My Dreamcast Controller Mod

Includes but not limited to: SNES, Genesis, Sega CD, PlayStation 1, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, Game Gear and I guess the Virtual Boy.

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11up
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My Dreamcast Controller Mod

Post by 11up »

Hi everyone, I've been enjoying checking this awesome forum out for a few months now. :D I've caught the moddin fever and decided to join up.
Although I don't have the stuff and a spare Game-cube for making a GC portable yet, I can still mod other stuff in the mean time and build up my skills.
Here's one of the mods I did, although it needs a little polishing up! I pretty much made it so I could plug up one of my genesis and nes controllers into a DC controller using Lan cables! This was mainly for the Gen+ and Nester emulators I burned for my Dreamcast.
Ok, I'm new to image hosting, so if you have problems seeing it I'll try fixing it. Just got an account to Image Shack. :D
Image
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/8776 ... lerpw0.jpg
(The pics of the PCB are from the Genesis Controller's board)
Basically, I took a LAN cable ext. box, took off one side of it and soldered wires form each pin to certain parts of the DC controller's board that go to the buttons, D pad and ground. (Because of the delicate wiring around the D pad I can't put it back until I can find another place for the wires. Hence the electrical tape around it)
After that,(using a chart I made and borrowing ideas from here http://devcast.dcemulation.com/mods/nes/nes.php.) I cut of some lan cable with the connector still there, and soldered its wires(on the other end) to certain pins in the nes controller. With practice, it's easy to do.
Well, it's really fun to play nester with the actual nes controller :D. But what's the point of making removable if you only have one controller to plug up. That's where I started thinking about rigging up my Genesis controller for the Gen+ emu.
I figured out I can take the ground wire going down the lan cable and solder other wires from the ground wire going to one side of all of the buttons. Next taking the other wires in the cable and soldering them to the other side of each button.In this way each button acts like a switch, and the ground supplies the power to send back to the DC controller's buttons. But I had to cut the board up so that the buttons wouldn't send power to the rest of the board. The best part of the mod, is the Genesis controller is in a state which I could just solder it back together, for playing on the Genesis if need it be. :D
I hadn't seen anyone else do this to their Genesis controllers yet and figured it was worth posting up.(And there's pics to prove it too) Sorry if I was long winded :lol:.
Now, to get back to playing Sonic and Knuckles! :D And add a lan plug in to my keyboard! :lol:
UPDATE EDIT: Oh, I finally painted the controller with a matching Sega Genesis theme! :D There's also a shot of the DC controller's guts. Man, I really need to tin those solder joints :lol: . The soldering joints are currently so weak, the tremor pack keeps shacking them loose(But I'm going to mod the 2an port any, so who cares :lol:)
Image
Last edited by 11up on Sat May 26, 2007 3:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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dudex77
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Post by dudex77 »

Nice job! Ive never seen it done with a genesis controller before. What i would love to see done one of these days is if someone made a controller hub that you could plug in Genesis,nes,snes,ps1,turbografx,and neogeo controllers into to play emulators on.
Kurt_ wrote: I would use tact switches but I want the mushy feel. Mushy = God. (I typed that correctly).
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schmellyfart
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Post by schmellyfart »

Sweet! Is this your first mod? I like the idea of putting the jack in a keyboard .
11up
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Post by 11up »

I'm glad you guys like it :D . Yes Schmellyfart, (Like that name by the way :lol: ) this is my first mod, and I plan to do more work to it. Maybe paint the DC controller with a Genny theme?
Once I can figure out what curcuits go the chips in the analog stick of a official DC controller, I'll add a switch between it and the D pad so that I not only play DC emus, but also play SA2 with a genesis pad! :lol: (I wouldn't mind if anyone can help me here.) There's so much potential with this mod, I could hook up almost any controller for emulation. Once I add a VGA plug on the other side of the controller I'll get a SNES controller rigged for it. :lol:
Dudex77, same here about the controller hub thing. Maybe if I add a VGA plug to the keyboard instead, I could rig almost any of the controllers you mentioned into it.(The ps1's analog sticks would be a challenge, but possible with a little work. :wink: ) And now, to try playing nes games with a Genesis pad! :lol:
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dudex77
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Post by dudex77 »

well you dont need to analog sticks with the ps1 controller since bleem doesnt support it anyway. If you figure out how to make the analog stick digital let me know because that would make my DC arcade idea even better. Imagine being able to play JSR with an arcade stick
Kurt_ wrote: I would use tact switches but I want the mushy feel. Mushy = God. (I typed that correctly).
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11up
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Post by 11up »

Thanks for telling me that about bleem dudex77, I went ahead and looked at a printer cable, found twelve wires. That's roughly enough wires to work all the buttons on a Dreamcast controller plus ground,(when applying what I learned from Genesis controller mod) and all that coming from the ps1 controller.(if I use a 15 pin VGA cable, there might be enough extra wires for the Control stick) I'll find another ps1 controller to experiment with. I'm going with the psx controllers because their PCB's aren't as hard to hack as the Dual Shock 2 controllers. (I've never seen plastic curcuitry in all of my life :shock:)

This just gave me a bunch of ideas on converting the analog stick to digital buttons http://benheck.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=18529. and this too http://www.acidmods.com/Wiki/tiki-index ... 20joystick :D And with a bit more work, you could convert digital to analog! Sorry if my posts are so long, but this is interesting stuff and I like the idea of using almost any other controller on my Dreamcast. Mmm...maybe I could rig a DC controller to work on the game cube! :lol:
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dudex77
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Post by dudex77 »

what would be cool is if you got a pos1 controller working along with l2 and r2 ive seen it done before with a commercial adapter ad it works with bleem but i dont know how
Kurt_ wrote: I would use tact switches but I want the mushy feel. Mushy = God. (I typed that correctly).
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tom61
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Post by tom61 »

dudex77 wrote:what would be cool is if you got a pos1 controller working along with l2 and r2 ive seen it done before with a commercial adapter ad it works with bleem but i dont know how
You mean the Bleempod? The maplebus protocol supports far more buttons and at least one more analog stick than the DC's normal controller has, so they just added support to Bleem and created the Bleempod to adapt the PS1 pad with all the buttons. I'm not sure if any other adapters support L2 and R2 as their own buttons. The adapter I have just maps them to L and R on the Dreamcast pad.
dudex77
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Post by dudex77 »

wow cool stuff. The bleempod was never released but theres an adapter that works like the same way on play-asia
Kurt_ wrote: I would use tact switches but I want the mushy feel. Mushy = God. (I typed that correctly).
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-=FamilyGuy=-
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Post by -=FamilyGuy=- »

Hey Awsome mod ! I just happen to try to do it too(I find it extra neat with the lan-cable seriously), I got everything I need, including the knowledge to do so, but there's one thing I block on ...

Nes pad got 8 buttons, so you needs 8 buttons +ground ...

8+1=9 ...

A lan cable only got 8 pins ...

So ... did you forgot a button ? ...

Please help me on this one ...

Sorry if it's a stupid question ...


-=Familyguy=-
11up
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Post by 11up »

Sorry everyone, but there's one point I keep forgetting to point out about this mod. If you look at my pics of the Genesis controller board closely enough, you'll notice something about the wiring on the C button, there isn't any! :oops: there wasn't enough room on the lan cable for all of the buttons and ground, so I had to drop the C button.(or in the case of the nes controller, the select button)
Halfway through doing this mod, I didn't realize how important the ground wire was, it was what supplied the controller with power to send any signal in the first place! :oops: . But I went ahead and completed the nes controller since I got this far and well... almost never needed Select anyways, even if I did, I could just reach over for the Y button.
And with the Genny controller, I just left the C button blank since I had doubts about this kind of controller mod working anyway, and didn't want to make another plug just find that out I might have been wrong, I just wanted a more original experience with the sonic games, so C didn't matter. I would personally recommend using something else like a genesis controller ext for a plug or a playstation cord...etc... as this was a 'prototype' and didn't care for the C button or Select anyway. But if you want to go through with the lan thing anyway and keep all of the buttons, just wire the ground to a battery you can cram in the controller and replace it every once in a while.
I am sorry for not pointing this out earlier Family Guy, it wasn't a stupid question, you just reminded me to point out that I had forgotten to mention. I'm glad to help anyone! :D
Dudex77, I just got a spare analog stick to play with, so I'll see if I can get it work the D-pad soon! :D Just modded the potentiometer!
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dudex77
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Post by dudex77 »

sweet i cant wait till you figure this out. Family guy has anymore progress been made on your DCP?
Kurt_ wrote: I would use tact switches but I want the mushy feel. Mushy = God. (I typed that correctly).
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-=FamilyGuy=-
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Post by -=FamilyGuy=- »

@11up

I really doubt about the battery mod you said, it should be powered with the same circuit than the controller pcb, not an other ...

I think I'll do this mod since I find it uber clean-looking ... I'll add a Mini audio jack for ground and use it to make a led to light up when you plug the controller ... Would be cool !

@dudex77
I killed my MOBO with my exacto knife after rewiring the gd-rom unit. I ordered a DC on ebay it should be coming soon. everything is ready, I started doing the wooden cast for the plastic case and it already works on 12v, I received the astro pad splitted controller, and found a place for it between the gd-rom thing and the MOBO, (the buttons being away connected with wires) so ... It should be for June or July ;)

It still makes me sh*... to think that ONCE I REWIRED 50 connection (100 solder points) on 1 inch of space, I killed my mobo at the completoposite way ... and the trace is uber little and the cut is deep ...


-=FamilyGuy=-
dudex77
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Post by dudex77 »

jesus that sucks!! ho long did you cry for? :lol:
Kurt_ wrote: I would use tact switches but I want the mushy feel. Mushy = God. (I typed that correctly).
Image
-=FamilyGuy=-
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Post by -=FamilyGuy=- »

dudex77 wrote:jesus that sucks!! ho long did you cry for? :lol:
I cried for 666 seconds, I'm now making something similar to the 11up's controller mod.

A nes pad that will plug into a DC pad .. but with no Custom plug ...

Guess wich plugs ... :lol:

I'll do it with the vmu's 2de plug :P
So the nes pad will have a wire sticking out and linked to a rumble pack, then when you plug this rumble pack in the 2 vmu port, it acts like a controller :P, this vmu port would be useless for a vmu thought, but who really uses it anyway ?

So far, the Nes controller is modded, the Dc sontroller too, the rumble pack got its guts removed and I only need to find a 9+ wires cable ... to complete it ...

-=FamilyGuy=-
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