Homebrew Turbo controller schematic...

[MM007]

This circuit I made should allow you to make turbo fuction for controllers with many buttons and with minimal space. The speed of the circuit is controlled by R1, R2, and C1 values.

http://www.angelfire.com/oh5/mm007/turbo.bmp

Copy and paste into your browser, since clicking on angelfire links doesn't work...and don't let the fact that it is a bitmap scare you. It is only a 28K monochrome bitmap pic. ^^

Also, if you need more buttons to be turbo'd, simply connect the clock and buttons to more AND gates.

NOTE: To work, the original connections between the button and the corresponding input pin on the IC of the controller MUST be severed.

[SgtBowhack]

Don't you just hook up the clock signal as the opposite pad rather than common? That'd send the turbo signal as fast as the controller was able to take advantage of it, right?
Like, if they're signal low buttons, you'd normally have the button and ground as the pair that is joined when the button is pressed, right?
But if you hook up the button signal pin and the clock, it would register as a press each time? Or am I confused here...
I suppose it wouldn't necessarily know you pressed the button again unless you shifted the clock signal some? Has anyone tried just hooking up the clock signal directly?

[HK-47]

Crappy angelfire...

[MM007]

Don't you just hook up the clock signal as the opposite pad rather than common? That'd send the turbo signal as fast as the controller was able to take advantage of it, right?
Like, if they're signal low buttons, you'd normally have the button and ground as the pair that is joined when the button is pressed, right?
But if you hook up the button signal pin and the clock, it would register as a press each time? Or am I confused here...
I suppose it wouldn't necessarily know you pressed the button again unless you shifted the clock signal some? Has anyone tried just hooking up the clock signal directly?

I dunno...the AND gate could be put before the button if you wanted, perhaps...but then you have to connect an extra wire to a soldering point you have to make or put right on the button.

I did it this way because you can connect half the wires right to the controller's IC chip.

[SgtBowhack]

No, ignore your circuit for a sec and bear with me. Instead of ground being the common, simply make the clock be the common for every button. Wouldn't that make them all turbo? If you just took the system's clock signal that already existed, and shifted it a little off so that when it polled that pin, it would notice a shift from low/high or high/low (making it go "Oh! The button is pressed!") Why wouldn't that work?

[MM007]

No, ignore your circuit for a sec and bear with me. Instead of ground being the common, simply make the clock be the common for every button. Wouldn't that make them all turbo? If you just took the system's clock signal that already existed, and shifted it a little off so that when it polled that pin, it would notice a shift from low/high or high/low (making it go "Oh! The button is pressed!") Why wouldn't that work?

Well, first, If I did that, and made all the buttons turbo, they could not select which buttons would and wouldn't be turbo. Would you REALLY want all your buttons on turbo for every game you wanted one button to be turbo on? Think about it. You have to have individual button settings for the best turbo methods, esp. for navigating game menus.

Second, if I used the clock signal already present, that means that the clock signal for the buttons would NOT be able to be set by the potentiometer, and NOT customizable. Granted every button runs at the same speed in this design, but at least that one speed can be controlled by the user.

If you were tight on space, and needed turno with just 1 IC, then using the existing clock wouldn't be a bad idea, esp. if you didn't care how fast the turbo was.

However, on newer systems, the clock may be higher than the AND gate chip can go, or at least go so fast it may need cooling....and we can't put a heat sink inside a controller.

[SgtBowhack]

Here's a thought- make a Turbo switch that just switches whether all of the buttons on the controller are turbo or not when you need it It'd be an easy SPDT: ground - common - clock
You could really add such switches for any button you wanted too (and that may actually have been what they did with some older pads?)

[MM007]

Here's a thought- make a Turbo switch that just switches whether all of the buttons on the controller are turbo or not when you need it It'd be an easy SPDT: ground - common - clock
You could really add such switches for any button you wanted too (and that may actually have been what they did with some older pads?)

It is NOT easy, and can not dictate which buttons are turbo or not.

Consider what may happen:

1. The IC, notmally connected to positive, may be connected to clock when you throw the switch, turning the IC off and on like the button signals, making the controller stop working correctly, if it works at all.

2. The D-Pad(which should NEVER be turbo) and any analog joysticks(also should NEVER be turbo) would be turbo as well, working off and on when they should ALWAYS be constant.

These circumstances would require serious examination of the power distribution system before modification of the actual controller board to work correctly, beyond what my mod implies(soldering 2 leads per button and severing a trace for each button, not changing the power system at all except adding power to the ICs), for less end result(no button select).

[SgtBowhack]

OR, you could cut the common trace (which you'd have to do to make the switch anyway- sorry I didn't mention it earlier), and have it only hooked up to the right-hand side of the controller. But since you're severing connections anyway, I don't see how this is any different. It's just done with a switch that allows you to turn off the turbo when you want...
I'm not even really sure that my method would work half the time, I'm just wondering if it's even a reasonable thought, to be honest.

[MM007]

OR, you could cut the common trace (which you'd have to do to make the switch anyway- sorry I didn't mention it earlier), and have it only hooked up to the right-hand side of the controller. But since you're severing connections anyway, I don't see how this is any different. It's just done with a switch that allows you to turn off the turbo when you want...
I'm not even really sure that my method would work half the time, I'm just wondering if it's even a reasonable thought, to be honest.

It would work electrically, but some action buttons exist on the left (R1 and R2) and analog sticks exist on the right side of modern controllers.

Also, and I cannot stress this enough, controllers MUST have individual button-specific turbo settings!!! I don't want to have to throw a switch everytime I want to go from a turbo button to a non-turbo button and I WILL want some buttons turbo, some buttons not, and I want them different for each game.

[SgtBowhack]

I don't see how your circuit does this any better then. You don't have any way to switch what buttons are getting the turbo as far as I can tell, unless you're pulling wires out mid-game (in which case I'd imagine a switch would be nicer, yeah?) What is simply being changed is the lack of the 555 timer being needed... I don't see what the difference is other than that. You're basically creating a second bridging (which is what the switch would end up doing). Other than the timing, they're equivalent solutions.

[MM007]

I don't see how your circuit does this any better then. You don't have any way to switch what buttons are getting the turbo as far as I can tell, unless you're pulling wires out mid-game (in which case I'd imagine a switch would be nicer, yeah?) What is simply being changed is the lack of the 555 timer being needed... I don't see what the difference is other than that. You're basically creating a second bridging (which is what the switch would end up doing). Other than the timing, they're equivalent solutions.

Do you know what an AND gate does?

If not, I don't have time right now to tell you. Read up on IC logic and post a followup, as I gtg for the night. It is after 1 AM here. Either that or Ask Gannon. He understands the design.

See ya.

[SgtBowhack]

Ah! I get it now. So you don't have the change the commons. Right. With you now. So, my question now is- instead of the 555 timer, would using a shifted clock signal from the system work? But you've answered that. I didn't see that you had SPDT switches of your own in there, which is where I was getting confused.

And anyway, it seems you were missing what I was saying too. The AND gates don't switch whether you're getting turbo or not- the switches do. And they're still equivalent solutions, one's just sillier (but cheaper!) to do (mine). I think I will do my solution of "buy cheap 3rd party controllers with turbo switches" regardless

[MM007]

Ah! I get it now. So you don't have the change the commons. Right. With you now. So, my question now is- instead of the 555 timer, would using a shifted clock signal from the system work? But you've answered that. I didn't see that you had SPDT switches of your own in there, which is where I was getting confused.

And anyway, it seems you were missing what I was saying too. The AND gates don't switch whether you're getting turbo or not- the switches do. And they're still equivalent solutions, one's just sillier (but cheaper!) to do (mine). I think I will do my solution of "buy cheap 3rd party controllers with turbo switches" regardless

Maybe I would understand what you are trying to do better if you gave a schematic rather than words...

[SgtBowhack]

It's easy. Really. I was just saying that rather than that whole 555 timer circuit on the left-hand side, you can just plug in the system's clock (since it's pretty much fed to every controller known to man). Anyway, I've pretty much convinced myself that that sort of circuit probably wouldn't be the most reliable, since it might not even detect that there's a shift from low to high on the pin. Anyway, now that I understand your circuit, I commend you You have obviously given this about 100x more thought than I have.