instructables

Game Controller Made 99.9% From Trash

by Sachin Mohiputloll

I always wanted to own a personal arcade gaming
style game controller, so when I noticed that my ex-
employer was throwing away some old broken
keyboards, I decided to take them home. These
keyboards were the perfect ingredients for this
project.
The other materials that I used to complete this
project included: leftover plywood pieces, a leftover
tile piece, small screws from broken toys and
electronics, 2 broken flat 3 pin plugs, white and black
plastic containers, tyre inner tube, 2 bicycle wheel
spokes, Christmas balls or ball shape plastic
container lids (like the green shampoo bottle in the
above picture) and a small piece of iron sheet.

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Step 1: Making the Joysticks - Step 1

For the joysticks, I used 4 rectangular pieces of iron sheet which I cut, drilled and folded as in the pictures above
and attached a bolt (two 4" long bolts and two 1.5" long bolts) to each of them.

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Step 2: Making the Joysticks - Step 2

Taking the piece of metal found in the 3 pin plug, I removed the screw and drilled a hole opposite to the screw
hole, so that the small metal cube has a hole on four of its sides. Then, I sanded the sides a little bit as in the
above picture.

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 1

1. we need 2 metal piece like this one

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Step 3: Making the Joysticks - Step 3 - Take a Break and Eat a Lollipop!!

Next, using a lollipop stick (I guess the inner ink tube
of a ball pen also can do the trick), I joined the metal
cube to 2 of the folded iron sheet pieces. I inserted
pieces of soft fabric between the metal cube and the
iron sheet to limit frictions. I used the small metal wire
found under the space bar of the keyboard and
inserted it in the lollipop stick to secure everything
together. Now, as you might see in the last picture,
the long bold pivots smoothly over the small bolt. :)

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Step 4: Making the Joysticks - Step 4

Now that the joystick rods were ready, I cut 2 circles (1 wooden circle for each joystick) from a piece of 1/2"
plywood. I was planning to use the number pad part of the keyboard for the joystick, so the diameter of the circle is
the distance between number 4 to number 6.

After cutting the circle, I drilled four holes at 90 degrees apart from the center of the circle and fastened some bolts
and nuts in it as shown in the picture.

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Step 5: Making the Joysticks - Step 5

Using a bicycle spoke, I made a spring that would fit Note: If you do not wish to cut your keyboard, you can
exactly as in the above picture. I, then, cut the also fix the above mechanism directly to your existing
number pad part of the keyboard and fitted the keyboard. You will just need to sacrifice the number 5
joystick to the space where number 5 was located. button of your keyboard's number pad. ;)

I cut a piece of 3/4" plywood @ 54 cm x 12 cm and

drilled 2 holes to attach the 2 joysticks to it.

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Step 6: Making the Joysticks - Step 6

I cut 2 pieces of aluminium tube @ 4.5 cm long and using a hammer, I inserted a nut in each tube. If you do not
have aluminium tube, an old pen could very well do the trick.

Then, for the nob, I used 2 Christmas balls. I filled them with hot glue and then inserted a long nut in it.

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Step 7: Customising the Keyboard Plastic Contact Layers
Before cutting the transparent plastic contact layers of
the keyboard, I used a multi-meter to determine which
connection is which. You will note that the main
connection lines run in horizontal and vertical lines. I
noted down the horizontal lines as A,B,C,.. and the
vertical connection lines as 1,2,3,... and then
determined which keys are triggered when
connecting a horizontal line to a vertical line. For
example, connecting horizontal line A to vertical line 1
triggers the letter 'Q'.
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When this was done, I started cutting the material
according to the size of the buttons that I would use.
After placing the plastic in position on the 3/4"
plywood piece that I had cut for the joystick, I used
some small screws to connect wires to it. This part
was easier than I had thought and the tiny screws
made a very good contact for the plastic and the
wires.
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Step 8: Installing the Other Keys

For installing the other buttons, I did the same thing. I cut the keyboard's plastic contact layers accordingly and
fixed it on a piece of plywood. Then, I attached some wires to it using some small screws and finally, fixed the
keyboard buttons over it with some screws.

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Step 9: Connecting the Buttons to the Keyboard's PCB
It was now time to connect the keyboard's PCB to the
DIY game controller wires.
Firstly, I sanded the PCB connection part lightly and
then soldered wires to all the connectors. (Please
note that for this project I have used the brown PCB
from the third picture. I have used the green
Keyboard PCB for illustration purposes as I had not
taken any picture while doing that part.)
After soldering all the wires, I applied hot glue to the
soldered part to secure them firmly.
1. Sand this part lightly
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Then, I connected the Keyboard USB to my laptop
and used a free emulator like snes9x to test the
buttons.
This part was a bit tricky. On a keyboard you cannot
press various keys simultaneously. Sometimes when
pressing 1 key may prevent another key from
working.
After several trials and errors, I have found that the
combination of keys as used in picture 5 and 6 were 1
solution to this problem.
Step 10: Fixing Everything Together

After ensuring that everything was working fine, it was now time to fix everything in place and make a decent
looking enclosure box. I used some leftover 1/2" & 3/4" plywood pieces to make the walls of the box. For the game
controller top, I used a piece of 1/2" plywood and drilled appropriate holes for the places where the buttons would
pop out.

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Step 11: Improving the Toughness and Accuracy of the Game Controller

For now, everything was working but the joystick's
movements were very loose and sensitive and
secondly, it was not very accurate, for eg, if I push it
to the right it will sometime moves up-right or down
right.
So, to fix the looseness issue, I used a piece of inner
tyre tube, which I fixed below the controller box
plywood. This acted a very good spring and would
always bring the joystick back to the center.
Secondly, to improve accuracy, I took a piece of
plastic from an empty car shampoo bottle and fixed it
on the area where the joystick would move as shown
in the pictures above. The plastic acted as a guide for
the joystick movements as well as prevented the
joystick from breaking if someone would apply
extensive force over it.

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 1

1. Tyre inner tube

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Step 12: Adding the Controller's Top

I used a piece of leftover tile to cover the wooden top of the controller. Using an angle grinder with a tile cutter disk,
I cut out holes as in the picture above and glued the tile to the top of the controller.

I must say the tile piece completely changed the look of the controller. ;)

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Step 13: Securing the Tyre Inner Tube

To prevent the pieces of tyre inner tube from tearing with time, I secured it using the small copper metal which I
found from an old lifeless flexible water hose. This fitted nicely in place. I used a nut to secure everything on the
joystick rode together.

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Step 14: Improving the Look
Now that everything was working flawlessly, it was
now time to improve on the game controller's
appearance. I used an empty white plastic container
to add some borders around the buttons and the
joystick.
In addition to that, in order to prevent the controller
from sliding, I cut some circular pieces of inner tyre
tube which I glued below the controller.
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The only thing that I BOUGHT for this project was a
piece of veneer contact paper which I glued all over
the plywood box.
Hope you like this instructable and find it easy to
understand.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel
free to comment.
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Really impressive! amazing job Sachin!!

Thank you, Amal

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