Mario Kart Micro Cabinet

[noobdan]

Hi all! Firstly I'd like to intorduce myself, my name is Daniel and I have recently started making my own micro cabinet based around the popular Gameboy SP route.

So far everything has been going to plan, I have sourced all the relevant parts and designed/made my own cabinet. It will also have a light up marquee and have recently (but not shown in the photos) added another pair of speakers under the marquee. Here are some photos to do the talking. 






Now, everything has halted because I have one of these digikey joysticks. And for some reason (maybe I'm being stupid) it's not working properly. This is how I've wired up the CPU, and as far as I'm aware, is correct;



Now on the joystick end, I have all four inner contacts of the D-pad running up and connecting to the central common pin. And the outer contacts on the D-pad each running to the four outer pins on the stick. But for some reason I still cannot get it to function properly, If someone has used one of these little digikey joysticks before, could you shead some light for me please?

[BurgerKingDiamond]

it's possible that the gba controls aren't common ground.

[noobdan]

See now this is where I am a total noob, I have no idea how to do electrical work (bar soldering stuff together) so I really wouldn't know how to check if they aren't common. I just assumed that they are.

[Drnick]

I would use a multimeter and touch 2 known ground points, if they are common it should show a connection. but the following picture shows me its not common ground
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60707580@N04/6024899902/#

[PL1]

I would use a multimeter and touch 2 known ground points, if they are common it should show a connection. but the following picture shows me its not common ground
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60707580@N04/6024899902/#

Umm, did you notice the next picture?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60707580@N04/6024897418/#in/photostream

Sure looks like a common ground to me.


Scott

[Drnick]

doh 

[noobdan]

@PL1 I think a very big penny has just dropped whilst looking at the photo you found. Just going to try a bit of soldering and report back on how it went. 

[PL1]

@PL1 I think a very big penny has just dropped whilst looking at the photo you found. Just going to try a bit of soldering and report back on how it went. 

Thank Drnick.  I just followed his link and looked at the next picture.

BTW you don't need to solder on the Grayhill joystick pins. The joystick pins fit snugly into .100" header sockets like this or this.  The spacing is wrong to fit more than one pin to a connector, but 5 individual connections works great.  These box-style socket pins can be easily removed from the connector body.



CAUTION:  The joystick pins aren't quite long enough to work properly with the commonly used ramp-style KK100-type contacts like this.




Scott

[noobdan]

Thank you both 

The connectors are a great idea since the bottom of this joystick is looking a tad bit messy. I have now managed to get control to the joystick.= and cycle through the menu screens! Result, however the right direction doesn't work full stop. I double checked the photo that was linked and I have wired it up correctly to that. I think this may be down to me overheating the joystick (been soldering it frequently over the last four days) So I think it may be time for a new one.  But this is a leap ahead in the right direction!