USB Gamepad 3

Did some soldering this morning, got the triggers wired up and labeled for when I get to soldering it to the numpad board.

Started on the buttons, doing the SMT tact switches first. Tried attaching some wire to the pins and feeding it through the board.

(Sorry for the blurry pic, will take the good camera down with me next time XD)
 It works, but its tedious and ugly. Found a way to make some copper pads for the perfboard. Will give that a try later.

Update:
Gave the copper pads a try. Much prettier XD
(first idea on the right, the new copper pad on the left.)


It's a pain in the neck to make the little copper pads, but in the end, it's worth it.
Got all the surface mount buttons attached.


Next I have to start the wonderful process of wiring all the buttons up. Then attach them to the Numpad board.
That last part is pretty terrifying.

Update:
Did roughly half of the wiring. Got all the buttons for pins 5, 7, 8, and 9 wired up together.


In between spurts of working on that, I found some time to work on my mom's gift for Mothers Day.

Then I went to the bar with my buddy. So no more work til morning.

If i have a chance to work on it that is XD

Part 1    Part 2

USB Gamepad 2

Traced out the circuit connections for the numpad. So now I have a pinout for wiring the buttons up.

Also gave the layout a try on the perfboard, gonna need to raise the face buttons up some to get them level with the microswitches.

Update:
Got the actual wiring figured out for the buttons. Tact switches are surface mount, so gonna have to figure something out for extending the pins below the perfboard. Threw together some standoffs made out of paper clips to keep everything from shorting.

The lines between the buttons represent common pins. Red is the pin number on the left, and black is the number on the right.

Pics coming later.

Tomorrow I should be able to start on soldering things, and give my button idea a try.

Update:
Scavenged some wire from one of the mice I took the buttons from :D

Part 1    Part 3

USB Gamepad

First, some background:
So after reading an article on hacking keypads not too long ago, I got it into my head that I had to make use of that information.
Originally I was going to wait a while and buy some arcade buttons and a joystick but that gets expensive quickly. Then I realized there were quite a few old PC mice laying around and an Altoids tin sitting around waiting for a project. So now I've decided to build a simple controller for playing games like Team Fortress Arcade, or using with emulators. I believe I have everything I need atm, (aside from some leds, resistors, and paint but those can be added later) and I haven't spent very much at all ~$13

Here's what I'm working with:

• Altoids Tin
• USB Numpad
• 6 Microswitches
• 4 Tactile Switches
• 2 Push Buttons
• Perf BoardSome Plastic

Currently, I have a basic sketch for the layout, and the Numpad taken apart ready for tracing the button layout.

I'll update this post with a pic or two of the stuff going into it, but for now, my phone refuses. I'll update the thread as I make progress as well.

Part 2    Part 3