Retro-bit's Sega controllers
Re: Retro-bit's Sega controllers
Very nice! Thanks for sharing.
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BazookaBen
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casualcoder
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Re: Retro-bit's Sega controllers
I'm late to the party with the Saturn Pad and recently picked up one of these Retro-Bit ones.
I've been driven nuts trying to find a good dpad controller that would work well on my MiSTer setup, emulation, etc and finally decided to get one of these as it seemed to check all of the boxes.
But I got a bit paranoid reading up all of the trials people were having, specifically with the dpad no less.
So funny thing happened, I got a really cheap but perfect condition "open box" one from PNPGames. Before I was even privy to any of this I noted how everything felt really great, and I'm pretty picky about such things.
But then curiosity got the better of me and I had to open it up to see what was in there. First, I noticed the PCB was a REVA 2019-03-29, so it must be one of the very first ones (sweat pouring intensifies).
And turning to the dpad I realized it had a cross/actuator that looked totally different from the broken ones I had been seeing posted on the internet (sweat pouring subsides).
However in looking further it actually looks pretty much identical to the actuator found in the original Saturn pads. Except it did have a screw in the middle, like a lot of the Retro-bit ones. Basically like the bottom one here, but with a screw in the middle.
So now I'm wondering if Retro-bit went through a lot of iterations and maybe even began with a translucent/flexible actuator just like the original Saturn ones, or perhaps more likely this "open box" was actually a trade-in and the original owner threw in an original actuator? It didn't look at all used though so... quite strange.
Either way I guess the takeaway might just be that if you can get an actuator similar to the original then my guess is you should expect the controller to perform as well as expected. Fingers crossed I don't have issues in the future, because I really don't like hunting for good dpads... for these exact reasons!
I've been driven nuts trying to find a good dpad controller that would work well on my MiSTer setup, emulation, etc and finally decided to get one of these as it seemed to check all of the boxes.
But I got a bit paranoid reading up all of the trials people were having, specifically with the dpad no less.
So funny thing happened, I got a really cheap but perfect condition "open box" one from PNPGames. Before I was even privy to any of this I noted how everything felt really great, and I'm pretty picky about such things.
But then curiosity got the better of me and I had to open it up to see what was in there. First, I noticed the PCB was a REVA 2019-03-29, so it must be one of the very first ones (sweat pouring intensifies).
And turning to the dpad I realized it had a cross/actuator that looked totally different from the broken ones I had been seeing posted on the internet (sweat pouring subsides).
However in looking further it actually looks pretty much identical to the actuator found in the original Saturn pads. Except it did have a screw in the middle, like a lot of the Retro-bit ones. Basically like the bottom one here, but with a screw in the middle.
So now I'm wondering if Retro-bit went through a lot of iterations and maybe even began with a translucent/flexible actuator just like the original Saturn ones, or perhaps more likely this "open box" was actually a trade-in and the original owner threw in an original actuator? It didn't look at all used though so... quite strange.
Either way I guess the takeaway might just be that if you can get an actuator similar to the original then my guess is you should expect the controller to perform as well as expected. Fingers crossed I don't have issues in the future, because I really don't like hunting for good dpads... for these exact reasons!
Re: Retro-bit's Sega controllers
If you do have issues, just reach out to Retro-Bit and they will send you a new actuator. The controllers do feel nice, it’s what I prefer using with the MiSTer’s Saturn core.