Making the Wavebird what it should've been

MJ · Post by MJ » Fri Jun 22, 2007 11:19 pm

Recently I decided to give my Wavebird some new colour to match my Wii. Now I was a little slow on realising that there is no force feedback (rumble) from games and that you only get that with the wired controllers.

I do have spare PS2 controllers that have rumble which I could tear out, but does the Wavebird even receive rumble signals? Does it transmit them, because if not it would be a waste of my time learning to mod just for something that won't work... I have basic electronic skills.

Sorry if this is the wrong forum, but couldn't really find anything better suited for this kind of topic.

Perhaps there is even already a mod guide or such that I haven't found. Searched this forum to no avail and Google hit me up with a lot of stories of the PS3 controller not having rumble...

Seeing as this was left out originally because of battery life I just want to add a switch to turn rumble on/off.

Maybe this isn't even possible. I'm gunning for the more experienced to crush my vision.

PeglegJimmy · Post by **PeglegJimmy** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 11:28 pm

I've never even held a wavebird, but if it has no rumble why would it freaking output rumble? If it did were the developers high, and were like dude! we should totally add a rumble signal to something that doesn't have rumble! that would be totally freaking sick dude! *passes out after taking a drag*

Lol btw I have never used a wavebird like you said, so I wasn't sure if it has rumble and just doesn't work on wii? Or has no rumble at all.. Sorry if I misunderstood.

toby dawg · Post by **toby dawg** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 12:22 am

lol ^

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 4:23 am

I've thought about this myself. The lack of rumble support is the biggest (only) reason I didn't want to put a built-in WaveBird receiver in my GC laptop. I'm still gonna, but rumble support would still be nice.

This is not a stupid question nor is it the wrong place to ask about something like this, so don't worry about that.

The WaveBird may very well receive rumble signals. There may even be pads on the WaveBird mobo for a rumble motor to attach to, and Nintendo just decided not to put the rumble motor in after the PCBs were manufactured. This is probably not the case, but my point here is that there's no way to know until you crack one open and look around.

Rumble in a wireless Gamecube controller is not impossible, however. It's already been done. Pelican's "G3 Wireless Controller" (Google it) is a third party Gamecube controller with rumble support... the only one, in fact. They try to use that as a selling point, but most of the people that get their hands on one hate it. It's a very poorly manufactured product from what I hear (sticky buttons, touchy joysticks, battery doors falling off, generally poor ergonomics... the works). I have never held a WaveBird or G3, but I only hear good things about the WaveBird. Some say it's even better than the original controller, most say it's at least as good and feels exactly the same.

The solution? Gut a G3, put the guts in a WaveBird. Shouldn't be TOO hard... and I've never heard any bad things about the G3s electronics (operating range, interference, battery life), which is what you'll be putting in the WaveBird. So... it should work out perfect.

I think the G3 actually has better battery life (or "really good" bettery life, at least) and equal range as the WaveBird.

The only downfall? That's ~$60 since you'll have to buy two wireless controllers.

Thoughts?

Edit: Wow... interesting. I just found a bunch of pictures of a disassembled WaveBird. I looked for that before and never found anything. Check it out. It won't help us in seeing if there are rumble motor pads on the PCB, as the pictures aren't large enough, but it might be useful for something else here.

MJ · Post by MJ » Sat Jun 23, 2007 7:17 am

Don't worry, I was expecting a few replies like PeglegJimmy. People that have no clue but still open their mouth. If you have nothing to contribute shut the copulate up. Every forum has these people.
Sorry about that.

Back to the topic. What I thought, Nintendo built it with rumble and then just removed the feature. I need to buy that damn screw river if I can find one in town.
Can't find the controller in the UK, it's on sites, but no where can you actually purchase it.
The Wavebird in itself is awesome, and I like not having rumble in some games because of the excess use, but Zelda tells you hidden treasures positions and such...

I was hoping to just gut that PS2, steal the rumble and put it into the Wavebird, but we'll see once I take it apart. At least I can see that the controller has some room for rumble.

cowsgoquack101 · Post by **cowsgoquack101** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 8:13 am

No the wavebird doesn't have rumble at all so just so you know pegleg.

To open the wavebird just get like some of those little hobby screws with the black rod and the aluminum shafts. They come small enough and I've opened up two GC controllers with them.

Twisted Warthog · Post by **Twisted Warthog** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 9:21 am

Wait so the wavebird never had any rumble? One of the first official company provided wireless controller and they couldn't even put rumble in it...

Post by **bicostp** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 9:33 am

Twisted Warthog wrote:Wait so the wavebird never had any rumble? One of the first official company provided wireless controller and they couldn't even put rumble in it...

They could have, but motors eat up batteries. They probably omitted them to get more running time out of a charge.

Like Electric Rain said, there may be places to solder rumble motors to on the controller board. (The transmitter looks pretty simple; it probably transmits all the controller signals, rumble included.) Open up the WaveBird, open up a stock controller, find the places the stock controller's motors are soldered to and look for similar pads on the wireless controller.

Twisted Warthog · Post by **Twisted Warthog** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 10:08 am

Huh good point may try opening one with myself a wavebird i mean, and a wireless controller with some rumble.

G-force · Post by **G-force** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 10:28 am

Meh, I don't even notice rumble on any gamecube games anyways. It's just not used much, or its too weak, or I just plain don't notice it.

Twisted Warthog · Post by **Twisted Warthog** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 10:31 am

I heard that when SSBB comes out its going to have wicked rumble. Didn't SSBM have a lot of rumble too?

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 11:29 am

let me present a theory:

like Bic said, the transmitter probably just encodes/decodes the controller traffic for wireless transmission, theres no real point adding extra logic to strip it of certain data. especially since its a serial data stream.

so inside the guts of the wireless controller, you would have some wireless-related chip that is (to the rest of the controller) equivalent to the plug on the front of your gamecube. in that case, the official Nintendo wavebird controllers would have no reason not to use the same 'button encoder' chips that the normal wired controller uses. I mean they already have tons of them made right?

so my theory is that there is a rumble signal present off of the main chip (the one that says MX?), but there are no external components or solder pands to support it.

the signal would be a very low current 'signal' signal, you would need to make a transistor circuit to drive the motor with.

so thats my theory. step one: identify the 'button encoder chip', see if its the same one as in wired controllers.

jeroen · Post by **jeroen** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 11:38 am

^^^

What he said.

Seriously I agree on it. Unless the actual controller chip is in the receiver. But then you have to mod the receiver to somehow send the signal. (a wireless doorbell should do the trick)

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 12:54 pm

actually, does anyone know how the controller data protocol or the wireless technology works? are you saying that there is no hardware to transmit from the system?

that would really screw you up

spinout · Post by **spinout** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 2:59 pm

I just did some testing and I found the sources on the wired controller. + is pin 5 on the chip and - is the yellow wire in the controller wire. However when I took apart the wavebird I found it had a 80 pin chip (unlike the wired 40 pin chip). I am guessing that the wavebird has the receiver integrated into the 80 pin chip. Also the wavebird no contacts to solder a motor to. I hope this helps.