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General Category => Other retro => Topic started by: Gryzor on 09:12, 28 January 14

Title: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Gryzor on 09:12, 28 January 14
So, I was looking at this sire: Dual Atari joystick adapter (http://kair.us/projects/dual_atari/index.html)


Lovely project, excellent form factor and good functionality. Unfortunately he's not offering the item, just schematics... I looked throught he links he's giving to other similar projects but they're not that good - each one lacks something. Maybe this (http://www.sinchai.de/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=137&zenid=d58df6364714de6f07c0230d6c5470ad)?


Any ideas? Has anyone tried something of the sort? Do you own anything?
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Octoate on 09:22, 28 January 14
I used the ZX USB Joy project to connect my joysticks to the PC. Another project, which does nearly the same, is the "USB Joystickadapter (http://www.hexagons.de/index.php/USB_Joystickadapter)". You can also order kits from them and it is similar to the ZX USB Joy project.
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Gryzor on 09:27, 28 January 14
Ah, the link you gave is the same project as the second one I mentioned (but I gave the shop, not its homepage). It's cheap enough - do you think it's any good?
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Gryzor on 09:31, 28 January 14
Ah, what a pity, the cased version is out of stock... :(
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Bryce on 09:38, 28 January 14
The the Atari one would be pretty easy to run up a batch of them (without the case).

Bryce.
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Gryzor on 09:39, 28 January 14
Sorry, didn't catch you? :)
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Bryce on 09:39, 28 January 14
Quote from: Bryce on 09:38, 28 January 14
The the Atari one would be pretty easy to run up a batch of them (without the case).

Bryce.

Bryce.
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Gryzor on 09:42, 28 January 14
Lol... I assume you mean someone could produce them easily, which is probably true, but who? Was asking about a ready product :)
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Bryce on 09:44, 28 January 14
Well if there was enough people interested I'd run up a batch.

Bryce.
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Gryzor on 09:49, 28 January 14
Oh, that'd be nice indeed... What would the cost be you think, for maybe 10-20 units?
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: The Last Bandit on 10:17, 28 January 14
I've built a few USB converters for old joysticks and for interfacing arcade cabinet controls to PC's.

There based on Atmel AVRs using V-USB (http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/index.html) and easy to build on stripboard - space can be an issue on some smaller joysticks though for the stripboard solution.
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Bryce on 10:31, 28 January 14
Quote from: Gryzor on 09:49, 28 January 14
Oh, that'd be nice indeed... What would the cost be you think, for maybe 10-20 units?

With professionally done PCBs, probably around €35 to €40 each.

Bryce.
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Gryzor on 10:38, 28 January 14
Ooh pricey! Is there an advantage over the €15 one that Octoate suggested?
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Bryce on 10:55, 28 January 14
Quote from: Gryzor on 10:38, 28 January 14
Ooh pricey! Is there an advantage over the €15 one that Octoate suggested?

Well if I ran off a batch of 100 of them I'd probably get them down to about €25 or less. 10 units is a prototype batch (it's the PCB price that effects the price the most).

No, same function different components.

Bryce.
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Gryzor on 10:57, 28 January 14
But I doubt there are 100 people here wanting these! I'd certainly prefer yours over some unknown quantity, even if more expensive, but it doesn't look like it's gonna happen :(
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: The Last Bandit on 11:04, 28 January 14
Who makes your pcb's Bryce ?
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Bryce on 11:06, 28 January 14
Depends on what type of PCB it is, whether it needs gold-plating, SMD or thru-pin and how many layers. A lot of my stuff is done by PCB-Pool. I don't use Chinese companies due to bad results in the past.

Bryce.
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: The Last Bandit on 11:34, 28 January 14
Oh right, never had problems with Fusion/Itead PCB's myself apart from slightly inconsistent colour solder resist on different batches.


Never had gold plating done though or pushed them to their manufacturing limits. 
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: 00WReX on 12:02, 28 January 14
I just received a small batch (3x double layer board of 53.47x44.60 mm) from a place in the USA called OSH Park. OSH Park ~ Welcome (http://oshpark.com/)

They use ENIG (gold plating) surface finish, and I am really impressed with the price, quality, and the speed in which i received the boards.

Ordered on the 5th January and received on the 22nd January (USA to Australia). $18.45 USD delivered.

Cheers,
Shane
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Bryce on 12:53, 28 January 14
Wow, that was a good price.

ENIG gold-plating is only for solder pads. I meant gold plating for non-soldered areas such as an edge connector. ENIG wouldn't work for that.

Bryce.
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: 00WReX on 13:10, 28 January 14
Hi Bryce, the whole board is gold plated including the edge connectors.

Have a look at the exact type of board I had made...this guy made the design available.

CoCoEPROMpak: A PCB for EPROMs in the TRS-80 Color Computer Cartridge Port » (http://www.nf6x.net/2013/10/cocoeprompak/)

You can see my "Thanks" message at the very bottom of the page.

He has some good pictures that show the quality of the boards.

Cheers,
Shane
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: 00WReX on 13:14, 28 January 14
Here's one of mine...

[attachimg=1]

Cheers,
Shane
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Bryce on 13:24, 28 January 14
Ok. That's only ENIG plated. The edge connector will oxidise and dull pretty quickly. You'll have to clean it regularly, but you'll be back down to the copper pretty soon. ENIG is only meant to protect the bare copper until it is soldered, it has a life-span of about 6 months to a year. To make real edge connectors like the original cartridges you need full plating which is a completely different (and relatively expensive) process.

The quality looks very good otherwise. Especially as the tracks look like they are 5mil?

(But the U1 VPP track is a bit under dimensioned)

Bryce.
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: ralferoo on 13:41, 28 January 14
It'd be very easy to build a joystick adapter out of something like the Atmega32u2. These are the chips I use for USB-JTAG bridge and SD card interface in my FPGA project, they're a couple of quid and have USB support built in (the u part of their name).

LUFA (a free USB stack) even has an example joystick device, it'd be pretty trivial to extend this to 2 joysticks and there are enough IO pins to handle 2 Atari sticks.

You could buy something like the Teensy if you want the chip on a pre-built board: Teensy USB Development Board (http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/)
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Bryce on 13:47, 28 January 14
That's exactly what the device above is (take a look at Gryzors link). A PIC with built in USB Host/Client. The design isn't difficult, it's the production of decent quality devices being discussed.

Bryce.
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: 00WReX on 13:52, 28 January 14
The VPP track is the same width throughout.

[attachimg=1]

But anyway, I was mainly indicating a PCB fab that is reasonably priced, has a quick turn around and small batch friendly (from my personal experience)  :)

Cheers,
Shane
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: Bryce on 13:57, 28 January 14
So it is. In the first picture it looks like it's a really thin track here:

[attach=2]

Bryce.
Title: Re: Atari-style joystick to USB
Post by: 00WReX on 14:07, 28 January 14
That's just my crap photography skills...wrong angle & lighting.

Cheers,
Shane
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