New Project: Circuit Board

[hypernova]

Over the last six months, I spent some time doing a small(ish) project.  It is a CP for the Wii (or GC) system.  This will evolve over the future for whatever system it gets used for, but for now, it's just the Wii.  I don't particularly want to do anything else, because new systems are coming out, and this one is going to be used at work right now, and I don't think we'll be getting a new system there for a long while, if ever.

I started this project because someone was a big Mortal Kombat fan.  I had my doubts he was actually good, so played him a few times.  Anybody knows that the GC controller is one of the worst controllers for standard fighters.  Don't know about you, but I can barely get a Kitana fan off, if ever, no matter what reassignment I use.  So I told him the games we're playing now are meaningless.  Just to wait.  Told him it'd be about a month.  Yeah, totally underestimated that.  Life and other stuff just stops that.  Come the new year, I'll be tearing him a new one with this thing.  We'll play some other classics as well.

To start things off, here are the wooden cutouts, and them placed together.  You'll also see where I routed things out for the joys and leaf switches.

[hypernova]

Now you may be wondering what's all the holes and extra pieces for.  This idea has been brewing in my mind for years as my next project.  Thought it would look cool.  The next step was easy.  Just paint.

You'll also see a glimpse of what my idea was.  I took a motherboard, and carefully cut it up.

[hypernova]

Next step was to make use of the quartered motherboard.  I left room around the front and side perimeters to affix these.  Yes, there's even an old processor on there.  Let me tell you, cutting that heatsink was fun while trying not to totally ruin it.  Just carefully drilled some holes in the board pieces, and used screws.  Had to glue the heatsink pieces, of course.

[hypernova]

Next up was the first part of wiring.  Hacking that GC controller.  A bit of fun that was, and I'll tell you why later.  Obviously this first picture isn't done.

Later on came the internal wiring.  You may notice there are 8 buttons plus the 2 for 10 total.  I only use 7+2 for the Wii/GC setup, but I left an 8th just in case it's needed in the future for whatever reason.  I have one of the buttons to simulate a left C-stick press to bring up the menu in snes9xgx (the "coin" button).  Although pressing X+Y+L+R also does that, but I need to find if that can be disabled. 

[hypernova]

One thing I was never sure about was how to address the cords.  Would I have extensions on the outside?  Inside?  Where to connect?  How to hold them in place?  Eventually I decided to have them recessed, which may prove an issue later if I choose to update to a new console controller, but we'll cross that bridge.  Also decided just to hang the necessary extensions around the Zippyy joysticks.  Easily accessible, and not flying everywhere.  I could keep them inside, but it's crowded enough as it is.  Plus it can be annoying reseating the plexi for the perimeter inside the grooves on the top portion.

In order to keep the connectors stable and in position, this is what I did with a thick piece of 90 degree PVC lying around at work.

[hypernova]

Finally came the time to put it all together and make it purty.

To elaborate on the controller issue I hinted at earlier.  I originally wanted, and had LEDs.  I had 8 LEDs total in parallel pulling from both the 3.3v and 5v lines on both controllers, so about 2 LEDs for each source.  These were LEDs designed for 5v applications with resistors for 12v applications. There were issues regarding the LEDs.  After a few controller PCBs kept messing up, I noticed that they only started fruiting out after I connected the LEDs to it, so I had to disable all of them.  When connected, eventually they would start causing phantom presses that would never stop, even after disconnecting them.  It's like they were modifying the chip coding or something from the voltages now being utilized.  It's a shame, too, because everyone knows LEDs make everything look 100x cooler.  I'm wondering maybe 8 was too much and maybe I could get away with just a few, but after having to trash 3 controllers (I get a batch off ebay for cheap because they're "broken"), I was tired of the old wiring song and dance, so I just jettisoned that idea.

Some may notice the color difference on the orange buttons.  I had two from lizardlick years ago left over, and ordered 6 more from Bob Roberts, and they were slightly different.  I'm not anal enough to spend another $10 to get two more shipped just so everything is exactly the same.

Also, if you look closely, you'll see I actually soldered a few pieces of ribbon/cables to the mobo pieces, to create the illusion that things are connected.

Now, what were the holes for?  More electronics, of course.  See what you can recognize in the last pic and the next post!

[hypernova]

Here's a few more of the front, close up.  Pay no mind to those diagonal things.  That's just glare.  You may also notice some cables.  Yeah, there are IDE cables (black and grey) along with one I painted yellow.  There's also a SATA cable I wrapped twice.

Cutting the holes for those cables was a chore.  Drilled a bunch of holes in a line, diagonally and every which way to be able to squeeze a jigsaw in there.  Broke a few drill bits, too, but the end result was totally worth it!

[DaOld Man]

Now this is something totally different. But I like it!