tim rambles about his project

[timmeh87]

its late and im bored, but i dont want to go to bed yet. so im going to just talk about my portable.

last day or two ive been working on the controller. i took one apart, and began to examine it. i pinponted the exact cause of joystick looseness, and unsucessfully tried to fix it by building up a layer of nail polish where the plastic wears down. didnt work. epoxy might have but i didnt try. its not that loose.

i tried to cut off the board on either side, where the buttons are. i wanted to use the original buttons if possible, not tact switches. i scored it with a razor blade, then broke it with wire cutters. my score lines were so curvy and angled that the break just took its own path. this angered me, but i figured it all out. i rewired the main part of the board so it was fully powered again, and tested it, and it woked, and i was happy again.

so then i started effing with the memory pack. i knew i wanted a built-in memory pack, and i was iffy about rumble or not. i originally said id make it switch between the two, but i think i have scrapped the idea of rumble, due to space considerations, and not wanting to solder 32 more wires. the option is always there for later.

yeah, but i wired an memory pack on, it didnt work, i took it off, ran it in a normal controller, and it worked, so i put it back on, and it didnt work, so i took it off again, and then it didnt work in a normal controller either, then while it was off i noticed i had no less than 5 cold solder joints, then i put a different one on and it worked.

whew. so that took me all day.

anyways, i found a little nook to put the boards, underneath the battery. i had actually planned for this to be air space, i was excited to find that this component fit there.

i found a fan too, its really small (like 20 or 30mm or something), and rated for 24v, 70mA. at 7.4v, it draws 25mA, and runs silent and gently. this is perfect, since once its said and done, the system dosent really get that hot anyways. the only problem is that 4 out of 10 times, it dosent start, and you have to give it a nudge to get it going. does anyone know of a simple circuit that can give a momentary voltage spike?

i made a mock up of what the case would look like in blue foam. it ended up looking exactly like a gameboy advace, but 5x larger. id say its about the size of bens. or something. im going to have to make another, much more symmetrical and less fugly one. this i will use as the mould for my fiberglass (or carbon fiber?) case. maybe ill take pics later.

and i made most of the lithium protection circuit. im waiting on some MOSFETS, but once i get them it should be cool. which means i get my batteries then... which means im getting closer and closer to being done.

[Bíg Ã]

same with the joystick here. i made a scratch on the b button on the board, and it stopped working, i swapped it with the other controller and that one had a crappy joystick. The other 1 had a stiff joystick, so i attemted to swap it, which was succsesful, but it was lose
i just don't thinl it makes sense

EDIT: then i tried to put something in it to stop it becoming lose (can't remember) but that didn't work

[Bíg Ã]

yeah, very strange...
and, i know i should have bridged over the scratch, but hay, i wasn't thinking straight. it was like 10 in the morning

[sniper_spike]

http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/console/nintendo/n64cont.htm

[marshallh]

Alright, might as well give my State of the <s>Union</s> Portable Address.

1. So far the case is so cool you all'd die if you saw it. It's eerily like an oversized GBA.
2. For the buttons, I took a fried controller board and soldered between points on that board and the controller board. That way I can put the buttons where I need them. I've found there is no way to repair worn out joysticks, just buy a new one from Lik-Sang.
3. All the electronics are working. It's all running of a battery which I can gut and proceed to fit into the portable.

I like vacuum forming!

[Krepticor]

i'm looking for a third party controller that doesn't use photo-diodes

I plan to place an old playstation joystick in its place and be done with it