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dmworking247's Desktop Controllers [look! photos! :) ]

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pmc:
Thank you for the construction detail. It looks like narrow primed baseboard stock might work well for this. Isn't architrave stock too fancy? I might try to build one. It seems so simple (famous last words). Some more questions if you have the time:

How did you finish that white one? It's amazingly smooth and glossy.

The inset for the buttons (on the front) looks like you maybe shaped it with a router? Or are they just drilled and then the edges are smoothed over with sandpaper?

No issues with cracking the quarter-round when you install the bottom plate? I'm assuming you have to pre-drill to be sure.

I'm guessing that 3mm is about 1/8" (Americans are metric-challenged).

-Patrick

dmworking247:
Theres 25.4mm in an Inch (or 2.54 cm). So 12mm is just under 1/2 inch, for example.

The white glossy surface was achieved by first painting it with a grey primer, then sanding with 600 grit, another coat of primer, another sanding.

I then proceeded to paint it 5 or 6 times with a high gloss white spray paint, sanding very lightly with 1200 'wet & dry' sandpaper in between.

These two were just sample sticks though and I used fairly cheap paint. I'm about to paint a few more with a higher grade paint.

I'm tempted to bust out my air compressor but its so much hassle/cleanup for small jobs like this, hence I've been using spray cans.

venkman:
they look cool!

i especially like the sunken buttons on the front of the chun-li one.  8)

dmworking247:
I've just completed my 'showcase' desktop controller (yes, another project I started for no other reason than "to see if I could").

There's some special touches to this controller that I think a lot of you will be interested in, including a new nifty gadget designed by a member of AussieArcade forums (not sure if he's a member here): David_AVD.

This control panel is WIRELESS, and has a hardware-LED controller which lights up the buttons AS THEY'RE PRESSED! Better yet, this nifty little LED controller doesn't require a PC, and will even work on original arcade gear! I know I've seen one of the other Desktop Controller gurus do a similar thing, but I'm not sure how, or whether these boards make an easier solution? More on that later.

For now, I'd like to present to you, the:

The TMNT Pimped out Wireless Desktop Controller  :laugh2:


Here's a photo of the top of the Control Panel using a flash. Artwork is a highres scan of a TMNT game cover, with some creative photoshop in the middle to remove the "TMNT" logo that would have been obscured by the buttons, and instead incorporated a 'fade to black' version of my 'green arcade matrix code', then overlayed their weapons back on top of it.


A photo of the front & side. The balltop is only temporary, I will be replacing it with a white balltop. I considered using an illuminated balltop too, but I might save that for another project as this is wireless so I don't want too much unnecessary drain on the batteries.


A photo of the paintwork (with flash)


A photo of the paintwork (without flash). This is a metallic automotive spraycan paint from Superheap Auto (approx $20).



A photo of the rats nest of wiring before I cleaned it up a little (part of the loose wires is to run a on/off switch and 'power LED' which is now mounted on the base-plate (underneath panel). You can see the hacked wireless Playstation 2 controller from DealExtreme.com. At the top you can see David's LED controller (its about the width of a normal pushbutton!) and on the upper right you can see the battery pack.


A photo of David_AVD's LED controller in action. Notice the pushed buttons are lit up. The photo exagerates the 'glow' of the 'unpressed' buttons. At night they look about as bright as a 'glow in the dark' object, and during the daytime you can't see the glow (but you can certainly see when the buttons are pushed!).

Finally, here's a Youtube Video of it in action:
[youtube]http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=V6VGIH07HlQ[/youtube]

Some more details on David's nifty LED controller (link and wiring diagram) to follow!

dmworking247:
Ok, for those of you interested in the 'how' of the LED controller:

David was kind enough to design two new PCBs for this 'hardware LED controller" I had in mind for this project. The one featured in the post above can controll 6 LEDs for pushbuttons.

The second PCB is very similar, except it can take 4 inputs to a single LED output. This is so that you can hook it up to a joystick (with a hollow shaft an an illuminated balltop) so that it lights up whenver you move it.

He's now selling them on his website for A$10 (A$8 for the Joystick LED controller). Thats about 20c in USD at the moment right? When you compare that to alternatives (and the fact that this is a hardware-only solution, thus making it viable for genuine arcade gear) I reckon that's a pretty good deal.

In my clumsy way of explaining it, his PCB works by taking an input from the "positive" wire on your button microswitches/leaf switches.  You then supply the board 5v from your Jamma or USB/Keyboard power source (whatever is controlling your buttons).  When a power button is not pressed, the PCB is sensing a drop in the voltage on that button, but when it is pushed, it senses the closed circuit (on the button) and in turn lights up the corresponding LED.

The board only requires one wire to come from the button/microswitch. The only condition is that the 'negative/ground' for all of your buttons is common (which is fine for Jamma and the controllers I've used in this thread, but some cheap hacks might have separate grounds for each button).

And now, some wiring instructions:


The purchase price includes some crimp connectors and a plug so that you can easily plug/unplug the wires from the controller. You don't need to solder, but I always do because I'm fussy. :)

Note:
An interesting thing happened with the wireless Desktop Control Panel I posted about above. David designed this PCB for a FIVE VOLT DC input. It already includes in-line resistors so that you can put regular 3.3v LEDs in your buttons without any further modification. This PCB is designed so that the LEDS are usually OFF, and come ON when pushed.

Because I used mine in a wireless controller, it runs on about 3.1v. The side effect was that I get that 'low glow' in the buttons when not pushed, then full power when pushed. This actually worked out exceptionally well for me as I happened to wire the PCB's power to the transmitter of the wireless controller, and accidentally got:
Controller is out of range = Power LED on, button lights OFF
Controller is within range of transmitter = Buttons 'glow'
Controller is in range and button is pushed = Button lights up to full brightness.

This is a cool 'accidental feature' if you happen to use this in a wireless (or below 5v) project, but its important to note that the original design (what you get with a 5v source) is:
Button pressed=LED ON
Button not pressed=LED OFF.

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