cheap starter controller

[Nexus]

so just starting my cab, been looking about to get prices and stumbled across this:

http://www.thegametrain.com/arcade-figh ... j9hnl5lr85

its [s]ps\2[/s] USB and works with pc, think i could take casing apart and have it in the control panel, rather than me buying and wiring it all seperatly via keyboard hack?


and hello, good to be here.......

edited....

[delusional29]

Have you checked out Xgaming.com?

[Nexus]

thanks DeLuSioNaL29, but its all way too expensive on there for me ; ;

im on a super tight budget, as in non existent, lol..


first im building a super cheap mini cab for my daughter, to see if 1) i COULD make it 2) to get the wife to invest some money into a good 1.

once i can show here a working professional looking cab, ill be able to re-make my daughters 1, and make my own..

sadly im recently been made redundant so thats why im even doing it on a small budget.

if i but micro switches, buttons and a joy stick, i could hack that into a keyboard PCB, thats right?

[jamie]

Hi nexus,

I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to salvage the controls from that fighting stick. It should be a simple job, don't know if the quality is any good tho?

Or as you said you could buy the buttons and joysticks and hack them into a wired keyboard to save on the price of a control interface. Try the Arcade depot/Gremlin solutions on Ebay they have some very cheap buttons and sticks. I recently bought some black buttons of them to use as admin buttons for 99p each. Cant help you with the actual hacking of the keyboard tho as I've always used an Ipac myself. Plenty of people on this site do use keyboard hacks tho so will be able to help you out. Bllpla springs to mind, take a look at his excellent cab viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1885

Hope this helps

Jamie

[Kman]

thanks DeLuSioNaL29, but its all way too expensive on there for me ; ;
im on a super tight budget, as in non existent, lol..

first im building a super cheap mini cab for my daughter, to see if 1) i COULD make it 2) to get the wife to invest some money into a good 1.
once i can show here a working professional looking cab, ill be able to re-make my daughters 1, and make my own..
sadly im recently been made redundant so thats why im even doing it on a small budget.
if i but micro switches, buttons and a joy stick, i could hack that into a keyboard PCB, thats right?

I have some info on my webpage about keyboard hacks...
http://www.koskimaki.se/MyArcadePC.htm

[jamie]

Hi Kman,

Im impressed buddy. I really hope that you get to build a full size cab some day soon because you've done a great job so far with that little box. I especially like how you've hacked the snes controllers.
My soldering skills aren't that great tho so I don't think I will be attempting anything similar myself.

Keep us posted, I can't wait to see the finished product.

[Nexus]

tjhanks guys, i'm on your page right now kman.

EDIT:

so my checklist ill need is, spare usb keyboard, micro switch (but which one?) buttons and quite a bit of wire, but it should be easy enough to solder the buttons at least/

im guessing from there the joy stick would just be soldered as 8 keys ( 1 for each direction), does this mean joystick comes with 8 switches?

thanks again

[Kman]

A joystick normaly uses 4 "buttons" (up, down, left & right). The diagonals comes from pressing two buttons at once.

[Nexus]

cheers kman, that will help, i coulda got myself into a right pickle there. thank you

[Kman]

You might also need to read up on the matter of Ghost Keys.... In short pressing multiple keys might trigger even more keys (ghost keys) to be pressed. The solution is that you add LED's.. they don't let the current flow "in the wrong direction".
Google it and you soon find info.

[delusional29]

Have you considered hacking a USB controller?

Check out this topic at BYOAC: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=84548.0

For under $10 you can hack your own and connect standard Happ Buttons, etc to the controller.

~ DeLuSioNaL

[Nexus]

i think ima go the usb controller method, its even easier than keyboard hack and it should eliminate the GHOST key problem.

sweets, now i just gotta find one in the uk, shouldn't be too hard (i hope).

thanks guy's.

[delusional29]

I believe Deal Extreme offers free worldwide shipping. Can't go wrong there.

~ D