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Table of Contents Controller Construction (cont.)First, we need a cable casing. You're free to use any suitably sized flexible plastic tubing you want, but I used audio cable sheathing. Cut a length of audio cable approximately 6 feet long (or however long you want the cord to be). Don't go overboard on length, since the longer it is the harder it will be to get the old wires out and the new wires in. Likewise, a cord that is too long could result in too much resistance and poor performance. Now, strip about an inch of the casing off the audio cable so the wires and shielding (frayed copper wire stuff) is exposed. What we need to do is pull that stuff out of the casing. Pain in the butt? Yes. I don't remember exactly how I did this, honestly, but I do remember is was a major struggle. Once a little bit of empty tubing is available at the bottom you can clamp it down or hold it with your shoe against the ground and yank the wires upward. Sometimes pulling on different parts of the sheathing while it's taut can help loosen things up. As you proceed it will get easier and easier to pull the wire out as there will be less resistance. Once the wire is out you can discard it or save it for another project, although a thorough continuity test might be in order with all the yanking you've just done to it. Now we need to thread our wires through the sheathing. Cut 14 or 15 (depending on the number of grounds you're using) winding wires. If you got multiple colors, great. Use them to your advantage so you can keep track of what's what a bit easier. Make sure to cut the wires generously long. If you have a 6-foot cord, then cut 7-foot wires. You can always trim them down later, but you can't lengthen them! Now, the easiest way to thread the wires I found was to straighten the sheathing vertically (again, holding it under your shoe and pulling it taught) and dropping a sewing needle down the top with thread tied to it. The needle will be heavy enough to navigate its way down the tubing allowing you to pluck it from the bottom. Now, bundle up your winding wires and attach the thread to one end. You can do this with a thin piece of tape or by kinking the wires slightly and tying the thread around it (the kink will prevent the thread from slipping off the end without making the bundle of wires much thicker). Push the bundle of wires into the sheathing and pull the other end of the thread (you did leave the other end of the thread hanging out the top, right?) so that the wires are dragged up through the tubing. We need a plug to connect to the keyboard box. Get a D-type connector. Male or female, doesn't matter, but it'd be a good idea to use the same orientation for all the controllers. I made the controller plugs female to mitigate against pin damage if the controllers are left laying around on the floor or something. You'll need to solder the wires to the pins on the D-connector. Which wires go to which pin isn't very important at this point. Use your wire color coding scheme, if you used one. Strip about a ¼" of insulation off the end of each wire. Regular wire strippers aren't small enough for this job, so I use a craft knife to gently circumscribe the plastic insulation, then carefully but firmly pull it off the end. If you break off the end of the wire just try again (this is why you leave yourself lots of extra wire). D-type connector pins are tiny and frustrating to solder if you're incompetant like me. Solder the middle row first, then do the outer ones. When you're done with the middle row, it might be a good idea to dribble a small strip of hot glue across the wires about 1/8" from the soldering before starting on the other rows. This ensures any exposed areas of wire do not bend over and cross one another, and helps ruggedize the plug a bit. Make sure your soldering is good before gluing though! Do the other two rows, optionally hot gluing them in place. Don't hot glue the actual soldering, since you may need to touch these up at some point, if you're unlucky, or clear minor shorts between pins due to loose solder or other filth.
If you haven't done so already, you should pull the cable sheathing down to pick up some slack. If you scoot the sheathing down to where you hot glued the wires that should do nicely. Grab a plug cover and lay the D-type connector and cable in it to get an idea of how it will fit inside. Now get some electrical tape (¾" width works well) and wrap neatly and generously around the end of the cable sheathing so that it forms a big lump that won't pull out of the plug housing. This prevents all your beautiful soldering from being destroyed the instant the cord is tugged. It'd be a good idea to leave a little slack in your little wires so that a tug won't cause damage. Continuously check your work with the plug housing to ensure things fit. Now, rest the cable and D-type connector into one half of the plug housing and secure it in place with some hot glue. You want to secure the cable against being pulled out, so glue accordingly. Put on the other half of the plug housing and screw it together. Congratulations, you have a controller cable! Now, you need to connect the other half of your cable to the controller board. You can safely trim down the wires a bit if they're too long. Leave yourself 3–4 inches though. You'll need to pick a few locations on the IC board where you can solder your wires. If you don't remember which wires connect to which pin (how could you possibly?) then use the continuity checker, touching one electrode to a pin on the D-type connector and the other to the wires. You can pinch a small piece of masking tape on each wire like a flag and write its pin number on each one. Pull the flag off when you're ready to solder a wire. You may want to solder the 2 or 3 ground wires first. Find the most remote location on each ground area away from any screw holes, rubber button mat locations, etc. and scratch away about a 3/16" diameter area of green insulation off the IC board so that the silver circuit is exposed (don't scratch away all the metal underneath though!). Abrading the metal on the circuit board slightly may help the solder adhere better. Strip the ground wire and lay it flat across the exposed silver area so the wire touches the metal. A clamp of some sort would be nice here so you can free your hands. Solder the wire to the circuit. Try to make the solder as flat as possible, avoiding big globs. The rubber button mats may not lie down very well if there are large lumps underneath them. Do this for all the ground wires in their respective areas. Then do the same for the twelve button wires, making sure to use the correct wire for the correct button. Solder the wires as far away from the button contacts as possible. Do not solder the actual button contacts (the interwoven E things where the buttons touch the circuit board)! Arrange your wires so they don't cover too much ground on the front of the IC board. That is, the wires should wrap around from the back of the board to the front at a point closest to the solder point. Any clutter on the front side of the IC board will really make the buttons perform miserably. With the soldering done (continuity check!), lay the front of the controller housing down on its face and make sure all the plastic buttons are in place and their plastic contact mats are placed on top. Put in the IC board, front-side down (so the button contacts match up with the rubber contact mats). Make sure posts and screw holes line up properly. Arrange the wires neatly on the back of the board, hot gluing them in place if necessary (be sure the back of the controller fits in place first). Wind the cable around the posts the same way the original cable was done. This prevents the cable from being yanked out. Put on the back and screw it all together. One controller is finished! Repeat the whole process for all your other controllers, unless you're fed up and have settled for a one-controller system like I did.
I found that the direction buttons on my controller didn't work too wonderfully. For one, you had to really mash some of them to get them to work. What I did is cut some small paper disks and slipped them between the plastic buttons and rubber contact mat to act as shims. Three sheets of paper was just enough to make the buttons feel more normal. However, then I discovered that when I held the down button it sometimes would cause the left button to trigger, too. So I trimmed 90 degrees out of one of the disks to give a slight rightward bias. This cured the problem, and the direction pad feels normal now.
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