Hey toodles… any chances of you posting the schematics to your PCB? So we could get it made outselves by our local pcb presses?
Schematic is linked in the first post of the thread, has been since the beginning.
I dont mean the schematics to the actual circuitry, I meant the schematics to your custom printed circuit board.
The PCB layout and EAGLE CAD files I use aren’t available, but you’re free to make your own from the schematic; its a direct snap shot of the one I use.
Next question, why? Any of the one-off fab houses like BatchPCB would charge far more for even 5 boards than they would be from me, and the price from me will be even less on the next order because I can order more. The layout is of no use to anyone wanting to etch their own; far too many via’s far too close together. (That’s not by design, that’s just a result of me squishing the board size down as far as I could). I can’t forsee any changes that someone might want to make in the board, but I’m definitely open for opinions; you saw how quick I made changes to the code for one customer already, Chaosdragon13. So the only good it would serve is for those who want to make a bunch and/or sell them. If you are looking to get a bunch made, let me know how many and I’ll quote you a price. If you’re looking to have someone else make a bunch for you to sell, go for it. You are totally free to do so. Everything you need is there. I’m just not gonna do the work for someone else so they can order elsewhere and then undercut me. That’s just silly.
I tell you what though; when I make another order of PCB’s, there are a couple of changes I would like to make. I will put up the previous version’s Gerber/Excellon files and pcb images (I know I can export to BMP, I dont know about TIFF or PSD but I’ll try) when I get that order.
Are there going to be any big changes that would make a difference between the new one and the old one? Or are you just planning on fixing some things up, like I know in the instructable you said how one of the parts of the silk screen is backwards.
That’s the big one for me. I also would like to put on two places for solder jumpers, and extend the piggyback connectors by two holes each. For those not using the extra buttons, nothing will be changed, but for those who are using the extra buttons option and want to use the extra buttons on piggybacked pcb’s, they can use a larger 18 pin IDC connector instead of the 16 pin IDC connector. Currently, you still can, but you have to run two wires along with the ribbon cable. When I designed it, I seriously thought (and still think) the main 6 play buttons are all that is needed.
I also want to make the board a little thinner, 3mm less or so, so it would fit vertically along the back wall of an HRAP. I want to redo the routing and force the via’s to not be so damn close to the pads.
You know the flat pads on the ends you can connect DB-15’s to? I’m debating doing another one of those but in the shape of a DB-9 for a serial connector, and the spot for 2-3 resistors for a low voltage programmer. If it works like I think it would, you could assemble the board and a USB button select cable. Plug the serial connector into the computer, and plug the USB cable into the computer (for power). You can use that to flash the bootloader onto new/bare PICs, and then use the USB bootloader like normal. People who dont have PIC programmers could (IN THEORY! I have tested this yet.) program the PIC themselves. The downside is it would take up like 1/2 to 1 square inch of PCB real estate, and would be useless after the PIC was programmed. It might actually be cheaper to just make a LVP piece (parts would cost about about $2 in bulk) and sell it separately.
Any other suggestions for tweaks are welcome. I know you’re worried that you just bought something and afraid that something better is just about the come out; that’s not the case. Any of the functionality improvements will come through firmware, just like it always has been.
Ah, thanks Toodles. I’m not planning on putting together and selling UPCBs, but what my crew plans on doing is getting the entire team custom sticks (which we are making ourselves) and possibly selling a few to recoup the costs. So most likely I would have wanted about 10 UPCBs and thought that perhaps I could get them made cheaper if I did them myself…
But it makes sense, business is business. I figured it wouldn’t have hurt to ask. =P
What kind of timeframe are you looking at? If you can wait about a month to six weeks, I’d love to add you to the bulk order; 10 pieces would be a pretty big discount, and knowing I have those + whatever preorders for prebuilt ones I get, it would help drive the cost down, for you AND everyone else.
New Instructable for piggybacking a Dreamcast controller is up.
All comments/criticism welcome.
The next time you put an order in for PCBs could add two bare ones in there for me? I dont have anything to put them in right now so I am fine with waiting, but I have the PICs so I might as well make some use out of them. I can upgrade my happ stick to a UPCB and then have an extra for a friend or something.
? All of the kits I have don’t come with PICs. 
No I dont need the kit, just the bare UPCB. As I need to make them I can order the other parts myself from digikey. So kind of like how you mentioned to Jaxel that you could add him to the bulk order, you could add two plain UPCBs to the order for me. Since I will be buying them eventually anyway you might as well add them to the next order along with whatever else you were going to get to try to cut down on cost.
Just put my kit together today, all went pretty smoothly apart from one thing: if you’re intending to put a power led on the PCB along with the XBOX daughterboard connector, I’d advise you to do the latter first. I had to remove the LED and put the header on, then munge the LED back on at a jaunty angle. Not a biggie, but worth thinking about.
Next step, programming the chip…
–flux
Glad to hear it arrived. Moving that LED is already on the ‘List of things to change’ for the next batch; let me know if you get any more ideas on how it can be improved.
Hey, I was putting the UPCB together following your instructable and i found that at step 29 it says a 10 pin connector should be used if I was connecting a happ competition. There are 12 holes, is this a mistake, or should i omit the 2 holes (V, and the last ground)?
You have a choice. You can use the 6 pin connector and header that came with the kit, but if you do you’ll have to daisy chain the four grounds on the competition together.
If you’d rather get and use a 10 pin (they dont seem to make 8 pin ones) IDC connector and header (which wasn’t included in the kit), then yes, ignore the last V row. Spit the ribbon into pairs of wires, and each pair goes to the switch for that direction. The two wires on the G row will also be ignored.
Oh, ok, it only needs 8. I will just use a spare 10 pin I have and pull out the last two. BTW, I plugged it in and everything works fine so far. Great stuff, Toodles.
Hey Toodles, I know this isn’t the place, but I don’t want to bump up an old thread either. I was just wondering how’s the flash stick coming? Or did you completely drop the cause already?
Glad to hear. Keep me posted, put up pics when its done, and tell me if you got any feedback/suggestions.