Just in case
Nov. 23rd, 2012 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rbandrewsIf you're reading this on Dreamwidth, you'll notice I have a new icon. If not, why not? Dreamwidth is better.
Anyway, the new icon is because the printing stage of this project is almost done. Here's the almost-finished case: front, and back, with wire explosion. Also, here's a Flickr set with all the pictures in one place.
The case came together better than I expected. Everything fit perfectly on the first rev, once I got past a couple bonehead moves last night: I printed the first back too tall because I apparently can't ruler, and then I printed another copy of that one because after I fixed it I forgot to copy the new model to the printer before I reprinted it, so I just printed the same wrong size over again.
This morning I cranked out another one while I was in the shower though, and it fit perfectly. Got the left side a little later (apparently the front of a face in Sketchup is different than the back? And if you have all the backs facing out your model won't slice? Weird.) while watching Daria, and then took those photos.
Now for the fun / hard part: making the software work. I already know the circuit is good because I had everything talking to an Arduino yesterday, but "printing out letters to a serial port" and "being a gamepad" are two different things driver-wise. I think I am going to go with the Teensy for the hardware, because I have one already and it's small and the right chip. I need to free it from the wreckage of that other controller kit thing, and connect that sheaf of wires to it, and write some software, and it'll be time to get my Mario on.
Good news and bad news: the bad news is, because I didn't plan very well, the first version will have the USB port facing the player, so the cord comes out the bottom like a Dreamcast controller. Not so bad because it's the first model, and it's meant to be used with a laptop and not a PC. But the good news is, I think I'm going to keep the analog / d-pad switch: I'll just use pushing the analog stick in to switch. I may have analog mode have a couple buttons emulate mouse clicks too, so you can navigate an emulator menu entirely with the controller.
Edit: Software is done. I just need to make the final piece of the case and this guy is finished!
Anyway, the new icon is because the printing stage of this project is almost done. Here's the almost-finished case: front, and back, with wire explosion. Also, here's a Flickr set with all the pictures in one place.
The case came together better than I expected. Everything fit perfectly on the first rev, once I got past a couple bonehead moves last night: I printed the first back too tall because I apparently can't ruler, and then I printed another copy of that one because after I fixed it I forgot to copy the new model to the printer before I reprinted it, so I just printed the same wrong size over again.
This morning I cranked out another one while I was in the shower though, and it fit perfectly. Got the left side a little later (apparently the front of a face in Sketchup is different than the back? And if you have all the backs facing out your model won't slice? Weird.) while watching Daria, and then took those photos.
Now for the fun / hard part: making the software work. I already know the circuit is good because I had everything talking to an Arduino yesterday, but "printing out letters to a serial port" and "being a gamepad" are two different things driver-wise. I think I am going to go with the Teensy for the hardware, because I have one already and it's small and the right chip. I need to free it from the wreckage of that other controller kit thing, and connect that sheaf of wires to it, and write some software, and it'll be time to get my Mario on.
Good news and bad news: the bad news is, because I didn't plan very well, the first version will have the USB port facing the player, so the cord comes out the bottom like a Dreamcast controller. Not so bad because it's the first model, and it's meant to be used with a laptop and not a PC. But the good news is, I think I'm going to keep the analog / d-pad switch: I'll just use pushing the analog stick in to switch. I may have analog mode have a couple buttons emulate mouse clicks too, so you can navigate an emulator menu entirely with the controller.
Edit: Software is done. I just need to make the final piece of the case and this guy is finished!
