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Arcade style joystick/ buttons for xbox.


hangover

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I wont be forking out $300 for an X arcade as good as they may be so wondering if i got a joystick/ button kit would it be possible to hack a controller and wire to the joystick and buttons ?

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yeah you can solder the buttons and stick to the original PCB. google pad hacks and I'm sure you will come up with something to go by.

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  • 3 weeks later...

A two person X-arcade is only about $130, which I guess is a lot but they are awesome! I have one and it is totally worth it if you play a lot of arcade games. They are really well constructed. But if you want to build you own arcade parts are super cheap, the hard part would be soldering and building a solid box.

 

You can buy arcade parts at any site like http://www.happcontrols.com or somewhere like that. As for PCB soldering, http://www.nuclearplayground.com/joysticks/ has a great guide about the whole process. On the left side there are some links for different controllers and stuff.

 

Good luck!

 

Edit: Didn't see you found a link already, sorry

Edited by Skurvy_Pirate
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yeah you can solder the buttons and stick to the original PCB. google pad hacks and I'm sure you will come up with something to go by.

 

 

Hacking an original controller (The large "Duke" controller that was originally released for the Xbox) is best, but the S-Controller will do fine. A couple words of advice though when it comes to analog game support within the Xbox. There are two main problems in this area, the first one is that CoinOPS/MameOX doesn't have great analog translations. I have tried some analog (driving) games that use the stick and triggers for throttles, and with some games the control is all over the place. There is a menu to adjust for the analog sensitivity and speed, but if the game has a problem with it from the get go, it just will not work.

 

The second issue is with hacking the controllers. I hacked PS2 controllers before and they are not too much different from the Xbox controllers. In most cases removing the stick controls on the controller will render your controller inoperative unless you really know what you are doing when replacing the analog controls. There are two devices called potentiometers or variable resistors on each stick control, if you replace that with an arcade type control, care must be taken to match the EXACT value AND pot throw with your arcade replacement. Failure to do so will result in erratic operation or even a dead pad.

 

If you are just beginning to hack Xbox controllers, the best thing to do is leave the analog stick controls and the triggers alone and only hack a pad to play digital controlled games.

 

I know that may seem like you are missing out on quite a few games using the Xbox as an emulator for Mame, but unless there is improved analog support for the Xbox in the near future, it probably isn't worth the trouble to try and hack the analog controls.

 

However, you get 12 digital access points on each controller. You could also convert the two analog triggers to make two more digital points for a total of 14 points, but since you have FOUR controller ports AND CoinOPs & MameOX are already set up for multiple controller support it is probably best to set up a controller for each set of player controls on your panel. In that aspect you could easily have a 6 button/ 8way joystick configuration for a "Street Fighter" set up for all of your players. With that many digital points available, the Xbox is a formidable Mame gaming machine...and much smaller than your typical PC Mame setup.

 

But again, the only bad thing is the poor analog support. Hopefully that does change in the future.

 

Geo

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  • 2 weeks later...

A couple of years ago I built an arcade cabinet, thinking mostly of using an XBox. I was going to use original XBox controllers for the job, but I ended up using 2 mad catz PS2 controllers. You can buy those controllers cheap (7.99), and in most cases, they are easier to solder than an XBox controller. The main advantage is that you can use converters for a lot of different consoles. I have 2 Madrics converters with outputs for XBox, Game Cube and PC, and another converter for Dreamcast. This way I can have XBox, PS1, PS2, Game Cube, Dreamcast and PC on my arcade cabinet. And there's a lot more converters for the PS2 controller (Saturn, PS3, XBox360). Just be careful about cheap converters, because they can be quite laggy.

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  • 4 years later...

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