controller pad hacking, voltage to voltage help!?

Started by macabre, October 18, 2010, 01:15:08 PM

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macabre

I do alot of custom hardware mods and units (but i'm far from an expect). One I'm working on requires alot of controller conversions

(main example; the controller for the unit is a wireless saturn / genesis naki brand, which has its receiver wired to the female end of an extension cord to the pcb of the saturn / genesis controller, that is then the host for the other pcb's of the other system controllers)

The problem with this setup is that some of the controllers / systems I'm wanting to add to this cabinet do NOT supply the 5 volts required by the saturn / genesis controller.

My workaround is to simply add a genesis3 mini system without any av cables or game, just to have access to the precise 5 volts from the controller port. I read that its pin #5 on the female end;




Will wiring this directly from that one pin to the controller point (circled in yellow);



even if there is NOTHING else wired from that unit to that controller, still supply the needed power?


My cabinet will have 4 controllers. Will I be able to split that one single wire to all 4 controllers, or will I need to purchase a multi-tap for the genesis, and have a wire from each female controller port?


This is obviously overkill just to get a mere 5 volts to each of the four controllers, but I'm not too sure how to go from a standard power plug to four wires for voltage.


I really don't want to have a battery in here, how can I go from a power socket to what I want?



Thanks in advance for any help!!

l_oliveira

All modern systems (XBOX360, Wii and PS3) supply 5V through USB ports.


Most systems on the older generations also, but these might be troublesome:
Playstation and Playstation 2 (These systems offer 8v for the controller rumble on the controller port which can be "harvested" and step down to 5v with an 7805 IC)
Nintendo 64 (this one only have 3.3v on the controller port)


So the only system that could really force you to use the genesis as power supply would be the N64.

MKL

The 5v point in that picture appears to be wrong. Correct is the next pin to the right of the yellow circled one.

You also need ground from the power source console.

macabre

Thanks for the replys!

About the voltage being wrongly labeled...

That worries me. The voltage is the critical one that I have a hard time "seeing" when I'm looking at these controllers. These are the 2 diagrams I was going to use to find the voltage, would anyone be able to tell me if the voltage & grounds are labeled correct on the saturn controller?

Genesis 6 button, and Saturn v2 controller.

Thanks again for so much help guys!

MKL

Saturn is correct, Genesis isn't (as already stated). VCC is on pin 24 of the chips on both PCBs. Typical giveaway for VCC: trace is thicker/wider and goes to + side of electrolytic capacitor whose other side is ground.

If you have a multimeter you can also run a continuity test using the pinout of the connector on the controller cord (it should be on the gamesx mainpage).