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Socoder -> Off Topic -> Joystick Building

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Tue, 12 Dec 2017, 04:08
spinal
Well, failing to find a C64 zipstick/competition pro style joystick for a reasonable price, I'm going to have a bash at making one from arcade parts.... should be fun.

For anyone who might be wondering, here is a photo of a zip stick joystick that I stole from google...

I hope to have my joystick look a little like it when finished!

14/12/17
The stick and buttons just arrived in the post!
The stick is about 4cm from the metal plate to the very bottom, so the box will have to accommodate that. the buttons have a little wiggle to them, maybe a little tape on the inside will make them feel a bit better.
I have a space Arduino (style) pro-micro to use as the brains of the thing, now I just need to buy a nice plastic box to put it in.



15/12/17
Bought a nice box to put it in!


17/12/17
First we apply some masking tap to avoid scratching up the nice shiny plastic!


Now, as the edges are rounded, it will make measuring tricky, so here's a tip, sit the box on a table, and slide a pen across the same table to draw a line near the edge, then use this line to measure from!


Right, now that we made it possible to measure things along the top of the box, forget it, the metal plate from the joystick is just the right size and lines up exactly with the edges of the box, so well just draw around the holes! Same for the nuts for the buttons...



Then we cut out some little holes with an unbranded multi-tool...


Next we warm up the soldering iron...

Anyone who has ever looked will notice that this style joystick is nothing more that simple switches. So I have soldered one side of each switch to GND and gave each of the other sides of the switches their own pin on the arduino pro micro.


The software shouldn't be too hard from this point...

There are about 125,000 examples of arduino joysticks, so I stole this one -

https://github.com/MHeironimus/ArduinoJoystickLibrary

And edited the code a little to allow two buttons.



So here is the finished thing...


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Tue, 12 Dec 2017, 04:08
Jayenkai
Sounds like a fun project, although I imagine the casing might be the biggest issue.
Why not trawl the Car Boot Sales, looking for a broken old C64/Amiga era joystick, then putt it apart and build something with clicky switches inside it!?

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Tue, 12 Dec 2017, 04:24
spinal
No car boots in my area. I do have a maplin a couple of doors down from where I work, so I should be able to get a good size plastic box no problem.

Also I don't have a c64 any more, so it'll be either USB or Bluetooth.


Edit - if I put an emoji in from my phone, j get a "your reply is tiny" error.

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Tue, 12 Dec 2017, 04:38
Dabz
www.amibay.com/showthread.php?96115-Lot-c64-stuff

Dabz

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Tue, 12 Dec 2017, 05:02
steve_ancell
I've got a couple of old joysticks in my box of crap down the shed, they're analog type though.
Tue, 12 Dec 2017, 05:05
steve_ancell
I take it you're after the clicky movement types of joystick?
Tue, 12 Dec 2017, 05:11
Jayenkai
Can’t beat a proper digital joystick.
Tue, 12 Dec 2017, 07:52
steve_ancell
Yeah, don't I know it. That's probably why those ones ended up in the box, might still be of use to someone though.
Tue, 12 Dec 2017, 07:58
steve_ancell
Fucking hell, they're asking shitloads for Competition Pro's on ebay.
Tue, 12 Dec 2017, 08:23
Jayenkai
*hides Competition Pro away from Spinal, alongside Megadrive USB hub*

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Tue, 12 Dec 2017, 13:36
spinal
*hides Competition Pro away from Spinal, alongside Megadrive USB hub*


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111111111111111111

@steve - yeah, clicky type.

@jayenkai - are the competition pro buttons clicky?

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Tue, 12 Dec 2017, 14:03
Jayenkai
Yeah, it's one of those recreated USB ones from about 5 or so years ago. Lovely and microswitched.. Mmmmm...

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Tue, 12 Dec 2017, 14:03
GfK
Get a 3D printer, and some.... wires and switches and shit. Make a proper one!
Wed, 13 Dec 2017, 00:30
spinal
The plan is for it to look a bit like this...

www.thingiverse.com/thing:1597458

But, time will tell.

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Wed, 13 Dec 2017, 04:23
Jayenkai
Those edges don’t look particularly comfortable!!

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Wed, 13 Dec 2017, 12:48
spinal
Maplin boxes are a little rounded, not much though.

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Wed, 13 Dec 2017, 14:28
steve_ancell
Now that's chunky!
Wed, 13 Dec 2017, 15:05
Jayenkai
If you’re going to use Arcade Parts, why not go the whole hog and build yourself a proper cabinet?
Or, at the very least, something like this..
https://youtu.be/ZBV2frDXEuE

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Wed, 13 Dec 2017, 17:25
steve_ancell
I was thinking about doing that and then shove my Raspberry Pi 3 in there.
Thu, 14 Dec 2017, 01:35
spinal
Unfortunately I genuinely don't have the space I think a 1 or 2 button joystick will do, I never really got into arcade games anyway, the only reason I want an old style joystick is because old 8bit games usually don't control well with modern controllers.

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Thu, 14 Dec 2017, 02:16
cyangames
That joystick link looks very much like the "Alan 9000" for the Master System from Classic Game Room Fame

I need to get into the whole electrical tinkering sometime soon.

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Thu, 14 Dec 2017, 13:46
spinal
First post updated - new parts!!!!
Fri, 15 Dec 2017, 14:10
spinal
Next part gets!



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Fri, 15 Dec 2017, 14:43
Jayenkai
Oooh, that looks much gentler for your hands!
Sun, 17 Dec 2017, 08:08
spinal
Minor update in first post
Sun, 17 Dec 2017, 09:22
spinal
Finished!


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