Tuesday, December 2, 2008

PSX Dragon 32 Joypad

Some time ago I blogged about modding a Dragon 32 controller to take PSX internals so that I can use it on my emulator. I've spent a couple of hours working on it, and this is my progress to date.


Removed the circuit boards from the PSX pad, a Woolworths branded knock off.
Using a Dremmel I cut out the section of the pad that holds the right nubbin.

Removed the potentiometer from the Dragon joystick, and unsoldered the connections to the fire button. This button will directly activate the PSX pad circuit board. No damage to the controller, so I can always return the controller to it's pre-modded state. These things may not have a soul, but I do.

I tidied up the nubbin casing, and glued it into the Dragon joystick case. This will give me a secure mounting point for the actual analog control later.


Sawed the nubbin circuit board in two, one to fit inside the Dragon joystick, the other to be hidden away in a project box. I've got tons of old pc cables lying around, so I cut up an old RS232 cable, and salvaged a com port from my parts bin. I soldered the cable to the joystick end,

and the com port to the main PSX circuit board.

After testing all the connections for continuity I plugged it all together, retested and found that I'd swapped the connections between the plug and the socket, so I had to redo the socket end. Once I'd done that and retested it everything looked ok, so it was time for a test on the emulator.


Bugger me, it all worked! Ok, so it wasn't rocket science, but this is my first project in about 20 years, and I did expect some major problems along the way. I've still to add a proper joystick to the controller instead of the nubbin, but this is how it looks so far

No comments:

Post a Comment