Thanks! Fortunately I haven’t done anything with it yet 
But I’ve indeed a kinky idea to do with it
Thanks for the prompt reply. I’ll try to get to it asap, weekends end up being busier for me than weekdays…go figure!
Hey Toodles
New to the site. A friend and I are in the process of building a universal arcade stick using your guides. However we are going to have someone make the UPCB for us. We have ZERO experience making PCB’s. A couple questions:
- Can you suggest a company that can make the PCB for us?
- I know that you put the files needed to make the PCB on the first post, does that company program the PIC or do we need to do that as soon as we get the UPCB from them?
- Do I just email the files to them and they will take care of the rest? Are there different kinds of boards for PCB’s? ( and/or options that I need to pick?)
- How hard is it to “piggy back” the dreamcast and xbox360 controllers? I am not too savvy on doing any of this stuff but I am willing to try anything? I do have a friend that has some experience and he will be helping me out.
Sorry if these questions sound noobish for all the tech savvy people on this site, but I got to start somewhere. Any help is appreciated! Thanks!
- PCB manufacturing is majorly affected by scale. You can get boards made from BatchPCB, but you’d be looking at around $40 for a single board. I know there is one place that has a 3 boards for $54 dollar deal, or somewhere there abouts. GoldPheonix is who made all of the boards I’ve sold, and they have a $99 special I recommend:
http://www.goldphoenixpcb.biz/special_price.php
That should net you just over 20 boards. - Those companies will not as a rule do the PIC programming. I don’t know of a place where you can order the PICs pre-programmed. You may have to break down and get a PIC programmer for that.
- For the board manufacturing, that’s pretty much all there is. They may ask you to clarify details such as board thickness, soldermask color, etc. Just go with whatever is default, unless you really want to pay extra for the boards to be red in color. Use that link for the special as a guide; if it costs extra, you don’t need it.
- Too subjective a question. I don’t know your skillset or aptitude. Read through the Instructables and make a call.
thanks for the quick reply
One more questions I am currently reading the piggy back options for the dreamcast and the xbox 360 (weird that they are the only ones that I am playing now) and my question is if we need to make a console cable for those two systems or if I can use the cables that are already attached to them to connect to the console?
You can make one (button select) usb cable for all usb systems/pc. The DC needs its own.
Hi,
I’m a bit confused about the button select USB cable. What about the piggyback xbox360 USB cable? I’ve now made a dedicated xbox360 piggyback cable as specified in the systemselect.txt and it works fine.
But which buttons do I have to press when I want to play my xbox360 piggyback with the “button select” usb cable?
In main.c I’ve found the settings
//Button select cable
//EDIT: PBXbox360 included in the USB subfamily now. If the button select USB cable
//is used, we want a button select option for 360 PB.
** if ( !Real_Stick_Roundhouse && !Real_Stick_Fierce )
{ //xbox360 piggyback mode
PB_main(PB_X360);
}**
if ( !Real_Stick_Jab && !Real_Stick_Short )
{
Program_Load_Mappings(SMA_XBOX);
XBOXUSB_main();
}
{ //default
mLED_2_On();
Program_Load_Mappings(SMA_USB);
PS3USB_main();
}
This means Fierce and Roundhouse will start that xbox360 piggyback?
Short and Jab is xbox1 and default is PS3?
So here’s the kinky stuff:
:wgrin:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_YLXgzxS8cEc/SYmN6um8qEI/AAAAAAAAAQE/S1BeO4-GqXk/s320/P1030156.JPG
Complete built-up can be found here.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Quick question (Sorry if this has been asked before). Does this pcb have a connection for a PS Home/360 Guide button? I tried to look for it on the rev 2.1 picture to no avail.
Nope. In PS3 mode, Home (and Home alone) is pressed when Start and Select are pressed together; when Start + Select + Short is pressed, is does just those buttons without activating Home, in case you needed to soft reset SFAC or something.
In 360 piggyback mode, Start + Select activate Guide.
Both are disabled when in Tournament Mode.
So been watching this closely, I love the project and also the guides you have posted. The only reason I ended up not using it, was that I only had 2 systems I needed PC & Dreamcast. With the dreamcast needing to be “piggybacked” it was kind of a moot point.
So just a question, is native DC support possible down the road without a piggyback PCB? If not just how valid is using say the native Playstation output and just getting a playstation -> dreamcast converter? I just thought of that and that would have been an easy and perfect solution to my problem. I could have done this cheaper than I did it and much easier (and left more room for future expansions/support)
This first build of mine is more of a arcade control panel than a do it all joystick so its ok, but when I build my portable joystick one of these is going in it for sure.
not any time soon. I wont have the time necessary until at least the summer. I have no idea how long the work might take once I start. I do know that it won’t be possible with the chip on the board. On the rev 2 board, there is a ‘OPT_CON’ header that is currently unused. My plan was to figure out dreamcast and use a smaller, faster but less featurefull chip on a small daughterboard to connect to that header. But, again, it’ll be a long time.
Possible. I need to port the playstation Cthulhu code over to the UPCB; on the Cthulhu, the converter support appears to work much better. But if that will take care of your needs, it’d probably be cheaper to go for a Cthulhu, or even just a regular PSX board and a pair of converters.
Its my first time doing anything like this so I had bought my items before even knowing of the exsistance of most of these better pcb’s. The only ones I knew about where key-wiz & i-pac.
So I got myself an i-pac with the goal of Mame in mind, and half way through the process of planning the build decided I wanted a larger return on my investment and would love to use the arcade controls with my dreamcast too. So thats when I went the controller hack method. Got 4 DC controllers for $20 shipped. So the cost of the controllers is not high, but the cost of all the extra stuff to make this a modular setup ended up being pretty high.
Im still in need of more DB25 connectors that have the easy to solder backside, project boxes, and terminal blocks. I looked at the digikey catalog but cant tell from the pictures which of the many DB25 connectors they have is the right one, and have not even found the other stuff I need yet.
Right now I am thinking maybe just find another radio shack near me to get the DB25 connection (my store near me is sold out), make my own project box out of wood, and just pay the over priced radio shack fee for the euro terminals they have.
Has there been a final ruling on input lag on the official DC pads shoulder buttons yet? I also found that information after I ordered them. Though since its just for fun it should not be a game breaking problem.
I’m sorry if this has been asked before, but I have a question regarding a x360 joypad piggyback.
I own a common ground wireless M$ joypad I’m willing to sacrafice for the sake of putting it into my arcade stick. I was wondering - would it be suitable for the upcb via the piggy back connector ? If not, I will simply make my stick a dual pcb (upcb+x360 pad).
Cheers,
RGB
No wireless.
After months of no problems, my 360 piggyback is acting really weird. All buttons seem to work fine during play except start, which disconnects the controller. When plugged into a pc (360 mode), pressing start slightly lights up all quadrants in the ring, and pressing start + back disconnects. What’s even weirder is that ps3 mode (default button select) doesn’t work at all on pc when 360 piggyback is plugged in. Random direction and button inputs stick; I even noticed this when playing on xbox1.
Everything is fine when 360 pad is unplugged from upcb. Also, I swapped out another 360 piggyback from my other upcb stick, and it works fine; so I know it’s this particular 360 pad. Nothing has obviously changed on the pad, though. The wiring looks fine. What could I have done to screw this up?
Thats, uh, weird. It sounds like the 360 pcb is going tits up for some reason. If you want to be absolutely certain, what I’d do is remove the small chip from the UPCB, the 4066n, and try the default PC mode on a computer. See if the button and stick problem still occurs; I expect it will. After that, pop the chip back in, and take out your multimeter and verify the connects for vcc and ground on your piggybacked board. I would expect behavior similar to what you’re describing if the board wasn’t being powered properly. If you can find a problem with the power lines VCC and GND, fix it. If not, the board is dead and needs replaced.
Finally got around to checking up on this (don’t know why it took so long). Fixed a problem where pin 9 was shorting to pin 1. Now all pins register like I believe they should, but when I try to enter a VC game, it stops and tells me to connect a classic controller. Either I still haven’t gotten the system cable correct, or I’m missing something else…
If it still doesn’t work, the troubleshooting process is the same. Verify the system select lines are set right, and the proper pin is connected for the Data line. All things considered, if your UPCB is working properly over USB, then having it work properly for GC isn’t even an issue. It’s gotta be the wiring.