Making a custom Game Controller |
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| Using console type game controllers for PC gaming is just ok, but not the greatest Especially for fast and furious first person shooter games Gamers that use keyboards for PC gaming are usually much better than gamers that use Xbox type controllers Using a keyboard for PC gaming works great but it has some flaws Computer Keyboards are not laid out ergonomically like the human hand and fingers I decided to design mu own and make a Game controller from a USB keyboard and use the really nice Cherry keyboard switches as found on the old keyboards. I set out to design a keyboard controller that fit my hand and fingers ergonomically It's a computer keyboard, but not shaped like one |
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| If you tear apart an el-cheapo USB keyboard, you will find a small circuit board that looks similar to the one shown above You can see all the copper traces in the photo above. Some boards have 25 or more of these traces Touching two of these traces together will make a keyboard character So, if we can figure out a bunch of characters, we can just hook up switches to this board to make keyboard characters Example: Taking a wire and touching copper trace #2 to copper trace #15 may make the keyboard letter D To keep the number of wires we need to a minimum, it's best to find a bunch of characters that share common traces Example: Letters Q W E R T all use copper trace #2 and some other copper trace This saves you a bunch of wires because one wire can service all five of the same letters The copper traces shown above are normally coated with a conductive carbon like material I gently sanded all the material off to expose the copper We will need to solder tiny wires to this copper to make our controller switches work and so you must get down to bare copper |
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| Above Left: The circuit board shown at the top of the page contacts is in contact with a bunch of conductive points
on two clear sheets of plastic. The two sheets of plastic are separated by a thin sheet with holes that keeps the contact points on the two sheets from touching. The two sheets form a matrix of little round conductive material contact points that are separated until you press down a key on the keyboard When you press a key on the keyboard, it pushes the two contact points on the two sheets together like a switch The conductive traces from both sheets lead back to the circuit board The circuit board then figures out which two points were pressed together On the clear sheets above you can see that I labeled the upper sheet with the actual keys on the keyboard If you follow the rows and columns back up to the circuit board contacts, you can figure out which two points on the circuit board make which characters It takes quite a while to map out these two sheets and find a bunch of characters that you want to use I don't worry about the actual characters since so many games let you map out your own characters for the controls Example: Most PC games use W A S D for movement, but you don't have to use those keys On this project I am actually using INS DELETE HOME and PGUP for my movement keys because they all shared some of the same matrix numbers Above Right: I had an old NCR keyboard laying around that is unusable on modern computers because it is wired wrong internally The old IBM XT keyboards are just fine for use on modern computers and I have a couple in use that I got at the recycling center for free These old type keyboards are awesome because they use real switches made by Cherry The feel of typing on one of these keyboards is way nicer than the modern day el-cheapo keyboards You can still buy high end keyboards with real switches but they are way more expensive You can buy a cheap USB keyboard for less than $10 these days and use for a project like mine It's $75 and higher for a high quality keyboard that uses real Cherry switches I unsoldered a bunch of these keyboard switches from the old NCR keyboards for use on my custom controller |
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| Above Left: Here's the custom copper keyboard PC board I designed in CAD and then cut out on my CNC machine This is the rear view of the board, the Cherry switches mount on the other side and get soldered on this side. You can see several of the long copper traces that are shared between several of the keys This is the shared wires I was talking about at the top of this page At the top of my copper board I created a bunch of copper islands that I can use as soldering points to join wires Above Right: I have soldered my Cherry keyboard switches to my copper board |
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| I glued the keyboard pc board to my copper board and wired it all up I used very tiny wires that came from an old mouse cable If you have an old mouse laying around you can strip the outer jacket off and get a bunch of very tiny wire for free You can't use large diameter wires because the traces on the USB circuit board are very thin You can see the four USB cable wires that leave my board at the top right My the computer thinks that my controller is just another USB keyboard It is possible to have more than one keyboard hooked up to a computer My main keyboard is a USB keyboard and so is my custom controller |
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| Instead of moving about the game by pressing keys, I came up with a way to move by pushing the controller There are 4 switches around the perimeter of a round plastic puck and this puck sits inside a round hole When you push the controller forward, back, left or right, a switch contacts the wall of the big hole and triggers a keyboard character I got this idea from an old Microsoft sidewinder controller that I used for many years It worked great and lets your fingers do something other than moving your character about in the game It does not take very long to get the hang of moving your character this way. |
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| Above Left: This is the base of my controller made from HDPE plastic I cut this piece out on my CNC machine The circles are areas I removed material so there is less contact between the upper controller piece and the base This makes the upper section slide around like butter on the base with less friction Above Right: My copper board is mounted on standoffs and then screwed to this black fiberglass piece This top section sits on the base and slides around There is a screw in a slot and this is the swivel point for the upper section The white puck with the movement switches sets the limit for how far you can push the controller in all four directions The screw in the slot keeps the top section aligned on the base and has a bit of wiggle room The screw sits right in the middle of the palm of my hand This makes it really easy to pivot the top section It takes very little effort to move the top section around and move your character At one point I experimented with using two rare earth magnets to return the controller to zero but I found out that it created too much drag and was not needed. The magnets were separated by an air gap of about 1/2 inch, but their pulling action was still way too stong You can see one of the magnets at top center in the photo on the right It may be better to have the magnet right in the center of the white puck, but I found that I did not need the magnets. The 4 movement switches on the white puck are spring activated, so it's not possible to let go of the controller and have a switch still be active |
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| Above Left: Here's a side view of my copper board sitting on standoffs and that assembly is bolted to the black fiberglass
board. The fiberglass board slides around on the black HDPE plastic base The plastic keys came off the NCR keyboard The two rows at the top are for the five fingers The four keys lower right are for the thumb The letters on the plastic keyboard keys do not come off and so they do not represent the actual keyboard character that I am using I picked those keys for their shape, not the letters on the keys Notice how I picked the key tops so they are angled towards each other for the 5 fingers The number five key is for my index finger. It has a little raised bit in the center so you know when your index finger is on that key I don't look at the keyboard while playing a game, so the letters on the keys don't matter I do have a paper chart hanging on the wall in case I forget what all the keys do for each game It does take a while to get your keyboard muscle memory going when starting a new game The keyboard feels natural because I laid out the keys to fit my hand I have a real long middle finger and you may have noticed that the 4 key and upside down INS key are way higher than the other keys Above Right: I am still working on a material design where the palm of my hand rest For now, I just glued on some dense foam to get a feel for what works The foam actually feels really nice but what I think will work better is some sort of cup that fits the heal of my palm In order to shift the controller side to side, your palm needs something to push against I'll update this page when I have come up with a solution to replace the foam parts Here's a video of how the controller looks with my hand on it Notice that it's very easy to push it around for character movement |
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