I wanna hack an icade to USB and I would just sell the board on ebay so if somone was repairing one and wanted to use the original board (idk y) then there you go
Nearly 4 years later, I'm using one of these just as a controller for a couple switches, simply because I'm hopeless with electronics and its easier than using an Arduino, plus cheaper. Absolutely fine so far, although I feel like I'm under-utilising it so I'm thinking about making a button box just so I can make use out of the other connectors
Bought one of these for a simple button box for FC3. Works like a charme. The fact that i can turn the analog Joystick into 4 more buttons with the mode option makes it 16 Buttons in total. I love it.
Hey RMC! Amigos contributor John Marshall here. Just found this video when looking up info on this board. I just bought a Happ trackball to make a custom controller for Golden Tee, Centipede and Crystal Castles, among others. Great video!
For most of the wired spade connectors where they go on the back of the switches pin - you press the side of the connector when you want to slide it off - this pushes a small lever, and allows the spade terminal to slide off the button.. it has a tiny metal lever catch on it to stop it falling out :)
EDIT: I answered my own question. Looks like I will need to dedicate a single switch in order to always have access to the POV Hat function. I can rewire the leds on my joystick in order for it to show both power and proper Hat mode. I was worried this device wouldn't work for a standard PC joystick, but I see now with proper modifications it most definitely should work.
Worth noting that the XCSource kits come in two flavours: One with no Sanwa/Seimitsu joystick cable but 20 of the other cables, and one with a Sanwa/Seimitsu joystick cable but only 16 of the other type.
3:35 My hitbox fightstick build had a problem precisely because of that, when it's on POV Hat mode(Green LED ON), if I pressed LEFT, DOWN, and RIGHT at the same time it would give me UP LEFT even if I didn't even have a button wired to UP, but clicking on Mode making it change to Joystick(Red LED ON) would fix it. I still had to set up those 4 directional buttons specifically as joystick input on Steam Big Picture mode tho, emulators too now that I'm remembering it. As an board for an standard arcade joystick build it would basically right off the bat even on POV Hat mode, there's just this very small inconvenience if you want to make a hitbox that you need to be aware of. But given the advantages an hitbox offers, for this cheap of a price it's a moot point.
Recreate it with an arcade joystick, a few arcade buttons, and one of these boards, put it all in a small wooden box. Easy replacement of parts means it will probably outlive you. :D
I just got this board and I found out that the mode button does switch to the POV hat instead of the X/Y axis as described in the video, but it doesn't SAVE this to the board. The next time it powers up the default X/Y axis mode will be enabled. Just a heads up for those wanting to use it in a closed cabinet and don't want to add a dedicated button somewhere just to switch modes EVERY SINGLE TIME you use it..... *sigh*
I've used two of those - one in arcade stick, another in universal converter (two 9 pin sockets driving 2 C64 joysticks at once, or both connected to drive one fightstick). Boards work really well, but quality can be an issue (I had some cold joints on one).
mine didnt come with the wire for the joystick. I tried using the single wires but my sanwa joystick has a pcb and just one single black ground wire. I daisy chained all the direction wires but it still wont work. buttons work fine so the board is good. is there anything else to try here?
I installed this board into my Mad Catz Street Fighter Tournament Edition Round 2 Fight stick for PS3. I used it on my older PC. On newer PCs it doesnt work anymore because of that oldschool UHCI - USB - Protocol. I didnt use the auto-fire-mode , so i connect only 10 buttons and the joystick. It works perfectly, no delay or lag. In my opinion its a cheap and good choice for Arcade-Sticks. It came with USB-Cable ( i used the longer original of my fightstick ) , 12 connector cables for Stick and buttons ( i connected the 5 pin Sanwa cable instead ) for around 10 Euros!! I did this conversion because i couldnt find a xbox version of the mad catz. The only issue with the original Sanwa-Joystick cable was that i had to turn the joystick 180 degrees. That means you have to unscrew 4 screws - thats it.
Why I'm not subscribed yet? A whole 5 years watching back and forth and now I see I'm not subscribed. 🤦♂️ Fixed. Thanks for your review. I'm about to test mine in here and decided to look for some light on the matter.
I just saw this at my local electronics store. all the same markings and circuitry --- for $30. and is packaged with only 10 cables. this now reminds me to look for reviews before i purchase.
For some reason my joystick only works when I connect it to the regular button inputs, but it doesn't work when connected to the joystick inputs. Any ideas?
Im having problems with the zero delays i have 2 for two player but everytime ones disconnects on accident and reconnect it makes the 2 players works a one giant controller 😢
Hello Thank you for bringing the subject.. Since operating system (windows) recognize up to 128 switches is there any way to connect two or more boards to get 24 or more micro switches using this controller Regards
Hi there! I have the same configuration and i set up my arcade DIY unfortunatley both of the joystick has the same error. The UpLeft and DownRight directions do not work. Could you help me?
What it the device between the ARC and the PC? it looks like the most important piece of kit needed to get the ARK to funbction. Ive googled it and cant find anything on it. Is it a decoder or driver?
so i got my pack in the post today. put it together and the only difference was that my comp. pro. was a leaf sprung kind, not microswitched.. however i connected it the same way.. and then fell at the final hurdle.. i got my up/down confused when connecting the leads to the board, had to take them out and re-seat them.. also found that both fire buttons couldn't be connected to one source. otherwise very happy to use my joysticks again. If i have a complaint, it's the same was yours, the cables were too small and I'd like a box of some sort to mount it in. I think i'll use a matchbox! Many thanks for this video.. it helped me out.. especially when looking what sockets you placed the leads into on the controller..
Anyone know how this PCB would work out if you needed x-input? I have a stick that doesn't support 360 or Xbox One but still supports x-input so it seems your pcb doesn't necessarily need to support those consoles to have it.
Is the joystick connection analog or digital? I would like to make an h-shifter and clutch pedal for sim racing and it would help if it had analog inputs as well (for the clutch)
Hey There, is there a way to connect LEDs to this board? I have some 5-Volt LEDs for some of the buttons, but I'm not sure if I can use this board, since there's all 2 connectors and not 3 connectors. thanks!
Is it possible to connect led buttons to this board and have the led light up? I see there are different boards that have 3 pin connectors that are meant for led buttons, But was curious if there is some way to get leds to light up with this particular board?
This board would not send power to light up the LED's. You could perhaps use a combination of this board with the GPIO pins on the Pi to get the power to them? If you have some cash you could use something like an I-Pac Ultimate IO (www.ultimarc.com/ipac.html)
Man hello.If i need more buttons and if i buy 2 of this kits...set up one for left player and other kit for right player..will it work ?I have x arcade encoder but i have a short circuit on pcb and problens with switch programming mod that i set up before and a lot of buttons is doesnt work now and i thik if i ordering this two kits and change my x arcade pcb encoder to two like this may be this will help ?
RetroManCave hope so...try this next month, hope my umk3 reproduction will work again.So sad to loose controls and all emulators set up in my sistem..need to remap all buttons.
Trying to set one of these up. But for some reason whenever I press one button, the computer recognizes it as pressing all the buttons! Anyone have any similar issues? I bought two and tried swapping the board out, same thing. Hooking it up to an old arcade cabinet with a PC in it.
I want to connect some arcade buttons that I've bought to my PC. With this, can you configure what each button registers as? Eg. set one button to bascially type an A, another to type L, etc. I wouldn't be using it to play classic arcade games just a GameMaker game I've made which only requires 3 buttons. At the moment it's played with the A, B and L keys. I'd not be fully sure how to change my game code to mean an arcade button has been pressed if they can't be configured. :| Thanks :)
I'm thinking of using this to build an arcade joystick for my PC. I was wondering what it is detected as in game? For example I use an Xbox One controller on my PC, so any in game prompts, menu commands etc are displayed as Xbox One A, B, X, Y etc coloured buttons. I was planning on making my joystick have 8 coloured face buttons for A, B, X, Y, LB, RB, LT, RT plus buttons on the back or side for the "back" and "start" buttons (also possibly an Xbox home button but that only brings up the "game bar" which I never use so might leave it off). But if the button names and colours don't match what's in game then I might do something different. Sorry for the long comment!
I plan to make either a hitbox or standard control box using one of these, some 2.8 mm connector buttons, some very short height joystick, and two beautiful £3 chopping boards I bought. Should come in at a cost to me of around £32 as I already have the drill bits for this.
My cherry micro switches have 3 prongs on them. So I'm guessing one goes to com but how do I know where the other one goes??? Always open or always closed? Cheers.
I bought several of these boards for various arcade bartops. Never failed
The fact that you saved the old parts for the joystick to put it back to it's original state makes you aces in my book.
Thanks, we can't be destroying Comp Pro's!!
I wanna hack an icade to USB and I would just sell the board on ebay so if somone was repairing one and wanted to use the original board (idk y) then there you go
Nearly 4 years later, I'm using one of these just as a controller for a couple switches, simply because I'm hopeless with electronics and its easier than using an Arduino, plus cheaper. Absolutely fine so far, although I feel like I'm under-utilising it so I'm thinking about making a button box just so I can make use out of the other connectors
Bought one of these for a simple button box for FC3. Works like a charme. The fact that i can turn the analog Joystick into 4 more buttons with the mode option makes it 16 Buttons in total. I love it.
Hey RMC! Amigos contributor John Marshall here. Just found this video when looking up info on this board. I just bought a Happ trackball to make a custom controller for Golden Tee, Centipede and Crystal Castles, among others. Great video!
Nice one John. I was playing golden tee at an arcade just last week. Great fun
can i get the name of track before the intro(not 8bit themes ) ?
For most of the wired spade connectors where they go on the back of the switches pin - you press the side of the connector when you want to slide it off - this pushes a small lever, and allows the spade terminal to slide off the button.. it has a tiny metal lever catch on it to stop it falling out :)
EDIT: I answered my own question. Looks like I will need to dedicate a single switch in order to always have access to the POV Hat function. I can rewire the leds on my joystick in order for it to show both power and proper Hat mode. I was worried this device wouldn't work for a standard PC joystick, but I see now with proper modifications it most definitely should work.
Worth noting that the XCSource kits come in two flavours: One with no Sanwa/Seimitsu joystick cable but 20 of the other cables, and one with a Sanwa/Seimitsu joystick cable but only 16 of the other type.
I’ve built several arcades and used these, simple easy and just works
3:35 My hitbox fightstick build had a problem precisely because of that, when it's on POV Hat mode(Green LED ON), if I pressed LEFT, DOWN, and RIGHT at the same time it would give me UP LEFT even if I didn't even have a button wired to UP, but clicking on Mode making it change to Joystick(Red LED ON) would fix it.
I still had to set up those 4 directional buttons specifically as joystick input on Steam Big Picture mode tho, emulators too now that I'm remembering it.
As an board for an standard arcade joystick build it would basically right off the bat even on POV Hat mode, there's just this very small inconvenience if you want to make a hitbox that you need to be aware of. But given the advantages an hitbox offers, for this cheap of a price it's a moot point.
Does this work with the nintendo switch?
Currently looking at using old keyboard switches to make myself a usb joystick keyboard
pretty excited :D
I made a 4 button Bishi Bashi controller with this board. Completely flawless performance!
Used one for years. Work perfect
What type of plugs do the micro switches use? XHP?
I seem to have lost a couple cables, and I might need to buy replacement.
Oh god. I loved my Comp pro joystick. Lasted for years. Miss it.
Recreate it with an arcade joystick, a few arcade buttons, and one of these boards, put it all in a small wooden box. Easy replacement of parts means it will probably outlive you. :D
Is it possible to connect a 2" trackball to the board?
03:30 Did you hook up a button or a switch to the mode connection? It looks like you used a toggle switch there.
Does it feature x-input? I guess not, cause I would love to use it in my stick for steam shmups :)
how does the turbo or auto fire function? That's what led me to the video. Might need to buy a toggle switch for that?
Thank you for the video. Getting my kit in mail soon. I will update you
it seems you can get 4 full range analog axis out of these if you remove the resistors on the board.
Its advertised as a ps4 pcb also. Have u ever tried it?
I just got this board and I found out that the mode button does switch to the POV hat instead of the X/Y axis as described in the video, but it doesn't SAVE this to the board. The next time it powers up the default X/Y axis mode will be enabled. Just a heads up for those wanting to use it in a closed cabinet and don't want to add a dedicated button somewhere just to switch modes EVERY SINGLE TIME you use it..... *sigh*
Changing J1 to the other position will make it start in analog mode. It's also possible to change J1 for an SPDT switch
Could I use this board to build something like a flight sim joystick? Couldn't find any info on that
Why not use an I-PAC2 instead?
The I-PAC is a great product but there's a big cost difference between these devices. If you don't need the bells and whistles then this is an option
@@RMCRetro 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
I bought one to convert a nes advantage to a standard usb controller and it worked great! awesome price and it works as it should.
I've used two of those - one in arcade stick, another in universal converter (two 9 pin sockets driving 2 C64 joysticks at once, or both connected to drive one fightstick). Boards work really well, but quality can be an issue (I had some cold joints on one).
the led part wires up separately, so just get a separate board to control your led
Is the microchip under the black pad? Surely there has to be one
WHat is the default buttton maping?
1,2,3,4??
Awesome review and very helpful!
mine didnt come with the wire for the joystick. I tried using the single wires but my sanwa joystick has a pcb and just one single black ground wire. I daisy chained all the direction wires but it still wont work. buttons work fine so the board is good. is there anything else to try here?
I haven't used mine yet, but am glad to find a video of the exact board I have. Building 2 systems.
Any chance of covering which connector is which and what type of button to use on each? So little information about this board.
Hi can i use a dual axis joystic in that board?
I installed this board into my Mad Catz Street Fighter Tournament Edition Round 2 Fight stick for PS3.
I used it on my older PC. On newer PCs it doesnt work anymore because of that oldschool UHCI - USB - Protocol.
I didnt use the auto-fire-mode , so i connect only 10 buttons and the joystick.
It works perfectly, no delay or lag. In my opinion its a cheap and good choice for Arcade-Sticks.
It came with USB-Cable ( i used the longer original of my fightstick ) , 12 connector cables for Stick and buttons ( i connected the 5 pin Sanwa cable instead ) for around 10 Euros!!
I did this conversion because i couldnt find a xbox version of the mad catz.
The only issue with the original Sanwa-Joystick cable was that i had to turn the joystick 180 degrees. That means you have to unscrew 4 screws - thats it.
Why I'm not subscribed yet?
A whole 5 years watching back and forth and now I see I'm not subscribed. 🤦♂️
Fixed. Thanks for your review. I'm about to test mine in here and decided to look for some light on the matter.
What are the 12 buttons for?
Im guessing:
the 8 standard fightstick inputs, but what are the other 4?
IAmQuiteThirsty for any other buttons you might think of
Start, Select (Coin), and now games are putting training options on L3, R3 and Touchpad buttons.
I used one of these boards, without the plastic connectors, in a handheld I built for my kid. They're cheap and they work great
Thank you much. I'm using this to create a Button/dash box for iRacing.
would this work on a console
Can a multi position rotary be added to this board? I just want it to hit a button on right turn and a different button on left turn.
I just saw this at my local electronics store. all the same markings and circuitry --- for $30. and is packaged with only 10 cables. this now reminds me to look for reviews before i purchase.
For some reason my joystick only works when I connect it to the regular button inputs, but it doesn't work when connected to the joystick inputs. Any ideas?
Can I use a pot instead of joystick? I'd like to have two separate pots, to control different axis, instead of one joy. What pot would I need?
Im having problems with the zero delays i have 2 for two player but everytime ones disconnects on accident and reconnect it makes the 2 players works a one giant controller 😢
Hello
Thank you for bringing the subject..
Since operating system (windows) recognize up to 128 switches is there any way to connect two or more boards to get 24 or more micro switches using this controller
Regards
made a fighting stick for it and it works very well
Das Richter does it work for pc and ps4 street fighter?
Hi there! I have the same configuration and i set up my arcade DIY unfortunatley both of the joystick has the same error. The UpLeft and DownRight directions do not work. Could you help me?
Ipac was confusing shit, used one when i was in 6th grade, no idea what i was doing
can you also assign an Axis so like for flying helicopters or is it just on and off?
Does it work with Ubuntu Linux? If it's HID it should.
Yes it works in Linux including RetroPie distros
What it the device between the ARC and the PC? it looks like the most important piece of kit needed to get the ARK to funbction. Ive googled it and cant find anything on it. Is it a decoder or driver?
@rmc this board are really works for beatmania IIDX d.i.y controller with LED light.??
so i got my pack in the post today. put it together and the only difference was that my comp. pro. was a leaf sprung kind, not microswitched.. however i connected it the same way.. and then fell at the final hurdle.. i got my up/down confused when connecting the leads to the board, had to take them out and re-seat them.. also found that both fire buttons couldn't be connected to one source. otherwise very happy to use my joysticks again. If i have a complaint, it's the same was yours, the cables were too small and I'd like a box of some sort to mount it in. I think i'll use a matchbox! Many thanks for this video.. it helped me out.. especially when looking what sockets you placed the leads into on the controller..
You're welcome and thanks for watching I'm glad it helped you
Can I use led encoder with regular non-led buttons?
Nice video, Can this USB board be used on windows 10?
+Victor Bocanegra yes its just fine on win 10
It works in most things, as they just see a very generic usb joystick.
if I buy HAPP controls, do I need a 2 pin or 5 pin or 4.8mm usb kit?? Thanks
Can I use rotary switches, and momentary toggle/rocker switches with these?
Anyone know how this PCB would work out if you needed x-input? I have a stick that doesn't support 360 or Xbox One but still supports x-input so it seems your pcb doesn't necessarily need to support those consoles to have it.
Is the joystick connection analog or digital? I would like to make an h-shifter and clutch pedal for sim racing and it would help if it had analog inputs as well (for the clutch)
Thank you so much !!!!
I didn't find any tutorial for this controller before !
Thank you !!!!!
Can this board be use to power led switch’s?
Hey There, is there a way to connect LEDs to this board? I have some 5-Volt LEDs for some of the buttons, but I'm not sure if I can use this board, since there's all 2 connectors and not 3 connectors. thanks!
Andres Salazar I dont think so no, this is a cery basic board for control inputs only. Maybe try the Ultimarc PacLED64 for some fancy lights
RetroManCave good video I got a question I got the same board but I don’t know where is the connector for the LED’s goes please help
Is it possible to connect led buttons to this board and have the led light up? I see there are different boards that have 3 pin connectors that are meant for led buttons, But was curious if there is some way to get leds to light up with this particular board?
This board would not send power to light up the LED's. You could perhaps use a combination of this board with the GPIO pins on the Pi to get the power to them? If you have some cash you could use something like an I-Pac Ultimate IO (www.ultimarc.com/ipac.html)
I love using them. Easy to use.
I'm interested in those missing sockets and spots for resistors... Anyone know what they're for?
what is the polartiy of wires when you hooked it up to the micro switches ? thanks
Man hello.If i need more buttons and if i buy 2 of this kits...set up one for left player and other kit for right player..will it work ?I have x arcade encoder but i have a short circuit on pcb and problens with switch programming mod that i set up before and a lot of buttons is doesnt work now and i thik if i ordering this two kits and change my x arcade pcb encoder to two like this may be this will help ?
I haven't tried it but they sell these in packs of two for 2 player kits so my guess would be yes.
RetroManCave hope so...try this next month, hope my umk3 reproduction will work again.So sad to loose controls and all emulators set up in my sistem..need to remap all buttons.
Trying to set one of these up. But for some reason whenever I press one button, the computer recognizes it as pressing all the buttons! Anyone have any similar issues? I bought two and tried swapping the board out, same thing. Hooking it up to an old arcade cabinet with a PC in it.
Seems to be easy, and maybe I can attach 2 of this to a Pi2/3. But.. where can I find compatible and SMALL buttons? Thanks
can you use it in reverse mode so you can use usb controllers on arcade?
Anyone have any experience attaching rotary encoders to the board? Any success?
Is this the dragonrise generic usb? As they are a bit of a nightmare using it in retropie
Would this work for a single button? I am looking for something I can hook a single button to, and the computer recognize it?
this answered a lot of my questions thanks
Neelu you're welcome
Thinking of starting my first DIY arcade stick. Are all encoders compatible with any system? (Asking for xbox one)
This encorder supports 3 position buttons?
Thanks for the video, does it support potentiometers by any chance even one or two for X and Y? Cheers
Hi! I have the same usb encoder and i have the push button with 4 legs… if possible use the power of USB connector?
can a game steering wheel, throttle, brake, clutch gear set be made using this thing? (google translate used)
Can i use one of the connectors for microphone with a PTT?
I want to connect some arcade buttons that I've bought to my PC. With this, can you configure what each button registers as? Eg. set one button to bascially type an A, another to type L, etc.
I wouldn't be using it to play classic arcade games just a GameMaker game I've made which only requires 3 buttons. At the moment it's played with the A, B and L keys. I'd not be fully sure how to change my game code to mean an arcade button has been pressed if they can't be configured. :|
Thanks :)
It appears as a joystick. You could use the utility Joy2Key to convert it to key presses or look at a device like the iPac for native keyboard input
hi, can u use it as a mouse?
I'm thinking of using this to build an arcade joystick for my PC.
I was wondering what it is detected as in game? For example I use an Xbox One controller on my PC, so any in game prompts, menu commands etc are displayed as Xbox One A, B, X, Y etc coloured buttons.
I was planning on making my joystick have 8 coloured face buttons for A, B, X, Y, LB, RB, LT, RT plus buttons on the back or side for the "back" and "start" buttons (also possibly an Xbox home button but that only brings up the "game bar" which I never use so might leave it off).
But if the button names and colours don't match what's in game then I might do something different.
Sorry for the long comment!
You could probably set it up with some sort of joystick to keyboard stuff
Does this one work with toggle switches?
sir do you have a link where to download arcades games using this usb encoder or perhaps a software that could be used in the classroom. tnk u
Is it possible to use an analog stick on these? it doesn't seem like it
is there turbo function??
wich program do you use ?
I plan to make either a hitbox or standard control box using one of these, some 2.8 mm connector buttons, some very short height joystick, and two beautiful £3 chopping boards I bought. Should come in at a cost to me of around £32 as I already have the drill bits for this.
Did you do it? Any Tipps for a beginner?
what pins are for coin/credit and start?
awesome video, very informative! :)
Hello, does this pcb work on ps3 or PS4?
PS3 .NO PS4
If it works on ps3 it should work on most ps4 games
Handy review, thank-you. I was also hoping for a jumper for the coin slot but, it doesn't appear so :-( For the price it should do the job.
Coin impulse is like any other buttons. Map your coin door to one of the regular inputs.
can i just use a "regular" button (like the big red ones) and connect them with the usb encoder? I mean the + und - into the signal and ground port?
Yes you can, so long as whatever you're connecting closes the circuit then the press will be registered by the encoder
thank you that was quick!
My cherry micro switches have 3 prongs on them. So I'm guessing one goes to com but how do I know where the other one goes??? Always open or always closed?
Cheers.
Neil Gray always open. then the com prong is ground
Can you put 2 sticks and 6 buttons in this?