I am about to start a "super GP2x mod" now. I may well fall flat on my face, but have put a lot of thought into this, worked out how to do it (in my head); although there are many factors which all need addressing; all need solving before the solution becomes reality - failure at any of these stages will mean project failure - and a lot could potentially go wrong; I have the creative know-how and the imagination to make it work, but my skills in some of the areas required are limited and may prove inadequate.

Background: I made my D-pad effectively 4 way instead of 8 way by widening the gap between the contacts (putting a piece of paper between the contacts did the trick, and is easily reversable). This made playing games like Wolfenstein 3D very easy to control. I have also played many other games on the GP2x with purely 4 way too; however there are many games which need 8 way (horizontal/vertical shooters, etc). The commercial D-pad is not really so intuitive to use as 8 way; a proper joystick is the best method - and the best joystick for this, in my opinion, are the ones you have on handheld controllers like on the GameCube and N64 - easy to use, responsive and no dead zones.

This means a hybrid - a GP2x with both a D-pad and a proper joystick to get the best of both scenarios. This means making a new (bigger) case for the GP2x. There are advantages to making your own case - no issues with mounting a D-pad (as people have discovered), you can use any D-pad of any size you like, and both the D-pad and joystick can be mounted easily, to your design - using proper commercially made parts designed for the job.

What I want to achieve with this project is:

1) integrated D-pad and joystick
2) better buttons (vol up, vol down, start, select, A, B, Y, X, centre push, left shoulder, right shoulder, on/off), bigger buttons, placed in a better layout
3) bigger batteries - you can get D batteries at 10,000NiMH - imagine how long they would last!

I would have hoped to have used the TV out function to drive a 5" LCD (eg PS one screen) but that seems frought with problems, so will have to use the default screen.

To-do list:

1) dismantle N64 and GameCube controllers I have - GameCube uses daughter boards for the joystick and D-pad, which makes things easier - the N64 uses a mechanical joystick, which might be easier to work with: if the joystick is only analogue it won't like ordials (digital), so I may need to see if there is a way I can make connections by other means - with aluminium foil contacts at the base of the N64 mechanical stick ordials would do the trick . I need to see if I can work out how to do this. If this fails, project ends.

2) design a case (I will make it out of paper mache - very tough, strong, light, thin, inflexible, mouldable) with a suitable hole for the LCD screen, wider/longer to take the buttons and joystick and D-pad. This will need a lot of work to achieve, lots of testing and making. If this fails, project ends. I'm not looking forward to this part!

3) solder/secure wires to each button position on the GP2x, to secure to commercial press-button switches (Maplins). My soldering skills are not good, will try alternative methods - if I fail to make this work, project ends. Can use shoulder buttons from the GameCube/N64, as they are nice.

4) Secure the motherboard permanently to the case, with blu-tac and hot-glue. Secure battery compartment into case too.

5) use bigger speakers, maybe with a small amp (I have a couple of mini-speaker sets available) - or simply double the amount of speakers to give better clarity at volume - I have an old speaker from an original GameBoy and GBA, so can do this.

Big project, and it will be a slow project; but if it succeeds I could end up with a dual control GP2x which would be ideal for any game available on the GP2x, with buttons spaced properly and in the right places, and very long battery life. Downside will be no connection to the ext port (I don't use TV out anyway) and it is unlikely that I will be able to conduct any repairs on the system if it goes wrong, once everthing is sealed and finished.

Haven't decided shape of case yet, too early in project yet - either it has to be wider (left and right sides) which might not be ideal, or double height (screen top, all buttons and controls at bottom) which I am more likely to go for - a bit like a bigger GameBoy! I can't decide this until I can map out where things need to be. Finished result will need to be easy to use and not look too wierd. I imagine the final product's colour will be medium dark grey if I use the D-pad and joystick from the N64 (I have a hideous red N64 controller to dismantle - no loss), or light grey if I use the ones from the GameCube (standard one which comes with the GameCube - don't need it as I have two better ones)!

Anyway, early days, lots can (and will go wrong), and this project may end up being a non-starter - but it is worth trying this, and nothing ventured, nother gained! I may well fail with this project, however I think I have the skills to make it work (potentally putting my GP2x at stake though!!). I will provide some pics as I go along - updates may be slow, however, lets see how it goes. I will try and make sure I have everything working (in theory at least) before I dismantle the GP2x itself, otherwise I will have to buy a new one. If I am not convinced everything is going to work out, even at the early stages, I will end the project and stay-as is. I would prefer to try this mod and fail, rather than not try at all - the result could be rather special!

lol. Sounds good and a lot of work. My missus would kill me if I did anything to my gp2x and I would break it anyway.

good luck to you bacteria, some serious modding there!

will follow this one with great interest so please keep us updated with pics

Bacteria - before you start this, be very, very sure that geoffstechno hasn't already copyrighted your idea, or anything even totally dissimilar.

note to self: dont read something funny with coffee in mouth.

you're scaring me with your n64 joystick, paper mache and your hot glue

Holy moly... that is some serious modding you are about to do there. I will follow with great interest. Good luck to you. Hopefully you won`t screw anything up. It will certainly train your skills.

Ok, dismantled the old N64 contoller (the screws were in tight!). D-pad connectors on motherboard will be (comparitively easy) to work with (pic below)



The joystick is analogue (damn) - I took apart a generic N64 controller a while ago, looks different to this one from the official one - generic one is more basic, you can see the axis move - can't find it at the moment so will experient with the official one. I figure that I might be able to drill a large hole in the base (white bit) of the joystick, and hook up wires to 8 directions (yes, 8, it would have to be 8 for this design - would use the proper GP2x diagonals then, BTW!). Hope this works, and doesn't compremise the strength of the joystick design. This joystick may end up being too fiddly to wire up, time will tell though. Will need to make connectors at each of the 8 directions and bore a hole at the base of the joystick stick for the connector wire to be mounted - will be tricky. If this fails, I will have to dismantle a different controller and see what needs doing to that one (they all seem different somehow).

Haven't really got much more time today to get stuck into this project before I have to go to work, so will pick up on the project again tomorrow.



Should hopefully be able to get some foil in there (ahem) to make the connections, to connect to wires. Will need to test it then a couple of hundred times for any wearing though.

This is certainly going to be an involved project! (I like the challenge!)


Cheers, yes it is! Even if I fail to make it work, it will be fun trying, and yes, it will train my skills!

Thanks for making me laugh out loud

Sounds very ambitious... good luck and erm... have fun(!?)

"...and here's one i made earlier..." (don't forget the sticky back plastic)

Cool, man!

Things don't have to be made out of metal and plastic to work, you know!

Man bacteria just go down to ure local secondary school ask if you can use their workshop for a littlebit.. make ureself a wooden mould and then get some thermoplastic and make ure case from that.... its easily year 7 level of stuff ! ... pay a visit to your old school and ask for a favour

this is a great idea.
and i know you can do it.

theres only one thing that bugs me.
if you succeed in this, making a joystick and d pad, wont your gp2x take one step closer to the psp?
eh?

just a thought.
i think it would be awesome still.

Didn't have a workshop at my old school; anyway, a Retro console deserves Retro technology (I used papermache over 30 years ago - pretty retro!!). Anyway, I will have to make a mould for the paper mache - probably use clay, or something similar - mallable so I can make changes to it easily (wood is not so easy to "shape").


It will probably look more like a big GameBoy, with addons!

your mod sounds awesome but after i read this i couldnt stop thinking about a giant GP2X Pinata, i cant wait to see the case though

You need to make the case from proper wood, for additional karma.

whoa sounds pretty hardcore. Good luck and dont forget to keep us posted with plenty of pics and updates!

Will do. (I'm at work at the moment, will be back on the project tomorrow! - I will post pics and comments as I progress). Thanks for your comments everyone!

Hmm, this thread has got me thinking...

Has anyone done tests to find the lowest voltage the GP2X will run from when powered by the AC adapter port? If it's the same as the battery connection, then a cool idea would be a D cell x2 holder with a cable that goes to the AC adapter port... between that and 2 AA's inside the unit, one should have a hard time draining it even over the course of a couple days.

Already tried just that, didn't work. I suppose there is some kind of resistor or something because when I connected the power pack it turned on with colored lines then faded. Very strange.

If you have space for D cell batteries (as I intend to do), you may not need to worry about an AC adapter. The D cells can be up to 10,000NiMH and of course are far bigger than the AA's, so the result should be considerably longer battery life.

Just noticed your new Blue Peter pic!

Yes, I figured that lots of people are making references to Blue Peter and my modding that I would adopt it - especially as this "super" mod is very "Blue Peter" (but without tinsel, wire coat hangers and squeezy bottles)!

Anyway, an update:

Spent a lot of time faffing about with this, but opened the case to the joystick. The base of it was thick plastic. Ok, I thought, drill it out, cut out the sides; I know, shortcut, use a screwdriver and hammer it out - worked, but broke up the plastic a bit! Reassembled the bits, put lots of glue in and pressed down blue-tac to keep it all in place. I made the the two horse-shoe shaped parts (control the axis movements) fitted into the holes and had plenty of play in them. The rest of the pic shows the other parts of the assembly; the circle (keeps the horse-shoes flat by the spring, thus keeping the joystick in the centre position); and the stick itself.



I then drilled the inside out, and trimmed it with a craft knife (I did a bit more later too).



Drilled the centre of the base of the joystick about 6mm in (to fit in a nail), using a very thin drill bit. Drill bit snapped, the drill slipped and popped my finger (ow)! - anyway, done it. After headscratching - "why doesn't the damn thing close", etc; worked it out, and got the case down properly. It was easy in the end, but there are bits you need to align.



And this is the rear of the unit. All I need to do is trim the nail to the right length, put a bead on the end of it (covered in aluminium foil of course) and make a curved area for the 8 contacts - the nail acts as the main contact, the curved area does the rest. I will need to experiment with this and build it, not difficult, it will just take a bit of time, that's all.

This is how to make an analogue (mechanical) joystick a digital joystick, (just needed a bit of imagination) - 8 way stick (proper diagonals - using the GP2x diagonals I add...). Ha, ha! Works fine, so far! Joystick is as responsive as it was on the N64, and the nail moves about in nice exagerated movements (makes doing the connections so much easier).



Probably won't get any more done today, happy with things so far!

I know the D-pad is fine, only have to connect the wires up, and all done - the joystick was the issue.

Looks good! And glad you have a sense of humour and can take the Blue Peter Remarks on the chin!

Not just that but I adopted it as my mascot! Took a fair while designing it, as I only had 80x80 pixels to play with, but I rather like the new avator.

Probably won't be a couple of days before I can do any more modding, I need to get the joystick backing done for the connections (alumnium foil on a curved cone (contact really needs to be at the edges not the middle) secured with gold 'ole blu-tac, and sealed in a box, stuck to the main joystick box. 9 wires trailing for connections, then done.

Looking back, I could have used a thick drill and bored through the plastic base, I didn't want to damage it though (the way I did it damaged it anyway, then I had to "reconstruct it"). Got there in the end.

I know I got the official N64 joystick working, but I thought I might try the GameCube one too, but for fun; especially as the GameCube one is much smaller:



There are two ways I will try this: (1) - the way which is unlikely to work - 3 pins on each of the 2 connectors - one might shop "up" one might "down" - unlikely, not expecting this to work (might only be analogue not digital bits inside); however option 2 will work (at least in theory): (2) When you move the stick in any direction, the axis "screws" in the middle of the two black bits moves back and forth. Connect a shaft to both of the axis "screws" and the shaft will go up for one direction, down for the other - 4 way - therefore, as with the current D-pads, up/up would denote up/left which means diagonal, etc. Tricky bit will be securing a shaft to the axis. Thought of drilling two bore holes to each axis screw, attaching a matchstick on the outside - would do the trick. Cover matchstick with aluminium foil, stick raises or lowers = contact. No movement, no contact (stick auto centres).

Merits - N64 one - robust, nothing should go wrong with it when completed. True 8 way. GameCube one - 4 way (would simulate diagonals as normal D-pads do, so 4 way = 8 way), could well be as robust, although will need more care modding it as everything is smaller, if successful, the final unit will be therefore smaller. The GameCube one even comes on it own daugherboard, so it is nice and easy to mount! I have two of these GameCube joysticks to play with - one for the "Camera" joystick and one for movements - both joysticks in the GameCube appear to be the same. Might have to experiment in due course...

To make the case, may I suggest vacuum forming? That is the closest method to making a factory made product. Here are two guides Building the Table and Vacuum Forming Plastic This method is easy and only takes a few minutes. The first thing you need to do is buy a cheap table and drill a hole in the middle of it. Then you take a shopvac that has good suction and place the hose into the table. Then make a mold of the design you want to accomplish and place it on top of the table. Then what you do is melt plastic between a holding frame in the oven (polystyrene) ....let it droop about 6 inches. While its drooping, place it over the mold which is on top of the table and turn on the shopvac. The plastic will stick right to the mold, thus making a perfect hollow plastic shell. Refer to the links if you dont understand fully

The outcome is worth the product



This guy by the name of Marshall at benheck forums used vacuum forming to make a portable N64 and he did it with vacuum forming a wood mold. Here is the thread with more pictures I wish you luck...I've been wanting to do this to my GP2x. I myself have vacuum forming plans...I just have to redo my wooden frames and hopefully make a case of my own...but not for the GP2x..its a different kind of secret mod

I belive that is becasue it's mutch more sensitive to voltage levels on the adapter line.
It wants 3.3VDC so i suggest that placing three/four D cells in serial to get 3.6/4.8v and then a voltage regulator that keeps the voltage at 3.3VDC.

Bacteria:
I think that if you place the D-cells on the left and right edges it might improve the grip,
and then if you dont remove the old battery compartment, you could always place a wifi card there. (dreams of wifi play w/o breakout boxes and stuff )

very nice moding spirt, good luck!

This is really interesting stuff, just spent a while reading about it. I don't know where I can get some in the UK, I live in Hampshire - anyone know of shops stocking the plastic?

It would be nice to use a bigger screen than on the GP2x, what could I use which would give full-screen viewing, do I have to use tv-out, and what is best - or an I realistically stuck with the GP2x one?




Yes, I was thinking about the battery compartment either being in the centre (both batteries). The edges of the case will need to house the joystick and D-pad (left) and all the other buttons on the right, which leaves the middle for batteries.

I am in many minds as to the best outlay for everything; I am thinking of the old GP2x and screen on top half, the bottom half for the controls and buttons, batteries in the middle. Any better thoughts anyone? Diagrams?

I was working on the same sort of project turning the GP2x in a lil mini laptop till I killed my GP2X PCB while working on my N64P

Just register at benheck forums they are a friendly bunch and have got alot info on case making and other portabilizing or un-portabilizing as the case may be

You need TV-out to run PSONE screen and the S-Video signal needs to be changed to Composite as the PSONE Screen only accepts that and VGA and RGB it is a simple mod to get svideo to composite

Also TV-OUT on boot is needed to get it working and this is impossible atm unless you have some basic coding/script knowledge

For power you should get a lithium battery pack they are smaller and lighter and pretty cheap a dvd player battery is ideal as they are useually 7.2v which the psone screen accepts

For a effiecent power circuit see the benheck N64 forums and get the free 3.3v Texas Instrument Converter highly effiecient like 90% with minimal heat

When you get the psone screen be sure to keep the Hinges they are very useful if you plan to make a clamshell design

Im very drunk right now but I've got metivolous design plans so if you hit any snags or need info on sorcing parets letm e know via PM

Somewhere in the manual it tells you not to use a back up power supply when there are batteries in the GP2X, I didn't read that bit but ED thinks it can be fixed. Other people have done the same thing and got away with it though.

MArk

Yes the benheck forums prove a very interesting read. Drawbacks for me is that it is all rather technical stuff and my electronics skills are low. Yes, your comments on the separate LCD screen confirmed what I already thought; it would be a nightmare on many levels. I think I will stay with the basic GP2x screen for now as I don't have to worry then about extra heat, additional power requirements, specialist wiring, getting the auto tv-out from bootup problem, etc. You gain 50% extra screen area at the expense of lots of problems. I think if I try this I will definately end up blowing my GP2x motherboard! Thanks for the advice though. If someone decided to sell such kits, modded for use on the GP2x, I would consider buying one though.

I was reading about the various methods for making a case. My thoughts about paper mache are that it may/may not be strong enough, it isn't good enough for benhack forum users because of the pressure imposed when inserting and removing a game cartridge; no such issues with the GP2x, and its strength could be improved by making pillars (like they do with plastic cases sometimes): however the vacuum moulding looks lovely and might be worth experimenting with, although one option they mentioned which I thought might be ideal possibly - using strong pre-made plastic lunchboxes. Buy two, trim their size suitably one houses the holes for the screen, buttons, joystick, D-pad, etc; the other identical half sticks to the back and has the battery compartment. Join the two pieces together by strong glue, sandpaper it nice and smooth, prepare with plastic primer paint, spray paint the final product (sanding each layer to keep it georgeous). Using lunchbox containers is good - you can see the strength of the final product and make sure it is tough enough, both pieces will fit together and quick. It is just a case of finding lunchboxes/similar of the right size, flat bases, strong, rigid. In fact, I might have the right boxes already in my cupboard (time will tell!). I like this method, no-brainer result, non-skilled and "Blue Peter"!

PS this is my 500th post on the forum since joining, BTW!

Here is where to get Polystyrene for a fairly cheap price.
On another note, if you have access to a CNC router you can design and cut out templates to design the GP2x. Oh yeah here is another good thread on case construction techniques. I suggest you have the following equipment on such a project: bondo, x-acto knife, dremel, hot glue, epoxy, and sand paper. Hope this information helps

You might find the is a 5" LCD that works with the same control board in the gp2x, im sur eif u get the modle number you can find out quite easyly

I would be grateful if you (or someone else) knows of a plug-and-play one, compatable with the GP2x, and could let me have details (and web site details). Plug-and-play is ideal, I can't do microscopic soldering!

CNC router (? )
Oh yeah here is another good thread on case construction techniques. Yes it is - read it!

I suggest you have the following equipment on such a project: bondo (? ), x-acto knife ( ), dremel ( but could get one if I need it - I tend to use a portable battery powered powerdrill), hot glue ( although not played with it yet), epoxy ( ), and sand paper ( ).

I have looked in my kitchen - some lunchbox containers are indeed very tough, and the microwave fish dishes (steam cooking) are very flat, nicely curved sides and very rigid). I will take a trip to the various discount stores in the area in a couple of days time, and get some which will be perfect! This would give excellent results, without lots of experimentation, lots of errors and requirements to buy specialise tools!

Getting Composite from tvout is a simple process I'm told that TVOUT on boot will be included in future firmwares

If you are not that tech savvy i suggest you spend time reading and understanding what you are trying to do make a thread over in benheck and they'll defo help you out explaining stuff in noobish terms

My GP2X fried because I ran 12v through it by accident o

Oh and BTW don't feed excessive voltages into the AC adapter slot otherwise you'll burn out the GP2X connect it up to the battery terminals as they have a converter that will drop voltages of up to 5v

For project cases check out maplins

http://www.maplin.co.uk/search.aspx?MenuNo...9&worldid=3

Car modders use bondo for making custom dashes and body work. It's easy enough to get hold of and use, but making a case out of it will take days (or weeks), as you have to keep making layers and sanding.
If you go with the sandwich box route, you could also use bondo to make adjustments to its layout.

Vacuum forming is easy enough to do. Your local college will probably have all of the equipement and plastic.

CNC router is a terribly expensive machine that can be used to develop almost any kind of shape, the only case I've seen someone using this is a million dollar's machine that is used to make powerful forged connecting rod for hi performance cars... I think that CNC routers for plastic would be much more cheaper, but anyway...

This site have instructions on how easy can it be to develop a composite video output to gp2x, the only component you must use is a 470pF ceramic capacitor

Using li-ion batteries would be much easier to acomodate than C-sized batteries, I think that the back side of the gp2x could hold 4 sony mobile phones (z530 anyone?) batteries, that would do 3.6V/3600mAh exactly doubling the named capacity in comparsion of 2.4V/2700mAh in almost same spacing

Thanks for the comments. Keep them flowing please! People come up with great ideas sometimes, and it is good to hear quality viewpoints.

I will pop into Maplins tommorrow and look at their cases. I looked at some on their site, they are too small (not even the size of the GP2x ones), however I think I will end up getting a pre-made plastic boxes from a discount shop/department store.

Going to a college, etc for moulding is not practical - they will be unlikely to want to help (why should they), it would takes a long time finding a suitable one and trying to find the right person to speak to, etc, etc. Vacuum moulding is interesting, and I could mock up a gizmo to do this, but it is considerable hassle and would be expensive as it would take a while to make enough moulds to get successful plastic mould to do the vacuum moulding, and it would take many attempts to get this right. Buy pre-made plastic containers and you know their rigidity, strength, size, etc as you buy the final result - and they are cheap. The insides of the containers can be reinforced if needed, by shafts quite easily, thus giving a firm and solid case. The cases are nicely rounded at the sides and corners, it is just a case of cutting each box bottom the the right height, making internal slots, gluing it all together, sanding the final product to be nice and smooth and lovely, then priming with plastic primer paint and spray painting (many layers, and sanding each layer). Job done, little hassle, little cost. I like nice simple solutions which get the same results as long-drawn complex ones!

Will stay with existing GP2x screen, there are lots of things to go wrong, lots more wiring, more batteries (I don't want to use the mains, I like a portable unit) which means more weight and, of course, tv/out is far from perfect anyway, so on balance, better to stay with the current screen - it is fine - after all, Nintendo use much smaller screens on their handhelds, and that isn't an issue. If someone develops a nice, good quality, flat LCD/TFT screen, 5", plug-and-play in the GP2x, battery powered, I may well buy one and make a new case to accomodate it!


Update on project:

GameCube joystick:



I thought I had the perfect solution with the GameCube joystick - I seemed to be able to solder wires to the underside of the pins and get directions working - worked fine for one of the black connectors, the other one didn't want to play ball, so it meant I had to do some modding after all.

Snapped off the black connectors, and removed the two screws securing the motherboard to the joystick.
The insides of the controller are very similar to the N64 one, only very small, too small to do anything with; but the horseshoe bits (see previous posts) are exposed to the outside of the joystick addembly. They are too small to connect to anything, but I managed to bend nails (for hanging pictures on the wall) with a pair of pliers, and heated them over a gas flame (cooker in our kitchen, don't have a blowtorch!) until red hot, then pressed it onto the ends of the horseshoes. Basically, when you move the joystick in a direction, it moves the horseshoes accordingly; the nails are secured to these (melted onto it), so then in turn, move. You have to be careful - insert them too far into the joystick (as I did on my first attempt) and you melt the pastic inside the casing and the joystick doesn't work! You also need to ensure the nail doesn't pertrude much, or you can't use the joystick cap from the GameCube properly - it is a dome shape, and moves quite close to the joystick casing.

Anyway, managed it.

Two pics to show the result - I popped the joystick back onto the motherboard (having cut it down a bit) and re-secured the joystick onto the motherboard with its screws, which I had removed earlier:





Principal is that when you move in one direction, the nails move. All you need to do is solder one wire (eg the red/orange one from my "how to Guide before) onto it, and make an assembly for the nail to move into and make contact (aluminium foil). This joystick is true 8 way, no bias, by 4 ordials (ie exactly the same as a D-pad). Best of both worlds.





This assembly is smaller than the N64. Both systems have their merits, the N64 one can be true 8 way and easier to mount in a casing but is bigger, the GameCube one is 4 way (8 inc diagonals) and smaller, slightly harder to mount. The N64 one is solid and won't fail; the GameCube one relies on the bond (2mm) of melted plastic on a metal nail. It might be strong enough, time will tell. I have a bit of a quandry! D cell batteries are big, so in principle could take either joystick.



Next step will be to trim the nails to a suitable size, and get the connections working. I may well try and get the GameCube one working first, if it proves strong enough, may use it; if not, I have the N64 one to use instead (I know this one is solid!). Views, anyone?

Join us next week when the heroic McGyver and his new partner Bacteria rescue a cruise ship full of innocent tourists from certain death, while simultaneously building a GP2X D-Pad from tin foil, cutlery and a dead raccoon.

... maybe not the view you were looking for?

Very funny. I laughed out loud at this! Perhaps if the cruise ship had made a compass out of an old magnetised needle, cork and bucket of water they might not have steered off course into the rocks in the first place (I made them a Guide about this before, perhaps they thought it was "ugly" so didn't made it )! Never mind, the heroic McGyver and I can make a life-raft out of old beer barrels, cabin doors, rope and a sail cloth. Hurrah, all will be saved!!

Thought I would share a snippit with you guys:

One thing interesting I realised yesterday, the N64 joypad has a very good motherboard - better than the GameCube in some respect, in regards to modding. It is 2mm diameter wider, and sure the D-pad on the N64 is bigger (you could use the D-pad from a GameCube or similar quite easily though); but what is nice about the N64 one is that there is no need to remove some of the plastic covering on the circuit board to get to the contacts - they are exposed (see pic below) and therefore easier to get to.


(red arrows point to the connections for the up/down/left/right; blue arrow points to the communial connection (the orange/red wire in my earlier Guide document).

Another nice thing about the N64 joypad motherboard is that it has 3 independent buttons, with their own rubber contacts, which are connected to 2 wires each - in other words, a complete single button unit! If you had 2 N64 joypads to take apart you could make your own D-pad with 4 of these individual contacts quite happily, and use a 5th one for the centre push. I would suggest this would be easier, and require less skill, to mount a D-pad in the GP2x for those people who want to do so; especially as the difficult part is keeping the rubber contact pads in place normally. I thought this tip might be of use to someone, so was worth posting.

Sweet project you got going there, best of luck to you!

Thanks mate!


Project update:

Tried making the contacts for the GameCube joystick - too fiddly and not reliable enough. Got to work therefore on the N64 joystick...

Smoothed the surface down - trimmed it with a Dremmel sidecutter, and a craft knife. (Just bought some Dremmel bits, didn't need a Dremmel - a battery powered powerdrill is fine):

Used the top of a cotton bud (ear buff), covered the end with aluminium foil and sealed a red wire in there.





On the underside of the joystick, used aluminium foil covered mounting board, wire sealed by sticky foam pads (tried and tested method now). Put some mounting board between each contact to act as a spacer.



To maintain strength, and stop the pads moving, put a piece of mounting board on top, and stapled it down.

Then, time to test it. Red/orange wire is universal contact for each of the 4 directions, other wires do the other 4 directions. I decided to keep it 4 ordials (8 way) after all, keeps build easier - same result anyway (youget diagonals with this method anyway).



Joystick is complete now.

barbarian!!!


the concept is not bad, the problem is that it still has the same "amplitude defect" as the gp2x


i'm still very curious to see if you manage to get a useable finished thing

Please explain, I don't understand what you mean?

That makes two of us! Theory is sound, but I have many hurdles to overcome yet...

Maybe he is referring to the huge dead zone that the joystick seems to have from looking at the pics...

Ah, ok. No deadzones. I figured I didn't want to move the stick a tiny amount for the contact, as when you use a joystick you tend to move it one side to the other, so consequently I made the joystick only make contact when the joystick is against all the sides.

There is a little give in the material as using sideways movement instead of downward pressure, so the top piece (stapled down for easy re-modding later if needed) is stapled down to stop this movement. The 4 bits on the diagonal are to stop two of the contacts touching each other by mistake, through use. The stick, you notice, is quite large in comparison, so when the stick is moved in a diagonal, it has enough contact area to cover two pads = diagonals. No dead zones - contact is made at all places, so no deadzones.

Update - just tested it, by making two battery and light sets, connecting them to the joystick terminals, and moving the stick about, as you would in a game. Had to make a couple of minor adjustments to the positioning of the aluminium foil pads (two were not equidistant); happy with them now. They hit diagonals without any issues, and ordials all other times. No deadzones.

Yeah, I was not referring to the possible deadzones between each direction, but to the deadzone from the center to a direction.
Since you tried it already, do you think it's the right distance, it seems there's too much space to me (ofcourse I only looked at the pics, maybe it feels just right)

Fair question. It is a question of lever action - Archimedies, if I recall. If for example a plank of wood was on a pivot, with an equal distance between each side, then pushing down on one end would result in the other side going up by exactly the same amount. If the pivot was much closer to the side going down, then a shorter movement downwards would result in a far greater movement on the other side upwards. The nail in the base of the joystick works on this principle - it looks a fair distance, but a small movement on the joystick moves the nail a far greater distance. I did adjust the positioning of the pads a tad this morning (it is easy to do) to "tweak" it.


Anyway, tiny update:

I just got a new colour camera (off the "Marketplace" on this forum, not a bad camera, can't get great closeups with it, but it does have .avi recording, which I haven't had before) - I put together a short video clip - shows:

1) moving joystick about in all directions.
2) moving joystick in the 4 ordials.
3) moving joystick to the 4 diagonals.

Note, I only used 2 bulbs to represent the 4 directions, so one bulb does up and down, the other does left and right. This means that when a diagonal is hit, both bulbs light. Therefore, the video shows actually all 8 directions being met, via 2 bulbs (it is only testing after all!). Please bear in mind, one of my hands was holding the camera while it took the clip, and the other one was holding and moving the N64 joystick - works perfectly, just a little shaky. What the clip does show, is that it is very easy to hit all the directions accurately, and there is continual contact as the stick was being moved about (ie one/both lights on during whole sequence).

Anyway - have a look:


N64 joystick moving 8-way

Bought a couple of strong tupperware boxes today from Woolworths (for the case), they are slightly bigger than I wanted, but will do nicely, and a stack of buttons (Maplins). Have the bits I need for the project now. Buttons (nice, fairly large ones), on/off switch and D cell battery holder with wires cost £20, lunchboxes cost £5 (for both - will need to cut bases down on both, for top and bottom of my case assembly).