11/1/2020 0 Comments Usb Joystick Controller Board
However, we are pleased to announce that the assembled USB Host Controller Board V2.4 is back in production.This allows the board to interface with and control any USB slave device - flash drives, keyboards, digital cameras, PS3 game controllers, and much more.
All of the complex USB programming is contained in the microchip so there is NO USB coding required in your application. Usb Joystick Controller Board Code And DebugThis saves valuable programming space and saves you from having to code and debug USB interface routines. ![]() Usb Joystick Controller Board Software To TheDownloading software to the board does not require a specialist programmer because it has a bootloader already installed. We recommend the FTDI Basic breakout board but there are many similar boards and cables available. In order to make the bootloader active though we need to reset the board by briefly pressing the reset button. This needs to be done as short time after clicking the Write button. The easiest way to do this is to hold down the reset button, click Write within the ds30Loader program, then release the reset button. At this point I had a Joystick with a full microswitch conversion - spread across about three feet of workbench The next challenge was to wire up all of the buttons to the controller board. It now has four independent fire buttons and connects via USB, ready for some serious RetroPie gaming action. In my last Instructable I shared the 1963 Pi Tourer Game Console - a fun build but with one flaw, it had no controls for Player 2. Were fixing that today, by bringing back to life a joystick that hasnt seen action for over 30 years. In case you cant see the embedded video its on YouTube at and shows both the joystick and Pi Tourer in action. Supplies: Cheetah 125 Joystick Pimoroni Player X Board Coloured single core cable 6x Microswitches 2x Miniature Push Switches 2x 24mm Arcade Buttons Micro USB cable Add Tip Ask Question Comment Download Step 1: Control Surprise You may think Why not just buy a USB adaptor to use an old joystick with RetroPie (or other emulators) - theres a good reason why not, which I didnt even consider until I had the joystick apart - although there may be multiple buttons (in this case four) theyre all wired to the same function This would be OK for some games, but having multiple buttons as well as Start Select was a must-have for me with this conversion. Before dismantling the joystick I planned to use a standard PiCade controller board, the same as in the Pi Tourer, but the minute I removed the base cover it was clear there just wouldnt be space. On top of that, the original idea had been to wire the existing buttons to the PiCade board and just add some extras for Start Select. As soon as I realised that all the buttons were wired to a single circuit I knew this wouldnt work. The joystick axis controls were the first surprise - the connection for each of these was literally made by a bendy metal cross touching the heads of four screws. Similarly the trigger and thumb buttons just moved other bendy metal around, which was wired to the original circuit board. I guess this was pretty standard in a world before microswitches were so commonplace, but it made me wonder how we ever moved a sprite from one platform to the next with any precision back in the day. ![]() Add Tip Ask Question Comment Download Step 2: Thumb Trigger Arcade I decided to start with something straightforward - the thumb and trigger buttons. The advantage here was that there was plenty of space inside the handgrip to hold switches and cables. For the thumb button I just hot-glued a microswitch to the underside, so that pressing it would push the microswitch against the case of the handgrip - nice and easy The trigger went similarly well, I used a lever microswitch here, holding it in the right place by re-using some of the original metal contact and mash-proofing it with plenty of hot glue. The round buttons in the base were a bit trickier - the buttons themselves were huge, pressing directly against pressure pads on the original circuit board, at least one of which was toast. I debated fixing a microswitch under each of these, but then realised they were almost identical in size to 24mm arcade buttons. I had to drill out the holes by 1mm, but otherwise the modern replacements were a perfect fit, and very similar cosmetically to the originals. Add Tip Ask Question Comment Download Step 3: Directional Drama With the action buttons wired up, albeit with huge dangly cables going nowhere yet, the direction controls were next. Usb Joystick Controller Board Upgrade Them ToI didnt really want to mess too much with these, but knew if I didnt upgrade them to microswitches now Id never get round to doing it later. Conveniently when I removed the screw contacts from their four columns there was juuust enough room to slip in a tiny microswitch, so that the joystick mechanism would click it instead of making contact with a screw head. ![]() I wanted the buttons to be small and slightly out of the way to avoid accidental presses, so added them to the front of the base, pointing forwards, by drilling holes in the case just under where the auto-fire switch used to be. Normal red miniature pushbuttons worked well here, not as satisfyingly clicky as microswitches but fine for this purpose.
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