n52 with blue cherry's and analog stick

[tankfulloffoxes]

I've been interested in getting a "speedpad" for a while since it would suit the types of games I play pretty well.  Looking into the new orbweaver, I like that they now have speedpads with mechanical switches, but still no analog stick, and at that price, I figured I could just make my own...SO I AM! ha!

This is pretty much the same as ripster's mod, which is actually what I'm using as a reference for my project (with the exception of the analog stick), so if I don't have enough pictures, you can probably find more detailed photos by searching google.
http://imgur.com/8Dw8pbL,HCDIGTu,S5QTtgh,uOsjghx
Here it is, right out of the box. 

http://imgur.com/8Dw8pbL,HCDIGTu,S5QTtgh,uOsjghx#1
All the guts

http://imgur.com/8Dw8pbL,HCDIGTu,S5QTtgh,uOsjghx#2
I was a little conflicted as to how I was going to cutout the spaces for the switches.  At first, I considered getting a sheet of aluminum cut to the same size as the n52, and then using a stencil and some computer know-how to make an outline of all the switches for the plate, but I figured that would take a while, and that this is just for me, I grabbed the dremel and went to town.  Of course, if I change my mind late and want to put a plate under the switches, that will be easy enough to do. 

On my dremel, I actually had a cutting disc that had a diameter that matched the width of the switch, so I just used that to cut out the existing housing for the switches.  It worked well enough, but the it definitely could have been better, as you will see in the next photo.

http://imgur.com/8Dw8pbL,HCDIGTu,S5QTtgh,uOsjghx#3
not bad for being done in only an hour. 

With thanksgiving here, It may be a little bit before I get to soldering, but updates will be coming asap.

[FrostyToast]

Very interested in this project!
Nice work so far.

[jacobolus]

By the way, if you use format your image links like [img]http://i.imgur.com/whatever.jpg[/img] then you can get the images to render inline. Like:

[tankfulloffoxes]

thank you.  I tried that at first, and tried previewing, but they didn't show up.  Also, I wasn't sure if they were too large.  I've posted on other sites before where it was against the rules to have images larger than a certain size.  I just figured to be on the safe side, I'd just post links.  Duly Noted.

[jacobolus]

The forum software will automatically set the max width to be 640 pixels (or you can override manually to a smaller width if you prefer). If you post something that’s like 20x taller than it is wide someone might get annoyed, but in general post away!

Pictures are the best!

If nothing was showing up in a preview, my guess is that you were linking to the imgur html page for the image, rather than directly to the jpeg file.

[tankfulloffoxes]

So, I got some time to work on the speedpad over the break, and things are coming along pretty well!  I'll just do a recap of all the progress that was made. 


managed to get everything soldered, though I couldn't get the wires on the original solder points, so I just soldered to the diodes and board instead.  In some areas, I had to scrap away the pcb to reveal the copper, but it still worked alright. 


I also recieved the cheap rosewill keys I ordered, which allowed me to check spacing on the switches and make sure no caps were catching on each other.  In this picture, you can see that some of them are a little cockeyed.  I fixed this, and now everything, while not being completely straight, works fantastically.




I'm not very confident in my soldering on this project.  I'm sure I had the wrong materials or something.  I plan on reading more into techniques for wires this small and different types of irons in the soldering thread we have here, but for the time being, hot glue makes sure that all the contacts stay where they are. 

After I got everything wired up, I plugged it in to check and make sure there weren't any shorts before closing up the n52.  There's a problem with the c and v keys.  I'm pretty sure its just a short where the ribbon cable attached originally, which is an easy fix.  Other than that though, everything works great!  Right now, I'm working on fitting the analog stick into where the dpad was, and getting everything wired up with that.  Updates should be posted in the next few days.

[dorkvader]

Soldering could use some work. What iron do you have?

Looking at it, almost certainly your problem is you're not heating both pieces. If you look at the wires, there's a glob of solder on the wire itself and hardly any on the component you're soldering to. This means that you got most of the heat on the wire and hardly any on the component. Heat needs to be on both.

D1 looks pretty good: what it should look like D9 and D11 are pretty bad.

you can probably fix it by reflowing solder, but you'd have to pry the glue up: it may give you some issues down the road so if it starts getting intermittant then you know what to do (open it up and reflow everything)

Having done similar things myself I know how hard it can be to solder like that, so I'm pretty impressed you were able to do work that close as a relative newbie. So the fact that you could do it at all is pretty impressive.

Here's my work. Dime for scale. wire is 28 ga

More

Can't wait for the next update!

[tankfulloffoxes]

WOW!    that's awfully small lol

Funny you should say that, since d1 was the last one I did on the board    I'm using what I have for the time being, which is a weller 40 watt iron, and a pretty large tip.  Just something I got from radio shack a while back.  In the next few weeks or so though, I plan on investing in something a little higher quality that's easier to use for future projects.  As well, this was more or less meant to be a learning experience and an entry into doing custom work on keyboards and computer peripherals.  With this project going well, and by well I mean I didn't completely screw up the project and waste my money lol, I'm pretty happy with it. 

[tankfulloffoxes]

Now, for the analog stick.  Unfortunately, the housing was too deep to allow for the scrollwheel, so I took it out for the time being.  The analog stick I used was just the parallax one meant for the arduino.  You can usually find these at radioshack in with the ic's. 

The original housing for the dpad was modded so that the stick housing fit perfectly!  pretty happy with how clean this worked if I'm being honest.  All that had to be done was grind down a couple tabs and the stick slides right in! 



Unfortunately, the pcb that was originally for the dpad wouldn't fit with analog stick, so it had to be cut.  I won't show any pictures of this because was I did was horrendous and looks awful, but I won't be seeing it and it works, so there. 

Another problem was the task of making an analog stick act as a dpad.  With a little research, I found that you can scrape away some of the contractor within the potentiometers, which makes them act as a momentary on/off. 

To open the the potentiometers, you must first take them off the housing by pushing in the tabs on the side, like so. 


Then, push in the white tabs on the front of the white piece that actually does the turning.  Don't pay attention to the bad soldering, this was during the testing phase to make sure everything worked. 


Finally, scrape away the gold and black layer in the center of the potentiometer, where the utility knife is pointing.  Be careful not to scrape too much away.  If you do, you will have to push the analog stick further out in order to get a signal. 


Once this is all done, just wire up the center terminals to ground and the outside terminals to their respective directions.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

No pictures of the spaghetti wiring to the board, basically just follow the ribbon cable that is already there. 

And here's the (nearly) finished product!  I'm taking a break for a little while and holding off on the "space" key.  In the future, I also plan on finding a way to put a more compact scroll wheel in and replacing the orange push button key with either a cherry or a better quality omron, like you'd see in mice.