I recently got a model 1 Sega Genesis and an Everdrive MD and have been playing a lot of the great shmups and arcade ports. The standard 3-button pads are not great, period, but they're especially crummy for those sorts of games (Street Fighter is basically impossible), so I figured I'd seek out some 6-button pads.
Legit 6-button pads from Sega are quite nice, but they're getting more expensive these days (like everything retro, amirite?), so I decided to check out some of the cheap knockoffs. The cheapest ones I could find were going for $8 for 2 pads on eBay and, while I expected them to be shitty, they're worse than I ever imagined:
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| The Fighting Putt 6B packaging. Both pads I received looked as if they'd been sat upon. |
The buttons are so loose I was worried they would fall right out of the cheap plastic casing. The controllers themselves weigh almost nothing and their cord is a measly 3 feet long. The funniest quirk, IMO, is that they only used 4 screws to connect the housing instead of the 5 Sega used, but they put in a fake plastic screw just to keep up appearances:
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| Very clever, guys. Nobody suspects a thing. |
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Between the laughably short cord and the awful buttons, I decided to check out the PCB to see if it might be worth putting into an arcade stick (I already have a PS360+ multi-console board, which covers every console I care about
except the Genesis/MD, so this would be useful). It turns out that the PCB is actually really great for this purpose, with a common-ground design and nice, big soldering pads for each input:
Here's a shot with wires soldered onto the pads:
And here's one with the solder joints smothered in hot glue for long-term stability:
I hooked it into an existing stick I had lying around and everything works perfectly. After the price of an extension cable, I'm still looking at sub-$10, so not too bad. I wouldn't recommend the Fighting Putt 6Bs for general use, but they're great for padhacking.
28 comments:
Dude, this has nothing to do with the article but I just discovered your blog yesterday, and is amazing! I love the shaders posts. Is just impressive.
Greetings from Mexico.
eyyy, glad to hear from you, and I'm glad you like the blog :D
Is there someway to get a pack with all shaders that you posted previously or some link with everything? Like the LCD Shader, "New NTSC Shaders" post and all. I'm a little bit lost with all this stuff, also which shader format is better/more compatible with emulators?
Thanks!
Pretty much all of them are available on github in the libretro organization's glsl-shaders, slang-shaders and common-shaders repos. I also have quite a few in hizzlekizzle/quark-shaders on github.
The quark shaders work with byuu's higan suite of emulators, while the others work with RetroArch.
Oh now I understand... I think. I'll try'em. By the way, your blog is great, totally useful. A lot of shaders that I didn't even know of their existence.
Hey Hunter, how well you think this'd work with some of those crappy SNES clone pads?
That's a good question. You never know until you crack one open! Did you have a particular crappy one in mind? If you're thinking of the crappy ones I wrote about a while back, I'll be happy to take a look.
Hey Hunter, it's me again ;)
I soldered up the wires on exactly the same PCB to add as a dual-pcb to my MC Cthulhu stick, but anytime I connect more then one wire of the Genesis PCB to the MC Cthulhu (either the screw-terminals or the secondary solder points) I get false buttonpresses on the Genesis. When I just hook up the hacked PCB to my Genesis every button registers fine. It looks like there is some kind of ground-signal leaking, but I can't seem to find anything with my cheap multimeter. Have you got any idea what could be wrong, or did you perhaps try a dual PCB setup like this?
@Dennis
Well, I haven't gotten back to may similar project in quite some time because I ran into the exact same issue, only with a mad catz SE 360 board. When I was messing with it, IIRC, the Genesis pad was acting okay (though I don't remember if I tested it exhaustively) while the 360 board was going bananas. Perhaps the problem is with the Cthulhu (though I know this is supposed to be supported functionality).
After 6 hours of trouble shooting my PS360+, got tired of it and I'm not able to fix it at this time. I was looking at the Brooks PS3/PS4 board but then found out that I have an MC Cthulhu in my MCZ 360 SE stick. Upon reading the manual it did mention that it can support dual PCB. I actually bought these knockoff Sega pads a long, long time ago for above reason but forgot about it. I immediately google search if Genesis pad was common ground and it took me here. Everything mentioned on this page I freaking love it as it answers a lot of my questions.
Have you guys figured out if this PCB does work with the Cthulhu? I'm going to attempt it anyways. Will the PCB need to be powered via the VCC line A? Can it just be hooked up to the secondary points but Sega cable out via MC Cthulhu?
TIA!
Karcus
@Anon
As far as I know, the Cthulhu doesn't care which points you tie into, as they should all be connected.
I still haven't gotten a chance to get back to my project, unfortunately, so I can't confirm how well or if it works :(
Hey ! Trying to do the same thing in my Mc Cthulhu setup . I see you have 2 ground wirea soldered on the genesis pcb. (Next to the up buttons and start button) any use for 2 grounds ? Where do you hook the 2nd ground on the Mc chtulhu pcb? Thx !
@Unknown
No real reason for the 2 grounds other than convenience and flexibility. That is, if I had a problem with one for whatever reason, it's nice to have a fallback. You can just leave it hanging or you can twist it together with the other ground, or just skip it altogether. Up to you.
Thx man! One last question. On your Mc chtulhu post you say : so they can technically be used to add any additional PCB, so long as you tie the VCC and Grounds together
What you you mean by that ?
I will connect the genesis pcb to the solder points of the Mc chtulhu . Do I need to connect vcc and ground together ?
Thx
@Unknown
Ah, no, that note is for adding multiple PCBs: they all have to share power and ground with each other (i.e., VCC to VCC, ground to ground). Don't connect your VCC and ground to each other, as that will cause a short.
this is what i tought!
Just to recap, every input connected from the pad solder points (U,D,L,R,start,A,B,C,X,Y,Z) + one ground, all connected to the matching point on the MC Cthulu. No need for 5V ?
Am i good to go?
thx!
@Anonymous
You do need the 5v line connected. It's on pin 0 of the controller port (https://people.ece.cornell.edu/land/courses/ece4760/FinalProjects/s2004/kfm9/db9.gif), but in my case, it was easiest to solder onto the big solder points at the top-middle of the pad. The other stuff is correct, yeah.
Hey, i managed to get it working with the mc chtulhu ! Love du dual mod stick.
i'm planning to build a standalone genesis stick using another cheap controller pcb. Since it wont have a Mc Cthulhu installed, do i need to wire the 5V line ? I cant figure where it would go or why it would be needed.
thx for your help.
eyyy, kickass. Glad you got it going :)
No, for a dedicated stick you just wire the signal and ground lines up to your buttons. The voltage connections in the multi-pcb setup are just needed to power the additional board(s).
in fact, i spoke too soon. The genesis / mc chtulhu dual mod acts weird this morning. I get constant down input after 10 minutes of play time. 5v line in connected to the VCC on the mc chtulhu but i still dont understand why it's needed since the genesis pad get it's power by the power cord.
If they're sharing buttons, both boards have to be powered at all times. But sure, try it without /shrug
if i disconnect the VCC in, i get the opposite: constant UP input....so bizarre. Did you manage to dual mod with this same cheap genesis pad ? I have the same one.
Also, i double checked for shorts without any luck.
I know this is an old post, but I’ve been looking desperately for this PCB.
Does anyone know where to find this specific PCB for a mod I’m trying to complete.
Please contact me directly if you have one of these fully functional for sale.
Mbiologysv@aol.com
Please help!
Hunter can you contact me please?
Thanks,
Shawn
Mbiologysv@aol.com
Thanks for this. I found some of these on ebay for pretty cheap and have been wanting to make a hitbox controller for genesis. Should work great!
Ah, awesome! I'd like to check it out once you get it going :)
Strongly recommend painting the inside of the controller shell with nail polish hardener several times. The plastic disintegrates. The nail polish hardener will prevent it from disintegrating. You may also need to paint the outside of the plastic shell with nail polish hardener and let it dry as well. Otherwise, in a short period of time that control pad will just start to disintegrate.
ha, good tip! and no surprise that it disintegrates lol
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