How To Build Your Own (8 Way) D-pad...


You guys are starting to get me interested...

Now that my caps are comming to an end due to Craig's and GPHs' cheap alternatives I may need something else to peddle.

Hmm I know I could design a d-pad module that is easy to install, getting the parts made though that could prove expensive. I have even been thinking of a way to do it with 8 switches, no logic chips and still have perfect control. Need to think about this..
 
I have been trying various methods for the D-pad, and have come to the following conclusions:

1) Rubber pads
Taking away the D-pad rubber pads, building a unit to the top of the GP2x to hold it and adding a flat circle for the button pressing (as I thought of earlier). In principle, this seemed a good idea, in practice, it failed. It is nearly impossible to adhere these rubber pads to anything, there is no grip. The pads make contact in an ununiform manner, and don't pivot, so the top comes off. Unsuccessful. I spent all yesterday making and playing with this concept, to end up unsoldering the wires and removing the unit, and going back to my original idea! I believe the idea of using tack switches would not gain any more success as although they can be mounted securely and easily, and would be better, they would share the problems between 1) and 2) - great for 4 way, cumbersome for 8 way.

2) Commercial D-pads
(eg like Grahf is working on): these are of course excellent as 4 way pads, and will do diagonals (of course), but it is "less natural" and harder to use them for diagonals too as you need to press harder and more precisely to get a diagonal. Sure, this works, but games like Vektar for example, I don't believe would be quite as seemless to play. A D-pad after all only has 4 precise buttons in specific places. There might be a way around this, I am sure Grahf will keep us all posted on developments. The other issue is the mounting of a commercial D-pad. Not only will you need to use a small one, like from a GameBoy for example, because as Grahf states, the GC's D-pad is too big as it stands, but it causes mounting problems in the GP2x case. It will be interesting to see the final solution to this one.

3) My original method
I have come to the conclusion (after trying other ways, and various "improvements"), that my first attempt (originally posted a picture of it) worked great, and the controls were great, but could slip on the joystick hole and work free, and it was hard to get the integrated Push button to be reliable. My next major version is the one I am going back to - yes FluffyPanda, sticky floor tiles (2 layers - one to stick to the GP2x and have a hole extracted to mould around the GP2x joystick hole, the other to sit on top, small hole through for wires, rest of it used for the circuit of the D-pad and centre push. This stops the final assembly from moving during use, but can be removed if required (non permanent). My original method with tinfoil is, I believe, the only viable way forward. making the contacts (and centre push button) on this top piece of floortile and a circle for the D-pad (contacts sandwiched between both) works great. Tinfoil is flat, mallable and a good conductor or electricity for low voltage. This has the advantage of seemless movement for all 8 directions - press the top circle piece in any direction and it works easily. The only issue is the material separating these two sets of contacts - it has to act as a pivit yet be in continual contact between both surfaces, it has to compress in any direction, and return 100% back to its original state. A sticky foam pad conforms to this, apart from the very last bit - after a few hundred uses, a foam pad looses some of its ability to rebound fully. I believe I have the "final solution", but have to make yet another prototype. The upside of this method is that it works beautifully, and is updatable; the downside is that it looks "less pretty" as the mounting base needs to be on the GP2x itself. You can cover the components in a variety of ways, the result looks perfectly fine, but not "wow" factor on looks necessarily.

DaveC - sure, why not? Have a go. I can only use houseware items, so my result will work great but not look "moulded". If someone can take my working idea (in 3 above) and incorporate this into a moulded commercial quality unit, at a good price, great. If you can do this, experiment away! One thing for sure, there is quite a lot of work and time required to make each unit, unless you can acquire pre-moulded bases and tops. Keep us posted on your developments, good or bad.
 
Reesy posted on Apr 7 2006 at 05:05 AM said:
bacteria posted on Apr 6 2006 at 11:44 PM said:
Reesy - on a different note, any chance of making the "exit to menu" require centre "push" and right shoulder button please? When I play Psycho Pinball, I like to use the shoulder buttons for the flipper control; unfortunately if you accidentally press both at the same time it goes back to the emulator menu!  Any news on version 4.4 of DrMD? (hopefully it will have overclocking mode!!

I suppose it would work but I would be buggered then if I went with the Dpad upgrade, at some point I'll be making the menu enter/exit key combination user defineable, so you can set it up as you like. Cpu over clocking is in DrMD now....as well as a little surprise.
Reesy - Great news. Psycho Pinball probably needs about 233Mhz (200Mhz plays about 47 fps). If DrMD had the option (for example) to go to this speed (or higher, at defined increments) it would allow games like this to play 100% speed. Looking forward to your next release of DrMD.

Any D-pad people adopt needs a centre push button, too many games on the GP2x use it (exit to menu, etc) not to have one. What is the "little surprise" you refer to?
 
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Ah, I see what you're doing now with those photos. Very neat. The only thing that'd stop me doing this is that if I cut out a space for a D-pad with a dremel it'd look like 50 pounds of dog shit. :(
 
Just disassembled my original Gameboy to get the dpad cross and rubber. Slighly too big to be useful.

My original pattern unlit GBA looks like another candidate.

offtopic not a "hijack" - Might have to replace it with a micro or advance SP first. Anyone tried the micro? Any good? SP or Micro ? Help me decide.
 
Epicenter posted on Apr 8 2006 at 09:25 AM said:
I don't really see how that'd work. You'd just glue the assembly there? Isn't it going to protrude by a huge amount?
The stock joystick pertrudes by about 2-3mm over the top of the joystick hole on the GP2x. Using two pieces of floor tile, as described in an earlier post, raises the assembly to this height, so the top circle (which you press to give the direction press) is above the original joystick stick so is no longer in the way. It is important, for ease of use, that you keep your final assembly as low as possible, which this process does. The floortiles are very sticky, but don't leave a residue if removed, the only gluing is to the assembly itself.
 
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vic20-ian posted on Apr 8 2006 at 10:21 AM said:
Just disassembled my original Gameboy to get the dpad cross and rubber. Slighly too big to be useful.

My original pattern unlit GBA looks like another candidate.

offtopic not a "hijack" - Might have to replace it with a micro or advance SP first. Anyone tried the micro? Any good? SP or Micro ? Help me decide.
Bit of a shame to destroy a Micro - better to find an old mini controller, with a small D-pad, which doesn't matter if you destroy. People have talked about small games machines like NeoPocket in the past - would this be any better? Problem of course is positioning something into the GP2x so it fits fine, fits through the old joystick assembly and looks ok - there are compremises this route - and I am not convinced that it is easy enough to use a 4-way proper D-pad for diagonals - of course it works, but not easy enough to do without thinking. I still believe a flat pad (as I described earlier in a post) is the best solution, it was my first method, worked great and was very easy to do. Think of the old Mattel Intellivision controller disc (on a more accurate version, and smaller) and you will know what I mean.
 
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The gameboy SP has a super shallow keypad, which is too short to protrude out of the cut in the case. It also uses "cup" style switches (similar tho most cell phone keyboards) instead of the carbon pad setup of most controllers. My opinion, not worth using for an internal setup.

I didnt check my original GBA because above the surface, its 100% identicle to the GC dpad. But i just took it apart to check, and its much "shorter" than the GC. It actually fits in there perfect. The PCB however is not good, since the traces come off it at all different angles. No matter however since the GC PCB i already have installed has the same spacing.

Conclusion: Gamecube pcb & contact pad + original GBA dpad, and control feels exactly like a gameboy.

I dont want to destroy a perfectly good GBA, so im just going to finish trimming down the GC dpad until it fits. Im 1000% sure there is a cheap aftermarket gamepad out there that is just as slim as the GBA which people can use (probably an aftermarket GC pad).
 
I'm trying to get my hands on a dpad that closely resembles the "feel" and black matte theme of the gp2x. Does any one know any system that has buttons like that? I dont know if it's my ocd or someother problem that makes me do this...
 
I dont have any new pictures, but ive been playtesting my new dpad converted gp2x for about 3 hours :) Works awesome, feels just like a gameboy.

I ended up using 100% Gamecube controller parts. The contact pad required a little trimming around the edges in some spots, but otherwise works as-is. The d-pad itself requred a lot of trimming. I basically had to trim up the underside of it so it was as short as the GBA dpad.

If someone wants to do this easily, you can use the dpad and contact pad out of the original GBA as it requires no trimming, but i felt it was a shame to canibalize a perfectly good GBA, and opted to spend the time trimming down the GC part.
 
Sweet!, Well done grahf. I'm going in the loft now to get my old GBA! I feel a butchering coming on....
 
Grahf - Pleased you found success with this method, there was no reason it wouldn't work in principle, but I imagine you had a few headaches on the way! You still need to fit a centre push button however!

I am still preferring the external D-pad style route, mainly as with many other people, I feel uneasy removing all the guts of the GP2x and removing the original joystick.

I have a Gameboy SP, i'm not going to canabolise it, but I will see how the shape on the D-pad itself differs from normal. Seems to me that a membrane keypad might be worth investigating. I have some old telephone handsets, remote control units and calculators which I can take apart and have a look at. If the Gameboy SP basically uses membranes (and pressing the buttons gives that tale-tale "click") I will see if I can develop this idea. The membrane keys on a salvaged unit can be "cut adn paste" into the right places (including centre push) onto an external D-pad unit. Keeps everything flat and external. I will investigate this modified design concept further...
 
Thanks Reesy, and thank you for DrMDx.
Thanks Bacteria. And if your making an external setup, the Gameboy SP dpad is -very- thin. Just wouldnt work for an internal setup.

I have a VERY crappy video of me playing Zombies Ate My Neighbors if anyone wants to host it. Here is my finished (maybe) product, as well as the poor carcas of the Gamecube pad. And i think you can spy a home-made Starfox 2 beta cart in the corner ;)

MVC-002F.JPG
 
hehe my broken cube pad is allready ripped apart and finished... now i just have to remove the stick :)
cant wait to have perfect gameplay ;)
 
That looks great grahf, very nicely done B)

Sorry if you covered this in a previous post and I just missed it, but how did you cut the GP2X's case? I'm not sure my hand's steady enough for freehand... I was wondering if one of those circular drill bits would work. I'm not sure the proper name, but they're cylindrical bits with teeth on one end available in different sizes.
 
Link for horrible quality video: http://rapidshare.de/files/17599125/MVC-001W.MPG.html

Sonic, the Gamecube dpad required a lot of shaving. If you have access to a GBA pad, you can compare the two to see how much needs to be shaved. I'll try to get pictures later if i can. The contact pad needs to be trimmed in a few places too, like the side so the case can close, and a little notch at the top to clear the L button.
 
Wow, very nice indeed! If I did the mod I would have done just that. Whats holding me back mostly is the casing. How did you cut it? I would try using an X-Acto knife...but I know I would mess up and make a lot of scratches on the casing.
 
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