I'm Pretty Proud Right Now...

[Wedge]

Well, I've been planning on creating an external controller mod during the last few weeks. On friday I got my snes controller, and I wired the b and a buttons to the x and o buttons (respectively of course), and the ground (derrr). It worked. I just ordered 5 mini usb plugs and jacks. The waiting begins...

I also bought a PS2 controller, but it sucked, there were no good solderable spots, so I got on eBay and bought a (inbox) snes controller. I also opened up my single PS1 controller (I'm turning into quite the fearless modder ) and found that there were indeed DOABLE places to solder, but not overall satisfactory ones, so I spared the controllers life, and I put it back together (I do have to play Rebel Strike Two with all its horrible acting, you know). Interestingly enough, the snes controller almost literally GIVES you a spot to solder onto for each button; a fairly large metal circle on every single lead.

The snes contoller will give me a great place to start, but I don't want it to be the end...

I was going to ask a question, but... I guess my post is long enough...

The story of my FIRST  mod, as it stands.

[cwn723]

good job for your first mod!!
and, dont post just to get up in the ranks, ive seen your
name everwhere for the psp section.

[Wedge]

good job for your first mod!!
and, dont post just to get up in the ranks, ive seen your
name everwhere for the psp section.

Trust me, I'm not posting for ranks. I couldn't care less what color my name is... I have a ton of time right now, which doesn't come often.

Ill try to post less, regardless.

[Blizzrad]

*deleted

[Wedge]

Nice to hear about your progress Wedge! 

The snes controller sounds like a good start, but I think you will eventually want to use a gamepad with an analog stick, one of the coolest things about having an external controller is being able to use a real thumbstick instead of the PSPs wonky little nub.

There have been a lot of changes in the PCB design of Sony's dualshock controllers from the ps1 through the ps2, and some are easier to solder to than others. I've never opened any third party ps1 or ps2 controllers, but they might also be worth looking at if you don't like the Sony ones. I used an old translucent green ps1 controller because I already had one that was defective, and because the translucent case made it easier to see if I was pinching any wires when I reassembled it.

Here is a pic of how I wired mine, there are more wires here than are necessary for the PSP, but I just wired up everything in case I wanted to use the controller for other things.

Holy  thats a lot of wireing... Anyhow...

First of all, thanks for posting what the ps1 controller would look like wired up. I thought it would be doable. I'll just have to put my order in for a spare, once I get the snes controller up and running. I probably should've asked you before; is your external controller mod complete? What would be the best way to rig the insulation for the wiring from the usbs to the snes/ps controller? What sort of socket did you/will you use for the ps1 end, and how would you get it to diverge into three separate cables?

[Blizzrad]

*deleted       

[GhoSt]

nice work, im also working on a mod like dat sorta at the moment

[Luke]

This is where the controller mod I did becomes different, and far more lame than what you are planning to do.

Basically, my original plan was to take some smashed PSPs I found in a dumpster and somehow make them usable. I was able to unbrick one of the motherboards, which is the most important component. The cases, umd doors, screens, and some of the buttons were all too wrecked to be usable so I decided to try and build a single console out of the working internal parts. To do this I would have to build the barebones PSP into an enclosure, and then get both the button input and display output to external devices (like a dualshock controller and LCD monitor,) as well some other basic stuff like a front loading UMD drive and usb, audio, led, memory card reader, and power connectors wired to the new enclosure.  

Because I am building the guts of the PSP into a larger case, the size of the connectors I interface through can also be much larger, so I chose a 15 pin d-sub for the graphics and a 25 pin d-sub for the controls. I originally wanted to interface the controls from an unmodified PS2 dualshock. However, this requires using a programmable microcontroller to interpret all the signals from the dualshock. I have no experience with microcontrollers so I decided to do it the simple way, and revisit the complex stuff later when I learned more about it.

I cut one end off of an old 10' parallel printer cable, stripped all the wires, and soldered them to the appropriate points on the dualshock. I had to widen the hole where the cable enters the controller a little to accommodate its extra girth, but eventually I had what looked like an ordinary dualshock, except with a slightly longer and fatter cable, and a 25 pin male d-sub at the end. On the PSP side, all I had to do was solder all the connections I wanted to send out from the PSP to a female d-sub that mounts through the case. I ran into the usual array of stupid problems that made this all take a little longer than expected, but all the control functions currently work great. I also wired up the LED on the dualshock because it somehow just didn't look right not lit up.

I transplanted a good screen from my working PSP into the project for testing, and have tried several different games  on it with great results. It is much easier and more comfortable to play using the dualshock, it makes it hard to go back to using the PSP controls.

I am now working on the VGA output part, (this is with an original fat psp mobo.) A guy called SpectroPlasm  proved it was possible to get a VGA signal out of the PSP by running the 24 RGB lines from the LCD ribbon cable through a triple 8-bit DAC. I have most of the soldering for it done, but I have to make some changes to the original schematic to make it work with the DAC I am using. This means doing lots of reading because although I can easily follow schematics having to engineer something new requires me to actually know what I am doing (which I don't, yet.)

Anyway, enough about all that. How you split your wiring up depends on whether or not you want your PSP to be mounted on the controller. You could either have your PSP rest on a cradle and then give yourself a few feet of cable  between it and your controller, or have the psp mounted on the controller so that you hold them both at the same time.  

For the first method you could use any cable with a sufficient wire count, (an old printer cable for example) run one end into the controller, and at the other end strip back about 10" of the cable insulation and divide the wires into four groups of five wires according to where they connect to inside the PSP. Then use heatshrink tubing on your wire groups to give you four separate thin cables coming from one fat one. Then use heatshrink and a cable tie around the fat cable where your four new cables branch out from it.

For the second method you could do something similar with a much shorter cable, or have the four usb cables connect to a d-sub connector mounted on your controller (like foo foo's mod.)

    . . .

I just previewed this post and it has gotten way out of control, I will just end it here before things get any worse. . .         

lol ermm off topic but how long did it take you to type that lol

[Wedge]

USBs came today  . Can't talk too much, my computers got some viruses .

[MattZani]

Snes is obvious choice because all the buttons match, although it could do with a nub.

[Wedge]

im startin with snes, and doing more, if i get the chance. Ive got 5 usbs, so i can put in the nub pinouts while im at it, for latter use, or a ghetto stick.

[Blizzrad]

*deleted

[Wedge]

i know, but i got an extra in case