Joystick button wiring suggestions - solution found!

[Dreamcazman]

Hi all, hoping someone here can help me. I potentially have two questions to ask.

I recently picked up a Astro City mini arcade stick and am contemplating modding it to use on current consoles by utilising one of the Brook fighting boards.

The issue I have is the Astro stick doesn't have a third button I could use as a Guide/PS Home button and I don't want to install extra buttons or otherwise modify the stick's case, at least nothing I can't revert back to stock if I ever want to.

I have a couple of the older PS360+ boards from Akishop-customs in my arcade cabinet and they have the handy feature where pressing both Select & Start, triggered the Guide input, or S+S=H as it's documented.

Are the Brook boards capable of this?

If not, is there a simple electronic circuit I could build which would give me the same functionality? Still have Select and Start work as normal, but pressing them both acts as a third 'virtual' button if you will.

I hope that makes sense. Any help would be great, thanks.

[Dreamcazman]

Any suggestions?

I did come across a potential solution to use an AND logic gate IC to provide a button combo A+B=C.

Gave it a go, but didn't seem to work the way I wanted, not sure if I did something wrong or what.

[NoAffinity]

Are you intent on the Brooks board, and if so, why?

Mc cthulhu provides all the same functionality (plus some) and does what you need for the combination of buttons to trigger home.

Looks like they're out of stock at Paradise currently, though, so may not be good advice at the moment, but something to consider.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[Dochartaigh]

Are you intent on the Brooks board, and if so, why?

Mc cthulhu provides all the same functionality (plus some) and does what you need for the combination of buttons to trigger home.

He said "current consoles" though... which unless something changed firmware-wise which I'm not aware of, Mc Cthulhu is only PS3 at the newest...

Brook, depending on model, can do ALL the modern consoles (even PS5 with add-on board). I haven't followed extra dual-button functionality as I'll just drill a 20mm hole (or a like 7mm if I want it discrete) on them though so don't know about that.

[Dreamcazman]

Are you intent on the Brooks board, and if so, why?

This is why.

Brook, depending on model, can do ALL the modern consoles (even PS5 with add-on board)

I've since been playing around with different electronic circuits and I think I got something working with a couple of 2N3904 NPN transistors and 10k resistors. I still have to do some more testing before saying anything concrete, but it is currently working on a generic USB board I have here which is great news. I don't have a Brook board to test right now.

[Dreamcazman]

Just a quick update, thanks to a kind gentleman on another electronics forum who has helped me, I have a working button combo solution for common ground controller PCBs.

I have ordered a Brook board and once it arrives and I've confirmed the circuit works on it (currently working on an Xbox PCB), I will post an update with all relevant info.

Stay tuned.

[Dreamcazman]

My Brook UFB arrived the other day and I have successfully gotten the new circuit to work on it. All credit goes to the gentleman here who helped me out - https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q ... -common-gr



First thing to do was measure the voltage across the buttons on the board, which in this case is around 3v-3.2v. From testing a couple of boards, this seems to be standard.

As the circuit is driven by the 5v from the USB connection, an additional two resistors are needed on the output to make basic divider circuit to drop the voltage from 5v to 3v. This may not have been necessary but I didn't want to take any chances. Anyways, I ended up using 3.3k and 5.6k resistors. A calculator can be found here - https://ohmslawcalculator.com/voltage-d ... calculator

Here is the end result of the complete circuit layout I designed on veroboard.





I haven't gotten it installed properly in the Astro City stick as I'm still waiting for a wiring loom but can confirm when you press both start & select, it triggers Guide/PS Home.

I hope I explained this guide clearly and that it helps someone else out. Hit me up if you have any questions.

[Gunstar]

That's cool you got this sorted, I wonder if I can adapt this to an arcade stick with a pad-hacked PS1 pcb

[Dreamcazman]

That's cool you got this sorted, I wonder if I can adapt this to an arcade stick with a pad-hacked PS1 pcb

I'm sure you could, I think the PCB's were common ground. You'd just have to check the voltages and adjust accordingly.

[Dreamcazman]

I finally got everything installed in my stick and tested it out last night, works perfectly.

The custom veroboard circuit is attached with hot glue, underneath the 3D mount I designed (sorry, forgot to take a photo of it).

Here is the link to the mounting plate STL file -> https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5788797



Incidentally, I did have to install a 90 degree pin header as the harness would not fit, lol.



Overall, I'm very happy with how everything turned out.

[Gunstar]

Nice, the 90-degree pin header looks neat too.


I'm making a PCB for this, it has resistor options for:
- R4 "100k from Q1 base to ground may be helpful to keep Q1 off"
- R5 and R6 for "5v to 3v basic divider"

Use/bridge as needed.

I might change the diodes to through-hole options instead. Do you think soldering to pads would be nicer to have for VCC/GND/Buttons or should I just leave them as holes?

[Dreamcazman]

Do you think soldering to pads would be nicer to have for VCC/GND/Buttons or should I just leave them as holes?

That looks great! Do you plan on getting a few of them in?

I didn't find R4 was necessary, might depend on the situation.

Pads might be easier to solder to.

[Gunstar]

Do you think soldering to pads would be nicer to have for VCC/GND/Buttons or should I just leave them as holes?

That looks great! Do you plan on getting a few of them in?

I didn't find R4 was necessary, might depend on the situation.

Pads might be easier to solder to.

As well as the PS1 pad-hacked Dreamcast stick mentioned I also have an Astro stick like you that I plan to put a Pico board in, not sure if it supports shortcuts like this though so would be handy to have a couple of boards

Cool, I'll switch out the holes to pads, thanks, dude.

btw I assume when you press the two buttons together you still get those inputs alongside the third desired input?

[Dreamcazman]

btw I assume when you press the two buttons together you still get those inputs alongside the third desired input?

It does, that is a potential downside. I was having fun last night on the PS5 as it would continually take screenshots, lol. I never really use the share button anyway, wish there was a way to disable it.

On Xbox, the guide input seems to work ok even with the other buttons being activated.

Not sure if there's any other way around this.