Console/PC Sticks (360 Chun Li)

[SodaPopinksi]

I was going to wait to post more of these since I have a few almost done but I'm waiting on some materials and figured I've waited long enough. Anyways a while back, last June to be exact I happened by Byrdo's site and thought his sticks were pretty cool. I then saw Timoe's post shortly after detailing the process of making sticks and I decided to try and make some of my own. Then I saw Kaytrim's as well. I bought some wood on eBay last August, some quilted maple and curly maple. Finally got parts ordered in September but I put things on hold because of the Mother Brain project. I figured I'd like to build two sticks for every console I have.

I purchased some Xbox 360 pcb's from HarumaN who does most excellent work soldering and hot gluing the pcb's and this is the first stick I made with one of them. I wanted to try and get a "PRS" (Paul Reed Smith) style guitar finish on this one by using 7/8" quilted maple and purple TransFast water based wood dye. First, I cut the wood pieces, glued it together then rounded over the edges with a router. Sanded by hand (of all the tools I don't have, a sander is one of them hehe) until 220 grit. I then took a damp paper towel to the maple and sanded again with 220 after waiting an hour or so. Repeated the damp cloth/sanding two more times in order to raise the grain several times and then lightly sand it back down so the water based dye wouldn't raise it too badly. Then I applied the TransFast purple dye diluted in warm distilled water with a foam brush. Waited a few hours, then lightly sanded with a flat rubber hand sander with 220 again in order to leave more dye in the grain areas and thus darken them for the second coat of purple dye.

Threw on a second coat of dye...

Then waited a day and then began clear coating with Minwax Polycrylic. I chose this because it is more of a true clear coat for going over colors and supposedly won't amber the color as much as polyurethane. The "lightning-like" quality of the quilted maple really started to show once the clear coat was on. Sanded up a few grits 400, 600, 800, 1200, 1500 and then used 3M rubbing compound and Mylan's wax for an almost-mirror finish. The cp is made from baltic birch and the Soul Caliber Ivy inspired artwork I had printed by MameMarquees. I originally planned to use clear Ultralux buttons so the button discs I made out of MameMarquees marquee material would light up, but when I saw that Seimitsu came out with the new screw style translucent buttons I opted for those in purple. The stick is about 2.75" tall because I originally planned on longer buttons. I actually like it tall like this, it sits well in your lap and it's quite heavy. The small pic within the larger pic shows some of the luster of the quilted maple but its brighter in person.

It's interesting to me why there are no translucent purple buttons aside from Seimitsu's? They must have the market cornered on translucent purple goo.

I wired the Xbox guide wires to a red Wico button and fitted the base with a red led a la Knievel's leaf lighting method 101tm The red guide button led is wired in parallel with a few other red leds and they are powered by the 360 controller's rumble wires. No resistor necessary since the voltage is about 2v or so. I used violet transparent plexiglass I found off ebay for the bottom of the case. The light from the violet leds (violet leaning towards blue more than uv spectrum from superbrightleds) serves as a bit of an "ambilight" hehe along with the light from the red leds as well. I took the pcb off the Sanwa JLF joystick and used cherry microswitches instead since the 360 controller has no common ground. The red wico but is quite blood red but it shows up orange in the camera.

The violet leds/buttons look much more purple in person too. I'm pretty happy with how it came out. One thing about the areas that may look brownish in the pics, this is from the quilted maple being golden (still expensive but not as expensive as the lighter kinds) so its kind of darker wood in areas and in some areas the dye didn't adhere quite as well as others. Still the brownish areas are not pronounced at all like they are in the pics as opposed to in person. It was easier for me to make I think because I have a few cp's under my belt now and can look at other people's projects like Timoe and Kaytrim and pick up a thing or two (like the 400-2000 grit sanding stuff... never sanded much at all in my life til now hehe) One area where I didn't do too well or well, neat, is the wiring, that is hidden though behind the violet plexi! I must give special thanks to HarumaN for the excellent pcb hack and Timoe and Kaytrim especially for detailing their methods of stick making. Oh yeah, one more thing, I used a black 24mm Seimitsu button for the start button, because of the artwork I dropped the back button. I'm hoping that one doesn't come back to bite me at some point!

[SodaPopinksi]

I haven't done anything to this yet, but I'm thinking of making a thin profile 2 player stick with this 1/4" piece of quilted maple. It's about 22" or so, and it's the lighter variety of maple that should have a bit more pop. I was thinking of dying it deep red, clear coating with gloss and housing it within mdf sides of gloss black to make it sort of evil. Perhaps if it came out pretty well I'd even build some kind of cab for it.

[HaRuMaN]

 

Teh hawtness!

That's cool to see what my hacks ended up in...  very nice work!  I like!

[arcadefever]

  the boutons are really cool  very nice panel sir 

[javeryh]

WOW!!!   

Everytime I see one of these things I keep thinking I need to give this a try... totally inspirational and I love the color choice of the stain and everything.

[Kaytrim]

OMG   That is one cool stick.  I tried that with a piece of curly maple and didn't even come close.  I'm going to have to try that with TransTints instead of the cheep stuff I have on hand.

TTFN
Kaytrim

[SodaPopinksi]

Thanks! and you should build one or some javeryh, they are especially nice to have to plug in a cab or bartop for a 2nd, 3rd or 4th player. For me they are cool to realize a cab theme on a much smaller and somewhat less expensive scale, you know like just minus the computer and monitor hehe. This is also my first experience with a microswitch joystick and I can definitely see how they shine in fighting games especially since you can hear all the clicks for the combos.

Also Kaytrim I found the dyes online at drumsupply.com although their site seems to be going under a redesign. They seemed to have the best selection and lowest shipping that I could find. The transtint homepage shows other places though. And if you were ever thinking of dying a stick blue I recommend the sapphire blue over the regular blue. For some reason (maybe I didn't mix it right or something but I tried diff amounts to no avail) the regular blue comes out very light, like a stonewashed jean blue, on the other hand the sapphire is a very rich blue. I will post a pic of a curly maple stick dyed blue later tonight. I noticed the dye gets much deeper in color when you pass over it a few times with the foam brush, I probably coated the wood with it it 4-5 times in all, each time I applied it. I used a very small amount of warm distilled water, like 1/4 cup or so to about 1/2 teaspoon of dye to get it very dark too.  Also this little guitar finishing tutorial was a bit of a help to me.

[SodaPopinksi]

Here's another stick using the same board of quilted maple, I used Transfast sapphire blue and regular polyurethane. The other stick is another tall 2.75" one made of curly maple and the same dye but clear coated with polycrylic, I haven't sanded this one yet. You can see how much darker the blue is on the golden quilted maple compared to the near-white curly maple. Just today I got a cheap sander in the mail from harborfreight, its a sander/buffer and I used the foam buffing pad tonight with pretty decent results:

There are some lines running through the grain of the wood on the quilted maple one, no matter how much I sanded they stayed put. The quilted maple boards I got were kind of weird, they had weird scratchy grain and they were overall very dull. I had to sand like a banshee and started to notice the quilted figure coming through especially at 220 grit, it was cool though, kind of like digging up a buried treasure the more I sanded.

[Kaytrim]

That buffer worked nice.  If you want a real mirror finish try this sanding schedule.  After the clear coat is cured, 2-4 days read the label, use a product called Micro Mesh.  It is a sand paper that starts out at 1500 grit and climbs to a 12,000 grit.  You can use it wet or dry, I use it wet.  Then follow with an automotive rubbing and/or polishing compound.

[javeryh]

12000 grit!!!  I sanded with 1500 on my arcade and it came out mirrored.  12000 grit must be like a piece of silk or something!

Oh yeah, the new stick looks great too.  Where do you guys get the exotic wood?  I know Home Depot doesn't stock it and I don't recall ever seeing it at the local lumber yard...

[Kaytrim]

Head over to WoodNet.net and look at their swap and sell forum.  All kinds of unique and exotic wood shows up there from time to time.  There is a seller that goes by the name of WALNUTS that has great deals.  There is also eBay, Rockler, Woodcraft and other speciality wood working stores and web sites around if you look for them.

TTFN
Kaytrim

[javeryh]

Thanks.  So do you guys have bandsaws and jointers/planers to prep the various pieces of wood?  I don't have any of that stuff (yet) and I'm not sure I'd be able to get all the pieces squared up properly.

[Kaytrim]

I have a small band saw and will be picking up a used jointer this weekend.  I am keeping my eye out for a planer still.  Craigslist is your friend for used tools.

[Kaytrim]

Man I hate you   I just checked out the trans tints at the Rockler website and they have the entire collection on sale 30% off.  I just spent $200 on a nice selection and a few other items I 'needed'.  Between this and other purchases this week I have already over spent my budget for the month.  Guess I am just going to have to put the nose to the grindstone so I can pay for all this. 

TTFN
Kaytrim

[SodaPopinksi]

Wow indeed to 12,000 grit hehe, I'll have to check that out. I kind of like wet sanding with 400-1500 grits, I had never done it before, the dust is quite contained that way. Myself, I don't have many tools, just used a table saw, miter saw, and router. Oh yeah titebond III and clamps, I got some of those rockler box-making clamps to help glue the corners. I bet its nice being able to plane the wood to perfection for the utmost perfect corners.

That is cool they had a good selection of the dyes at rockler, well bad for your wallet hehe, but back when I was looking for them they didn't have that many in stock.

Armed with the knowledge of the first stick, I embarked on a jewelry box for my mother:

I originally planned it to be a light lilac color, but the dye dried up much darker to nuclear Barney-purple levels hehe.

[SodaPopinksi]

Wow, you know,  after all this time I just realized I misspelled Popinski in my name... lol 

[Timoe]

Wow, Soda, your projects are sick.  Way to take it to the next level.   

[SodaPopinksi]

Thanks Timoe, that is high praise coming from expert stick makers like yourself and Kaytrim   I actually made the bulk of the Ivy stick before the holidays but put the finishing touches on it recently. This is a stick I just made recently and finished. A little while back I asked HarumaN to hack some SNES controllers for me. This particular controller, or well now it is a pcb was my own SNES controller back in the day but it was pretty worn so I decided to try and "immortalize" it hehe, into a Donkey Long themed stick. I think it's cool that it's an actual Nintendo pcb and you can see the Nintendo style font on the pcb.

I used MDF this time, MDF feels light as a feather compared the hardwoods like curly and quilted maple. So much easier to sand and rout. Primed and spray painted it, then gave it a few clear coats of Polycrylic, sanding between coats but I didn't sand the last coat, I felt it looked pretty decent with just a bit of texture when you get a good reflection on it.

Sanwa JLF + Sanwa buttons and HarumaN's fine soldering job on the pcb The SNES has a common ground so it makes wiring easier. This is the first control panel I have not used leds on as a matter of fact and it reduces the wire count by a good bit. The printing of the cp graphic was done by the ever-excellent MameMarquees. I messed up in two places: First, you can see the select (1 player) button doesn't quite line up with the graphic  dunno how I messed that up but it's not too bad considering how everything else with the graphic came out pretty nice. I suppose I could redo the cp art to accomodate it, but it's for me, so I can live with it Second I had no idea the orange translucent plexiglass was 3/16 thickness...  I measured for a 1/8" bottom so I was bummed when it didn't sit flush! So instead of buying more special colored plexi off eBay (which is kinda expensive due to shipping) I decided to try and rout 1/16" off the edges by having the edge of the plexi sticking out from under a board clamped down. I used the board to keep the router level and set the bit depth just so. It worked, but it didn't look too hot on the edges with all the router swirls and areas where you can see the change of thickness, so I took some leftover parts express vinyl and covered the edges. I think it looks ok.

I chose a SNES pcb because it's... well, because of it's Nintendo-y-ness hehe plus the fact you can hook it up to a pc with retrousb's SNES-PC adapter. Also, retrousb just came out with Wii adapters (ones for nes and snes pads) so virtual console play is a go. I don't have the game yet, but I noticed some people saying they can't use their digital Wii Hori stick with Super Smash Bros. I was kind of hoping to be able to use this stick with that, but it seems like digital controls are only accessed in that game by turning the Wiimote horizontal and using it's d pad.

[Kaytrim]

Nice DK theme on the case.  What about using the Wii classic controller as the base for the stick.  I've heard that it is easily hacked.  Would that work for Supper Smash Bros?  My son wants that game so much.  Thought I might make him a special controller for it as well.

Keep at it and you'll be selling some too 

Kaytrim

[javeryh]

Wow!  Awesome job!  Do you have a template that you've developed or do you build each stick individually?  I wonder if there is any way to make a few sticks at once using templates and jigs...   

[wana10]

Wow!  Awesome job!  Do you have a template that you've developed or do you build each stick individually?  I wonder if there is any way to make a few sticks at once using templates and jigs...   

i stole this picture from timoe while planning a stick of my own, but looking at it i'd say it's definitely possible to mass produce the shells.

(dang they're pretty- picture taken from his build log here)

on topic: well done SodaP! that dk stick is awesome, love the retro look, and the ivy stick...i know other people said it before me but you nailed that stained guitar look.

[Kaytrim]

Man I hate you   I just checked out the trans tints at the Rockler website and they have the entire collection on sale 30% off.  I just spent $200 on a nice selection and a few other items I 'needed'.  Between this and other purchases this week I have already over spent my budget for the month.  Guess I am just going to have to put the nose to the grindstone so I can pay for all this. 

TTFN
Kaytrim

Well my order arrived yesterday and all I had time for was to just unpack it.  BTW here is a nice mod you might want to consider for the Ivy stick...  I have the parts to make this work if you are interested.     More information can be found here.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgF1KIIpjDU[/youtube]

[SodaPopinksi]

Thanks! The only template I have is a button template I made myself by just looking at a few others out there especially found on the shoryuken forums, so it is by no means official. I also have a few pieces of MDF with varying size holes in them for making small circles with a flush trim bit. The button spacing is tight, if perfectly cut there should be 1/8" between all buttons and the Sanwa button nuts just barely touch each other. I think the joystick is spaced 3.5 inches from the outside hole diameter to the outside diameter of the first buttons. I don't know quite how I came up with that measurement, but I've used it on all my machines thus far. I take this template and copy it and place it over the artwork with low opacity to see what's what. I think I moved the joystick hole over slightly for the DK. Since I drill the button holes, there are little green pixels in the center of each circle I use to mark the wood with thumbtacks. Whenever I have artwork made by MameMarquees I add little crosses in a bright color intersecting the pixel dots so I know where to place the thumbtacks when I have the cp lined up over the wood. Either I do that, or I make a paper copy of the joystick/button template and place it over the cp/wood and push the tacks through to mark the holes for drilling. I still don't know how I messed up that 1 player button grrr lol.

Megaupload link to my Sanwa button layout: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BYRVI7WO

That template is 200dpi, I often use that res when I use MameMarquees because I find a lot more art out there is compatible with 200 rather than 3, like the Ivy image for example.

The large cut outs for top mounting the joysticks are probably best done by a router with a template I'd imagine, but I use an orbital jigsaw since I didn't know how many or which joysticks I would make them with, its rougher but not too bad. I line up the joystick in the hole and trace around the plate to see where I need to cut with the jigsaw. I then rout the small areas left for the joystick plate at whatever depth I need it (For Japanese sticks I believe its 22mm or so from the very bottom of the balltop to the dust washer or cp.)

If you use 3/4 or 5/8 thick wood for the cp top and use sanwa/seimitsu buttons of course you'll need to rout enough of the bottom so you can thread the nuts onto them. Same goes for the sides of the stick if you want to add these buttons for start and such there. For this I have a few pieces of MDF with varying size holes in them to clamp down over the piece and rout circles at whatever depth I need.

What about using the Wii classic controller as the base for the stick.

For some reason, it seems the only way to use a d-pad for movement in SSB Brawl is the wii-mote... even the classic controller d-pad can't be mapped for movement, at least this is what I've read so far from numerous sources, the d-pad is defaulted to "taunt" and you can switch it to other things but not movement.  If thats true I guess the only way to use a stick or hacked classic controller is if you could somehow wire the analog r/l/u/d directions to a joystick.

[Kaytrim]

That is unless you want to try and hack in a Seimitsu analog joystick to the Wii-mote.  The thing is though those are honking huge.

[SodaPopinksi]

That button mod is sweet! I read it on Shoryuken but it was a month or so ago when he was still getting it to work. I was wondering, do you need to use batteries with it? Or just a 5v from a wired controller?

[Kaytrim]

He was having problems with the power from the pad.  TingBoy has the LEDs powered by batteries.  I am going to take it a step further and figure out how to get all the power from the pad.

TTFN
Kaytrim

[Kaytrim]

What about using the Wii classic controller as the base for the stick.

For some reason, it seems the only way to use a d-pad for movement in SSB Brawl is the wii-mote... even the classic controller d-pad can't be mapped for movement, at least this is what I've read so far from numerous sources, the d-pad is defaulted to "taunt" and you can switch it to other things but not movement.  If thats true I guess the only way to use a stick or hacked classic controller is if you could somehow wire the analog r/l/u/d directions to a joystick.

I checked on Nintendo's website for SSB Brawl and they list the classic controller and GameCube controller as compatible.  If that is the case then hacking the classic controller will be the ticket.

** edit:  It may not be that easy.  Here is some more information on how the game plays on each of the controllers.  Still looks like you use the thumb sticks to move.

[SodaPopinksi]

I was excited to show another stick today but I may not finish it just yet, should take my time with it anyways. It may seem like I'm churning these out quickly hehe but I cut all the hardwood back in the fall, just stained and clear coated recently and such. Here are the buttons though. If one can figure out the Mandarin letters you'll know who's on this stick

[SodaPopinksi]

Finished! Xbox 360 controller with Chun Li theme. Curly maple dyed sapphire blue with polycrylic clear coat and Ultimarc's Ultralux buttons w/ Groovy Game Gear's MicroLeafs w/ MameMarquees marquee material cut for the button discs. Works real nice the marquee material illuminates just fine in the clear buttons, the buttons are a bit brighter than the pic, but I switched my camera's setting to nighttime to get more detail. When I got an arcade marquee printed from Mamemarquees I put some of these button discs in the extra space and cut them out to fit the buttons. I tried to make them look like Chinese lanterns and coordinated the colors of the 360 buttons in the lantern graphics. I made the button designs sort of transparent too so they seem like they are printed on rice paper. The Mandarin letters are Chun (spring) Li (beautiful)

Thanks to HarumaN once again for the hack, he also hacked the rumble motors for this one. I took two mini-sd card holders and drilled a 3/8 hole in each of them. Then placed two white superbright leds in each hole, hooked them to the rumble motor wires and screwed down the sd card holders. Didn't use a resistors for these rumble leds as I think it's somewhere around 2 volts they're getting when activated. Used translucent blue plexi for the back. Took out the JLF's pcb and used cherry microswitches instead since no common ground.

[somunny]

Absolutely beautiful!   

[dmworking247]

I love that Chun Li stick... well done!

Question for you: How is the plexi held down? On other sticks I'm seeing screws through the plexy into the supports underneath, but not here?

I really want to build a few sticks like this for my own use and a few friends once I finish a few projects and can set up my tools to knock them out quicker.

The only thing thats really discouraging me is the time consuming controller hacks... if only that part were faster & easier I'd build a stack of these myself.  I love the customizability of this style.

Oh and I like the sound of that 'LED rumble' hack, I gather it causes the LED to flicker where usually the motors would kick in? Genius!