makes sense bout the resistors if you have different colors on your joystick. Every color of LED requires a different amount of voltage to start getting the electrons to flow and illuminous in that waterfall thing they do *Greater energy drop, or power required to light the LED, means a greater frequency range aka a higher frequency color such as blue and green.
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/led2.htm
http://science.howstuffworks.com/light3.htm

Btw, for anyone who’s interested I’ve started up a LED resistance Calculator program in Visual C++ .NET last night, I have to finish another program for my programming class, but when I get that done I’ll try to work on the calculator program a bit.

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BTW, if you decide to use a 74ls05, you’ll need to install pull-up resistors(to complete the transistor circuit). But since your pullup resistor pulls to 5v, it’s kind of futile to do all that work just to get a led slightly brighter. You’ll need to do some research, as I’m not interested in wasting time on that. My advice is to use a 7404 and be done with it.
Generally, an open collector is used to match output voltages. It can function as a 5v logic device, a 3v one, even a 12 volt digital circuit.

18

hey I have a quick question about a mas pcb is there a place were I can buy a mas pcb with psx gg dc and neo geo ect
thanks in advance

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I always avoid answering questions that end with etcera.

And I’ve only used a MAS, never bought one.

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www.massystems.com
s m r t