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Has anyone ever looked into creating their own wireless controllers out of the official Sega controllers? I think it would be really cool to be able to modify some of my official Sega controllers to work as wireless (basically, remove the cord, install an infrared device in the controller, and then install an infrared receiver in the plug that I cut off of the controller).
Anyone have any advice, or information on this idea?
I was thinking about this the other day, although i have no technical knowledge of this sort of hardware. My main thought was space - there simply is none in the DC controller, there is a very small amount of space just above the start button where a circuit could be mounted inside but it would have to be small.
This would be a very cool mod, anyone know how it could be possibly done?
I was thinking a little more about this. Would it be possible, maybe, to modify one of the mem card slots to accept a transmitter?Quote:
Originally Posted by ptr.lynch
Maybe we could even work up a mod where we take the guts out of a VMU, and replace them with some sort of IR transmitter? The little area where a lanyard can be attached to the VMU would be a perfect place to drill a hole for the IR diode (or LED, or whatever it is). By doing something like that, we could even possibly leave the cord intact, in case we felt like plugging the controller in for some reason (assuming we have extra cords, from which we can harvest the plugs).
I just realized, though, that both the controller and the plug (the part going into the DC) would actually need to have two-way transmitters (a transmitter and a receiver), as the DC is going to have to be able to send info back to the controller (I'm assuming that would be necessary, since rumble packs, etc. would not work without).
Yeah, i was thinking along the same lines of adding a VMU style adaptor but then thought you'd have to change the pinout so a VMU wouldn't work in their anymore, which is annoying because in some games you need both ports.
I think maybe a clipped on add-on that pluged into a small socket somewhere.
Perhaps have a DC controller plug sticking out of the controller with no lead, then you could plug in an extension if you wanted it cabled or an adapter if you want it wireless.
right, now we have discussed the aesthetics of it, does anyone actually know how to make it? lol.
I use sega saturn wireless pads and an adapter to play on dc
Does anyone have any knowledge of using infared or otherwise to transmit the signals needed?
Damn ptr. You and I must be on the same friggin' wavelength. I was just going to pop in here and ask if anyone had any schematics of the controller and the controller inputs, so that I could figure out what signals need to be transmitted. My dad has a great deal of knowledge dealing with I/R and radio transmitters. If I can get some info on what signals need to be sent, and how they are currently sent, I might be able to get him to help me work up something.
I might need to go out and look for some more controllers.
signals sent are probably just a pulse of on/off +5V.
The pinout of the DC controller is easy, 2 wires are for ground, one is for power (eg. +5V), one is to recieve signals for VMU/Rumble, one is to send signal to DC. Five in total. I am doing this from memory and assumption so i may be wrong.
This basically means of the five wires 3 can be ignored* :) the two signals that need to be sent/recieved are all we need to worry about.
*obviously when i say ignore i mean require no difficult circuitry so don't need to focus on.
curt, have you spoken to your dad?
found this its designed to transmit audio but could (be adapted to) work with the DC controller output signal.
Only problem is having the signal sent from the DC to the controller for the VMU will mean another circuit, i may build the above circuit and see if i can get it to work at all just sending the signal to the DC.
i was thinking you could just gut an unofficial wireless controller and put the insides of that into the official controller?
Haven't really had a chance, unfortunately. They're moving in about two weeks, so things have been hectic with them, and a lot of crap has been going on in my own life at the moment. Hopefully I'll find time in a month or so.Quote:
Originally Posted by ptr.lynch
Hope whatever it is you sort it out :)Quote:
a lot of crap has been going on in my own life at the moment
I'm gonna build the circuit tommorow and test with a DC controller, i'll post how i get along.
This has been done. They sell them at www.consolesandgadgets.com for 30 bucks american. Its the fighterpad though (No joystick). But who cares! its wireless! I have ordered one myself and it works great! A real sega saturn feel to it.
Here is the link:
https://www.consolesandgadgets.com/c...f3ed3ccf362786
Then it hasn't been done. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Meshuggah27
Thanks for the info, but I would really like to see this done with an official, standard, Sega DC controller.
I should have time to work on it in a few weeks. I am interested to see how Ptr is getting along with the radio transmitter idea, as I had only thought of I/R transmission previously.
Ohh, I thought you were just lookin for a wireless controller. Man, If someone figures this out im trying it. I already got all the supplies :)
Curt, it is IR. And it doesnt work, i really should of looked more at the circuit before i built it as most of it is for audio amplifying so is pointless for this.
I got a phototransistor and an IR LED and can send the signal but only a few inchs :p I need to figure out a circuit that could provide more range, im fairly sure the LED sending the signal is fine but the reciever needs to be more sensitive, perhaps a converging lens would do it, i'll give it a try.
Also this method has loads of interference, i don't know much about IR so dont know anything about sending signals with it so im probably doing loads wrong, but at least im getting somewhere.
Ah, I didn't realize that.Quote:
Originally Posted by ptr.lynch
I'd be careful, though, as your comments about that made me realize IR may not be the best way to go. I fear, if we use IR on more than one controller at a time, we may end up with too much interference, and the two controllers would end up cancelling each other out. It's kind of like having two remote controls for the same television. If you point either one at the TV, it will change the channel. We would have to figure out a way to adjust the frequency of the IR (I haven't played with IR in a very long time, so I don't even remember if you can easily get adjustable IR transceivers, or if you have to get two separate ones set to different frequencies).Quote:
I got a phototransistor and an IR LED and can send the signal but only a few inchs :p I need to figure out a circuit that could provide more range, im fairly sure the LED sending the signal is fine but the reciever needs to be more sensitive, perhaps a converging lens would do it, i'll give it a try.
That's kind of what I commented on above.Quote:
Also this method has loads of interference, i don't know much about IR so dont know anything about sending signals with it so im probably doing loads wrong, but at least im getting somewhere.
Maybe I should try to see if I can get one of the existing wireless controllers and see what they've done with it.
It may also be worth it to look into a radio transmitter of some sort. It's much easier, IIRC, to adjust the frequency of radio transmissions than it is to adjust the frequency of IR transmissions.
I think I'll shoot an email off to my dad right now, to see what he has to say on the subject, and to see if he can find any good links on the web (since he'll actually know what he's looking for, and will probably get a lot more reliable hits than you or I would).
Yeah, like i said before radio signals work much better and there is much less chance of interference. The GameCube wavebird is a good example, with 16 selectable channels via a small wheel on the controller and reciever.
However i have even less experience of radio signals and would have no idea of how to go about transmitting using them.
wow, i hope i am that intelligent when i get finished with the college classes im taking....
and the radio soundss like a better idea, you just need to get some friends that know alot about it, or maybe take some classes...
good luck with it...
(and ptr.lynch, i think the next step would be the millenium falcon xbox360 (1.5)... considering the last one was an xbox....)
edit- sorry for posting without a reason or whatever, i hope none of you get upset or annoyed, i havent been posting nearly as much as i was..
no need to apologize for posting :)
I don't think i'll ever make another Millenium Falcon mod, there would be no point as it would just be the same, but thanks for bringing it up as i need to do an update of stuff added to it.
Well, I guess infrared is the way we'll have to go. After emailing my dad, I got the following response:
Quote:
RF (Radio Frequency) devices are very expensive to start out with. In order to legally use and sell them, they must go through a series of FCC "type-testing" which takes a lot of time and money. Everything sold in this country that radiates radio frequencies must be type-tested. I'd say that it would cost between $10,000 and $25,000 by the time you got something ready for sale.
The only real drawback to infrared is the line-of-sight requirement. In general it would also be cheaper than RF. Based on price, you should also be able to get better bandwidth, or speed, using infrared. This would be important if you are trying to send the analog data you mentioned.
Whether using RF or infrared, most standard communication protocols will easily let you work with 8 to 32 remote devices into a single receiver-transmitter. Each remote would have a transmitter and receiver, as would the "base station" (or whatever you might want to call it).
Generally they are referred to as master and slave devices. The slaves ask to be acknowledged and when the master gives permisssion, the slaves send their data, along with some type of verification code. The master then compares the data with the verification code. If they agree, the master accepts the data and processes it. If the master misses part of the transmission from the slave, it asks the slave to resend the data. Even a slow system can process thousands of these transfers per second.
There are various protocols that determine in what order the slaves can be acknowledged. You can use "polling" where each slave is polled every few thousands or millionths of a second, or a slave can set a "flag" Once the flag is set, the master knows that a slave is waiting to talk. There are also interrupt driven systems, where certain slaves, or certain types of communication take precedence over other slaves. If their priority is high enough, they can "interrupt" whatever else is going on. Because of the speed of the communication (with infrared, generally several million cycles per second), the masters and slaves are mostly in an idle state.
You need to find a friend who is into microprocessors.
That extensive cost is only if we want to sell the thing commercially.
i have a friend who knows alot about microprocessors, i should of asked him before.
Yeah - I wasn't sure about the cost if we weren't going with it commercially (which we obviously wouldn't).
Hopefully your friend will have some good stuff to tell us.
Docs made dc wireless controllers
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...Name=WDVW&rd=1
Yes, but we want to modify stock controller's to work wirelessly, were aware of already existing commercial wireless controllers.
Any updates here? I'd love to do something like this.
I'm slowly getting somewhere, the friend knew nothing about this but said to check the Maplins catalogue as he says it always seems to show an answer when he's stuck for a solution :p
Sure enough, flicking through i saw some IR encoders and decoders, these should work perfectly with sending the signal to the DC, and i'm looking into how to send a signal back for the VMU. In the meantime i'll build the circuit needed using those two IC's should be a nice simple circuit.
This aside, i don't really like IR, it's unreliable and more open to interence, plus you have a shorter range, but using radio waves like a GameCube wavebird uses seems much more complicated. So im stuck with IR.
What's the max range you can get with IR?Quote:
Originally Posted by ptr.exe
And doesn't it have to be more or less line of sight?
The range varies on the setup, but it's easily more than 5 metres, which is plenty. Depending on the IR diode used you can have it that you're facing the other way to the DC and it'll still work, you just use one with a wide viewing angle.
So seeing as you've been working on this a bit, do you think we'll actually be able to fit all of the components inside of the standard controller casing? What about powering the transmiter? Somehow adding batteries to the DC controller?
Way way way sorry to bump this thread...
Has this gone anywhere? As to answer power issues, I think you might be able to fit in a couple AA Re-Chargable batteries in the "wings" of the controller. Maybe add a small DC adaptor to recharge them?
Sorry again for bumping...
meh, I gave up on this ages ago.
I was gonna stop using IR anyway, RF would be far better.
Sadly, I just don't know enough about this kinda stuff and so without help don't know where to start.
Hopefully someone else has an idea of how to do this :)
You would have to use some sort of RF, Infared simply isnt good enough for something like that although it is simplier (Thinks of his Wireless NES adapter which uses Infared). It has to be RF...
I really wish I knew more about this stuff, it'd be great to make a totally custom Dreamcast casing without controller ports that would just be completely wireless like an Xbox 360.
why bother with wireless controllers anyway whats the point . i mean cables are faster and make more sense
Convenience. Wireless controllers are nice, you aren't always tripping over stuff. I bought a wireless for my Xbox not too long ago because it was fairly cheap and I needed a second controller, and I use it quite often. It's rubbish for fighting games, but great for any other type.Quote:
Originally Posted by matthewmcg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast_light_guns
would this work out ? info with the light gun?
If you could pull the wireless transmitter from it then I don't see why not. If it's similar enough to a controller you could probably wire it up to work. There would probably be a lot of excess stuff hanging off the controller though. There's a lot more space to put stuff in a light gun. That thing looks like it'd be hard to find too. Looks like one of those cheap Japanese third party things. But don't go by what I say because I don't know what I'm talking about really.Quote:
Originally Posted by phisejr
Now that so many things have been discovered about the Fishing rod, we can mod the fishing rod into a wireless one and call it the "Dreamote" That is if this project comes to a success
this might be helpful
http://www.nordicsemi.com/index.cfm?...display&pro=64
i was thinking of using this i/c for creating saturn rf pads/receivers
dreamcast would also be great as i have both .
just trying to figure out how exactly to implement it (i'm not an electrical engineer, so i probably won't)