2nd Go

Few busy weeks here and there but I must continue so when I actually make a decent stick I can look back at all the anguish and laugh :).

The tool set began to grow for the project in general. I returned the pos $15 weller and picked up a velleman vtss5u at fry's for $20. Not much more cash, but the iron is so much better. I picked up some terminal strips to organize the wires, some bolts that fit the mounting plate well enough and some more 22 awg wire. Still can't find a good crimper that will strip 22 awg - despite them saying 20-22 on them, 22 just slips right through. They sell some decent strippers that you can change the size by nut, it's just not practical if you're working with more than 1 size wire - which isn't the case here so I picked one of those up as well. It'd just be nice to have a crimper/stripper/cutter all in one that actually stripped 22awg.

Here's the crap table I used for work space. Again my impatience was at work here, as my back paid for it later leaning over this shotty table. Speaking from experience now make sure you have a good work space. Consider such things as amount of work space you'll need, comfort levels with your chair and spine and if you have little ones/angry spouses factor in being able to leave the project as is. I found I had to walk away from it at times after a bad solder attempt. That and having little hands trying to help the next day never bodes well for your overall success.

I also picked up a pair of helping hands from radio shack that went a long way. There's a good size magnifying glass on it and alligator clips to hold your work. With a little experience under my belt the solder job was much easier this go around. The 360 retro arcade stick($9@gamestop) was an easier to work with pcb as well with nice holes next to the signals to put the wire through and solder in. It's large enough to not make the work so nerve racking as well. Here's a look at the finished job, which I don't actually mind showing vs the old dc pcb(that was a wreck). The only mistake I made was putting the Y button on the ground vs the signal below it. A quick resolder fixed that problem and I could see in windows the buttons were all functioning well.



Back to the case problem at this point. We took an afternoon and went to a few craft stores as well as wally world to look for a better solution than another shoe box type. There's a lot of briefcase sticks out there as well as tupperware, that's what we kept our eyes out. Having not much luck I found a plywood box at Michael's for $6. For the record I would not suggest using one as the top and bottom panels aren't even a quarter inch thick. Living in an apartment limits my woodworking tools/options, so I settled on the craftbox despite this problem. I also picked up a 24mm and 30mm drillbit for the button holes versus eyeballing it.

With a few print outs from slagcoin.com I chose the panel layout and went to town on this tiny box.
You can see from the pic how well the top held up. After several splits in the base as well for the back, start and guide buttons I settled the pcb in the center and started to layout the strips....to discover once again I'd forgotten something. The strips weren't going to do me any good without anything to screw them down with. Not only that, the base being so thin most any screw I picked up was going to just go right through it and out the other side to have a nice stabbing effect on any surface the case was placed(my legs included). Impatience prevailed again as I cut the wires long enough to lift the case out, thus the terminal strips were put aside for another day.

All pretenses of clean wiring gone, that's basically what it ended up looking like inside. I used a smaller drillbit to put in the hole for the cord and pulled it through. Some hot glue is holding it in place so it doesn't rip out - best I could come up with for this box. I used two smaller bolts through the bottom side to hold the pcb in place. Of course here again I ran into the oh *$@#! I forgot something else. I'd completely forgotten to get the nuts to hold it down. The extras I had from the joystick bolts were too large of course. So the pcb is currently still sitting like this inside, though it's not really moving as the bolts are threaded nicely into those smaller holes in the underside.

At this point I realized I never came up with a solution for the headset port. I've yet to bother with it, as this case like the previous is a temporary solution until I can make/find another. Here's a few snapshots of the finished product sanded down on the sides and edges but left unstained(which was another mistake).

Top view:
The guide and back buttons:
Start button & empty name plate:

And no I didn't remove the name plate from the box. I couldn't decide if I wanted to stick something in there or just remove it.

So with the second attempt finished I'm feeling a lot more confident in my pcb work. I have a long way to go as far as cases, as I've yet to actually build one. The craftbox was a decent start for looking at layouts and understanding spacial limitations within. Staining the wood is a must. Within a day the plywood began absorbing the oil from my hands and has left it nice and ugly to look at where they rest next to the stick and buttons. Again a common sense issue I simply didn't care to remedy. Patience will go a long way in crafting a real box, as the entire project would have benefited from such a simple thing. I also would chose a different panel layout the next time around as there isn't much space to rest my left hand with the stick being so far out from the buttons. Again I would stress triple checking your materials prior to starting.

I'm heading out to Texas next week to visit family....and there's a garage! So I'll keep notes and take pics of what we come up with out there. It should be interesting.

Prototype 1

I'm going to use this to as a log for my work. Simply put I'm tired of emailing too many photos to a few to have them simply sent back from their work emails :) . Currently I'm working on building custom joysticks for fighting games. A little background for the rest follows.

For those happening upon this, I'm a full time dad that is clinging on to his youthful pastime of gaming. My 2 and a half year old currently loves playing Street Fighter 4 with me, as well as Pac-Man to her mother's disdain. That's not to say she doesn't enjoy some games with me, she simply has no taste for several genres that I've always been into. FPS, Fighting and RTS to name a few big ones off the top of my head.

That sums up most of it, so back to the reason for this. Lately I've been experiencing some rather alarming pain in my left thumb when playing, specifically on a d-pad. An all niter of SF4 started this current bout, and it's been a thorn since late February. I laid off of it for a week in a splint taking over the counter anti-inflammatory medicines. After a month and a half I visited a hand surgeon who basically gave me some harder prescription stuff and some rather unhelpful advice - basically he'd never run into anyone with these kinds of issues. I'm finishing up the meds and going for a second opinion later this month.

Well with that out of the way, I decided it was best to take matters into my own hands if I wanted to continue ever playing in the fighting genre. I've been a long time reader of Shoryuken.com, I've simply never joined the fighting forum as I've never had any real intentions to become a tourny level player. However, with the revival of the genre as of late I'd been keeping up with the Tech Forum and the custom stick makers had piqued my interest. Instead of waiting around with the rest of the world to plunk down $150 for an official Tourny Ed stick, it seemed I could make one myself for half that price. Thus began the current journey.

I'm an old time SF player, from back when the original hit our small town arcade with the red and blue smash buttons. When SF2 came out, I was a die hard player for life. Ken was my main, and when super came out I was known as "lime green Ken!" by a few of the locals. Glory days aside, I've been playing fighting games ever since. Thus when SF4 came out, my wife(there's not a better one out there) surprised me that afternoon with a copy and an official Ken fightpad.

As much as I appreciated it all, I knew I was going to have to buy a stick to get back into it. After getting into the tech forums on srk however, I decided to build one myself. I grew up on Happ parts as most American players did. With that said, having the old thumb woes I figured it might be time to change to less resistance and learn on a Sanwa stick this go around. A few weeks later(thanks to Ponyboy of SRK) I got my JLF, OBSN-30's and 24's in. Picked up a cheap solder iron(big mistake) from Home Depot and some other misc. tools I was going to need. The case solution eluded me still, as people are charging insane prices or are simply too backed up to even take your order. Then there was the pcb itself, which having never used a solder iron I was reluctant to pick up a cheap madcatz to ruin it out the bat. So instead, I turned to older joysticks and then finally decided on the Dreamcast.

Here's a machine that was way before it's time. Not to mention the fact that all the best fighting games were on it. Soul Caliber, SF3 Third Strike, MvC, MvC2 and the list goes on. So with some help from slagcoin.com(greatest resourse out there) I found the pcb diagram and went to work. It was definitely an experience, with a lot of swearing :) . Having finished it and wanting quick results, I scanned our home for a suitable box to gut. I quickly started some rather stupid guesstimations on placement and ruined the Sennheiser box.



Finger placement was way off, I slowed down and went back to slagcoin and printed up some of the layouts found there. Next up was the old PS2 box. Strangely enough it held up rather well after I was done with it all. It was certainly ghetto, the jlf was held together in there by some old screws put in through the top and held inside by...another sliver of cardboard hah. At that point I didn't care, I just wanted to get it together and see if my solder job was up to snuff.



Yeah I know, I have some huge mitts hah. Here's a quick shot of the insides, the styrafoam actually held the entire thing together nicely. All things considered I was rather pleased that it turned out as well as it did for a first prototype.


It's since been dismantled and chucked to the four winds. My soldering turned out to be shotty on a few buttons, which I went back and redid twice. That taught me how much I really needed a good case that I could open and close to work in, as well as enough space to lay it all out. Man what a pain pulling all that stuff out and back in - you see how large my paws are. A few more tries and I got it all working and put in a few good games of Third Strike. If you're ever thinking about doing this, know you can't do much worse than I. For the most part I ran into a long running list of 'things I still needed'. Quick Disconnects, Butt Caps, 24 gauge wire strippers; it was a long list as the week went by. Quickly my 'make it for half that' project had reached $80 in parts. And this was only the beginning :( .

Things to keep in mind if you give this a go. Sit down and really double check all your parts before you start, then check it all again. Never underestimate how much wire you need, it can always be cut shorter. And lastly, really look for a decent size work space case to start out on - it will make a huge difference in your work as well as your patience.