Modding a namco psx stick to Supergun

[SephirothFF]

Hi everyone, I'm somewhat of a newbie to the whole controller modding thing but I really need some help from techies out there who have done this sort of thing before.

I am thinking of buying a namco arcade stick for the original PSX which I want to modify to work with my supergun. I'm not interested in keeping psx functionality. How exactly would I go about doing this? I've googled a few controller hacks to supergun but none relating to this specific arcade stick. I presume there will be a psx circuit board similar to those in the pads with wires from the stick and buttons soldered onto it. Do I have to solder each wire from a cut vga cable to the same points on the circuit board....do I even need a circuit board at all? Please any info would be much appreciated!!

 

[kendrick]

Can you be more specific about which stick you plan to modify? Different joysticks have different contact mechanisms, but some of them use an infrared mechanism that indicates directional contact by interrupting a beam. Without getting into boring specifics, this requires some chip logic that's hard to translate into plain old switch contacts.

In your place, I would recommend a stick that has an audibly clicky joystick. If it makes Neo Geo-style click noises in each direction, you know that it's a real contact switch or microswitch in there and you should be able to cut board traces and reconnect the switches as you see fit without having to worry about any other weird stick mechanisms. Some of the Hori and ASCII sticks fit this description. Hope this helps you out.

-KKC, who now has two out of the three US-released Shin Megami Tensei games, yay!

[SephirothFF]

hey thanks for the speedy reply. The stick that I want to modify is featured on this web site.

http://www.oneswitch.org.uk/1/playstation.htm

I used to own one with my original playstation but alas I sold it during my more reckless, I need cash phases.

[Aidan]

Basically, it really depends on what is inside. I've not seen the insides of one of the namco sticks, so I've no clue. I suspect you'll end up buying one and then discovering what is inside, and the best way to mod it.

If it uses microswitches, then the same technique that's used to mod other sticks should work just fine. If it uses optical detectors, then it'll depend on what kind of detectors and how they're set up.