Me Doing Bacteria's D-pad Mod

[palmertech]

just solder the gp2x ground to the controller ground.

to cut it off, just use wire cutters or scisors. point in the right direction, it will crack in a straight line.

there are better ways, but sounds like you are short on tools.

 

[quadomatic]

just solder the gp2x ground to the controller ground.

to cut it off, just use wire cutters or scisors. point in the right direction, it will crack in a straight line.

there are better ways, but sounds like you are short on tools.

Wire Cutters? I thought about that...I'll try my scissors one more time though.

 

[bacteria]

Use a dremel or similar tool:

Circular cutter to slice through mobo.
Sanding drum to GENTLY rub off the covering to get to the copper traces.
Drill bits to cut the holes. Look on my site if you like, as part of my project (eg current Mini-Multi Platform Console system) shows how to do it.

 

[quadomatic]

Wow...apparently scissors actually DO work fairly well for cutting through the mobo. Nice straight cuts. I'll have to desolder some capacitors and stuff so I can safely cut around part of it off so it'll fit properly though.

I also figured out that the reason my flux pen was acting so strange is because the tip has to be pressed down for it to dispense flux...would've been nice to know that earlier.

I don't think I can use a circular cutter, sanding drum, or a drill. I already cut the mobo though, so I don't think I need to worry about that. Is it fine if I just use the tip of the scissor blade to scrape off the covering to reveal the copper traces? It seems to work pretty well. In another d-pad mod thread, the use said they had used their soldering iron to melt a hole for the dpad. It came out pretty clean, though that seems sketchy. Also it seems like a bad idea to melt plastic...any chance I could use a knife or something? Or would the soldering iron be ok?

 

[bacteria]

At last - someone tried my "ugly d-pad mod". I was getting pissed off when people at the time were slating it without trying it. I kept telling them that it worked fine and better than the stock joystick. Downside with it was that it worked for quite a while but wasn't permanent as I didn't use a proper d-pad at the time. At the time I had no electronics experience at all so made a version with tin foil and card which worked.

Don't use scissors to scrape off the covering above copper traces, you might cut it by mistake, use a small screwdriver, gently, instead. Personally I touch the surface lightly with a sanding drum as that does the trick.

You need a flux pen to enable solder to stick to the traces before soldering wires to them; afterwards, hot glue to keep the wire in place.

 

[quadomatic]

At last - someone tried my "ugly d-pad mod". I was getting pissed off when people at the time were slating it without trying it. I kept telling them that it worked fine and better than the stock joystick. Downside with it was that it worked for quite a while but wasn't permanent as I didn't use a proper d-pad at the time. At the time I had no electronics experience at all so made a version with tin foil and card which worked.

Don't use scissors to scrape off the covering above copper traces, you might cut it by mistake, use a small screwdriver, gently, instead. Personally I touch the surface lightly with a sanding drum as that does the trick.

You need a flux pen to enable solder to stick to the traces before soldering wires to them; afterwards, hot glue to keep the wire in place.

Yeah, I don't know why people knocked this mod. It actually works pretty well. Only problem I have is getting double taps to register properly in games like Street Fighter Vs. Marvel Super Heroes. Also it's kinda sticky, but that's my fault. Other than that, it's worlds better than the joystick.

I could go back and do the pivot part again...I rushed that quite a bit.

UPDATE: I went ahead and covered some sticky parts with paper and foil, and now its fantastic. I'm not even sure if replacing it with a GBA dpad would be a good idea, considering this allows for full pivot, while GBA d-pad really isn't meant for fighting games.

Anybody have an idea for a d-pad that WOULD be a good replacement?

 

[bacteria]

Firstly EVERYONE - someone who finally did my (crude) mod and gave feedback about it - "Yeah, I don't know why people knocked this mod. It actually works pretty well.....it's worlds better than the joystick."

I doubt I will get any apologies from the numerous idiots who slated my work a couple of years ago, such is life.

To answer your question quadomatic - the foil and card d-pad was excellent for side scrollers, as the central pivot was only slight, however I would suggest using a d-pad from a Game & Watch mini - small, only 16mm across. E-bay.

 

[quadomatic]

Firstly EVERYONE - someone who finally did my (crude) mod and gave feedback about it - "Yeah, I don't know why people knocked this mod. It actually works pretty well.....it's worlds better than the joystick."

I doubt I will get any apologies from the numerous idiots who slated my work a couple of years ago, such is life.

To answer your question quadomatic - the foil and card d-pad was excellent for side scrollers, as the central pivot was only slight, however I would suggest using a d-pad from a Game & Watch mini - small, only 16mm across. E-bay.



WOAH, game and watch mini is expensive on ebay...probably cuz they're rare. It'd be a shame to buy one and cut it up...lol.

The D-Pad I took out from the GBA seems fine for a d-pad mod, but I was hoping someone would know a good one for fighters; this one is about the same as the GBA one, so I don't think it'd be an improvement. The diagonals on the d-pad mod that's on my GP2X now are AMAZINGLY good. Owning in fighting games now is no longer a crap-shoot like it was with the joystick. I'd hate to give that up.

Do you know any devices that have a saturn-esque d-pad, except small enough to fit on the gp2x? That would probably work pretty well. By saturn esque, I mean a d-pad that is fully round, instead for 4 points.

And yeah, here's a message for those looking for replacement joystick caps, or are still doubting: FORGET THE JOYSTICK. JUST DO THIS MOD. You won't regret it.

I'll post a video later today (maybe tomorrow) to show how good this mod actually is.

UPDATE: Finished making a video of me playing Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter. I'll be uploading it on Vimeo in a bit.

UPDATE 2: Hmmm...apparently I can't use Vimeo or Viddler since both crash Firefox for me (maybe it's because their uploaders are flash based and I'm in linux...I'll just be uploading to YouTube then. Kind of a shame I suppose. My camera actually has a fairly decent recording quality.

 

[quadomatic]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNfy7veuJ8s

Here's the video. It performs quite well, eh?

 

[bacteria]

Indeed, works great. Nice to see you like it.

BTW - have a look on my website - built an awesome new portable!!

 

[quadomatic]

Ugh, the deleted the video! Are you kidding me?

This is why youtube can burn in hell. I'm going to try Vimeo or Viddler again or something.

UPDATE: err, they deleted the high quality video...still, they can burn in hell

 

[bacteria]

No, your video is still there!

 

[xhyldazhk]

What about fighting games? My joystick just went limp yesterday... I play a lot Last Blade 2... but i couldn't make some moves like Kouryu's desperation move when facing right... anyone that is fan of SNK's fighting games have tried this mod? what about the insane hidden super desperation move command sequences for KOF 2002? do this mod work well with those?

 

[bacteria]

Look in his video, action game. Be impressed!

 

[quadomatic]

What about fighting games? My joystick just went limp yesterday... I play a lot Last Blade 2... but i couldn't make some moves like Kouryu's desperation move when facing right... anyone that is fan of SNK's fighting games have tried this mod? what about the insane hidden super desperation move command sequences for KOF 2002? do this mod work well with those?

Umm...if I knew those moves I would make a video showing them. I enjoy playing SNK games but I don't know the moves lists as well as I know capcom's (its quite a change going from the standard down, down-right, right moveset lol) I changed my mod a bit since I was having issues with menus since I put it together really badly. Now its a lot better, though it's just as good as it was before for fighting games.

When I used to play Garou I never really had as good of an experience as I do now. Simple diagonal moves used to be a bitch to do; now its really simple.

If you post the move list or how to do those moves that you're describing, I'll make a video of me playing and trying to pull it off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNfy7veuJ8s

There's the link to the video again. For whatever reason I'm not able to watch HQ videos anymore. It may work for you though.

UPDATE: Oh, apparently the reason I could watch HQ video was because I was using the Flash Player 10 beta (i'm in linux, flash 9 sucks), but I just installed Flash 9 again and I'm all good.

 

[nubie]

Don't use scissors to scrape off the covering above copper traces, you might cut it by mistake, use a small screwdriver, gently, instead. Personally I touch the surface lightly with a sanding drum as that does the trick.

I use a knife, but I scrape gently so as to remove the enamel slowly.

QUOTE
You need a flux pen to enable solder to stick to the traces before soldering wires to them; afterwards, hot glue to keep the wire in place.

I have never used flux on this sort of thing, I use rosin core solder and just tin the trace and the wire, then join them, seems to be plenty sturdy and holds up well over time:

Link to full size

(the one on the right is a modified Geforce6200 video card for the PCI-E x1 slot, and it gets used daily, in fact it is in use right now by my brother )

I find that a 30w iron and desoldering braid are the best in a situation like this. I also get a file and clean/sharpen the tip regularly (or you may prefer wetting a sponge with a spoonful of water and wiping the tip clean before it corrodes)

To each their own, as long as the solder joint is strong, or the switch works.

Bacteria, did you use a GC controller for this mod? Would you recommend the GameCube PCB for this mod?

I am pretty sure I saw somebody do it. Now as to whether it is cost-effective, that I cannot say, if you come across a broken one, you know what to do though .

Could this strip board possibly work? http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.js...rentPage=family

It has two long traces going down the middle, and then shorter traces going down the sides, if you cut the long traces in the middle it would work for up/down, and the other traces aren't connected in the middle. If you connect the wires away from the contact area of the pad it might work. Take the dpad and rubber membrane you plan to use to the store with you, it is in a clear bag so you should be able to see if it will work without any trouble.

Cheers, I wish my GP2X worked (NAND is awol, it halts uboot solid whenever it is probed. I have to load uboot over the Jtag), then I might be thinking about doing this.

 

[xhyldazhk]

I opened my GP2X. I tried to open the joystick case, but noted that 2 of the thingies that snap together the joystick case were soldered as ground pins. But unexpectedly, i noted that the stick was responsive again... So i reassembled my GP2X...

By the way, in Last Blade 2 you need the universal bios, then press select+start to open the bios menu, then enable in cheat database 'play as kouryu 1p'... the desperation move is qcb, hcf + any button.

 

[quadomatic]

I opened my GP2X. I tried to open the joystick case, but noted that 2 of the thingies that snap together the joystick case were soldered as ground pins. But unexpectedly, i noted that the stick was responsive again... So i reassembled my GP2X...

By the way, in Last Blade 2 you need the universal bios, then press select+start to open the bios menu, then enable in cheat database 'play as kouryu 1p'... the desperation move is qcb, hcf + any button.

Not sure what u mean by opening the joystick case..do u mean u tried to take apart the joystick assembly, but couldn't because the soldered pins made it impossible?

Well if its working for now I suppose that's good. But if you decide you want to do the mod, go for it. If you have an MK2, I'll tell you what pin layout to use (the one in the original pdf doesn't work for MK2).

I'll try doing a Last Blade 2 video with that move in the next few days.

 

[quadomatic]

I took apart my GP2X again; I'm going to do the d-pad mod with the GBA D-Pad. It seemed like the d-pad made from the plastic in the video was going to wear away with time, and I wanted to sell my GP2X once I got a Pandora, so I figured it would be a good idea to get the d-pad on it. So, I took the capacitors, diodes, and resistors off the D-Pad pcb from earlier and cut it up to its smaller shape.

I took apart my GP2X, and now I'm trying to figure out how I'm actually going to put the PCB in the gp2x. When I open up the GP2X, I see all the little pieces of plastic that stick into the GP2X pcb to hold it in place, and screw holders and the like. I can't fit the PCB past those things, but this PCB is pretty small to start with.

How exactly do I get around those things?