Gamecube stick project

[Babs]

Hi, I am new to making my own stuff, but I've been thinking and planning in my head for months now. I want to build a stick for my gamecube, mainly just for soul calibur 2 and ikaruga.

I've got a rough idea of what I'm going to do, and I'm soon to order my stick(s) and buttons. I just have a bit of a query for anyone who's had a go at doing anything with a gc pad.

With the L & R buttons, is there a solid point I can solder a wire to to add those buttons to my stick? I know they're analog and I don't have any cheap pads to take to pieces right now, so I'm wondering if it's possible to make a digital connection to the 'click' at the end of a full push of those buttons?

Any help or advice or even links to cube stick projects would be gratefully received.

(p.s. I did do a search before posting, so don't be too harsh if I'm covering old ground )

[hyiu]

I would say take a closer look at your analog buttons...

they should have 3 connections....
(let me call them as +, -, and the variable...)

I think if you connect a microswitch to the variable and 1 of the other.... you should be able to hack the button digitally... (which means you press the microswitch, you press that analog button all the way down... - no analog...)

but I don't know which one is which.... so, you'll need to try it.... (or maybe measure voltage / resistance when you press the button....)

also, those 3 might have different ground from the rest of the digital buttons/directions of the pad... so, you might not want to chain the grounds for those analog buttons...

well.... I'm looking at a madcatz xbox pad myself... that's how it looks like.... but no guarantee....

hope it helps...

[Babs]

Thanks, I'm hoping to pick up a couple of cheap pads and gut them this weeked, so I'll haev a good look then.

[Molloy]

If your going to go out of your way to build a good stick you may as well try ot make it compatable with multiple machines.

You can buy connectors for PS to GC and DC to GC as far as I know.

What I'm intending to do with my control panel (when I get enough money together to build it) is use and x-arcade pcb. That way i'll have PS2, DC, GC, Xbox, PC compatability as well as any of the next gen machines.

[Babs]

Well, as it stands I have no games that I want to play with a stick other than SC2 and Ikaruga.

My first sticks will be more of a prototype than anything, so I can always do a second set. The X-arcade idea sounds a bit too pricey for me. The stick and board alone are way too pricey, and for the price of the adapters needed to work with each system I can quite easily buy a cheap pad for each system and gut & solder them.

[armad1ll0]

I just got offered a broken wavebird for a couple of bucks. I'm going to buld a stick from a wavebird now. Cool.

[Babs]

Let me know how the L & R triggers go, and what's needed to make em digital.

[Babs]

Heh, after more hours of thought and planning I'm going down a differnet route.

I'm gonna build a 2-player CP with PS2 pad guts, and get the decent PS2>GC pad adaptors (some only work if analog sticks are detected, useless for my project). I've recently caught up on some old 2D beat-em-ups for my PS2 and this'll be perfect that those, Soul Calibur 2 on GC (pad doesnt cut it), Ikaruga and others. Plus, I'll have nice easy L/R solders, rather than the headache of analog.

If anyone cares, I'm going to start building this week - it's my first attempt and I've never wielded an iron before should be fun. I'll document and update too.

[Xan]

PS2 pad? those buttons are analog too.  Myself I'm just going to use a couple cheapo PS1 pads and if I wanna use my GC or my friends XBox in my cabinet I'll just pick up some PSX->GC or XBox convertors.  I have a PSX->PC usb convertor and I love it.  Nothing beats the psx pad  

My 1st cabinet which I'm starting now, long time comming, is going to be for fighting games, primarly SC2, shooting games, primarly TC3, and DDR!!! YAH!!

Plan on doing competition 8 way stick, 8 competition buttons, 4 top, 4 bottom, 2 select button on front, and leaning towards 2 rectagle illuminated start buttons  

Also if I do want to play PC games with my CP, no plans atm however, I can use psx->usb convertors.  Anyone know if I can do this with mame? if not it's not a big deal.

[paigeoliver]

Mame probably supports more kinds of inputs than any other PC Application known to man. If windows sees it as a joystick then it will work with Mame.

[armad1ll0]

stay away from the PS2 black pad. All of the buttons are analog and it's a mess inside to deal with.

Read my new thread on hacking a dualshock PSOne pad.

[Babs]

I was thinking more of getting a couple of cheap pads to hack up. I hoped more than anything, that they would be less complicated due to the cheap nature of their build and parts. I realised they were almost 'pressure sensitive' for want of a better description but wasn't sure how it was implemented.

[Hoe]

GC controllers have both analog and digital for their triggers. Thouse controllers are really hard to 'trace' points on, since the wires are a ---smurfette--- to see (My multimeter was busted while I was doing this).

I'm going to make an adaptor where you can still use the controller as normaly (why kill a 25$ controller?) but still use it as a misc input for cube. Probly wount happen until I get SC2- it's my only insperation.

There are 'holes' where the wiring goes from one side of the controller, to the other. This is probly where I'm going to solder to.