Project diva homemade controllers

I was an arcade-only player after trying the the original games on a friend's PSP. I never own any PlayStations except for the PS1 so I wasn't able to enjoy Project DIVA games unless I kept paying in the arcade. I finally decided to made my own custom arcade controller when Mega39's(MegaMix) came out in my region. It is the first DIVA game I own and I found using the controller very hard. (Especially the Pro Controller, that D-pad is horrible for this game) I have been lurking in this thread since and learnt a lot from you guys. My controller is not completed yet but since MegaMix has just been announced for the rest of the world, I think it's a good time to share some of my work back to the community.

I am very sorry if you happen to notice any bad practice or cringy work. I am a software developer and this is my first from-scratch electronics project.


For the hardware, I am using

- Generic 100mm buttons with Omron D2MV switches and those way-too-strong springs that came with the buttons


- Generic 24mm buttons in various colors


- A CY8CKIT-043 (I used a 049 in early prototypes)


- A Pro Micro



I was half following pol8139's PDF (http://pol.dip.jp/diva/) but there are three main differences:

1. I was using the Nintendo Switch and there were code that emulate the Pokken Tournament Controller using the LUFA library (https://github.com/progmem/Switch-Fightstick, https://github.com/fluffymadness/ATMega32U4-Switch-Fightstick), so I wrote the code (https://github.com/erikchan002/SwitchProMicroController) and plugged the Pro Micro directly into the Nintendo Switch.


2. I was wiring the buttons to the Pro Micro in a matrix because I'd like all buttons for the Nintendo Switch to be on the controller.


3. I was using the dedicated controller slider mode by passing the slider status to the analog stick values, thanks to the investigation by Doctopus.



Finally, temporary assembly:

- Buttons and the top panel, Nintendo Switch for scale


- Works well enough for now to get me a new record without the slider


Slider and LEDs would be the next steps. You may notice some incomplete LED code in the GitHub repo as well as of this writing.



That's it for now. I hope there will be a next post. Good luck building!

 

Nice controller.

BTW if you want to blast the switch with 1KHz report rate while having a lot of RGB goodness and keep using the Pro Micro you may find this useful :P

 

Thanks! I really should start benchmarking stuff and consider moving those RGB code elsewhere or just scaling back the light show. I am still not very used to these close-to-hardware stuff when I actually have to care about performance

 

A big update from me, I just upgraded my Future Tone control panel a bit...



So have made a new thread in the Arcade section...
https://projectdiva.net/community/threads/i-bought-a-project-diva-arcade-future-tone-cabinet.2307/

 

There's no english complete documentation actually for Slider ?
I'm still not sure on what is needed, and how it is done actually :/

The japanese one don't really help to comfort me at the idea of doing it blind...

 

No.

The thing is at least for my setup, it heavily depends on the equipment I have access to (heck my Alpaca v2 project is basically stalled right now thanks to the you-know-what because some of the critical tools like laser cutter are shared with others for obvious reasons). Also not everyone is comfortable of doing stuff such as SMD soldering (yes LKP needs that because PSoC4M chip is only available in QFP/QFN/BGA and I also want to keep the main board as small as possible). Because of those, I would expect that my full setup would be somewhat difficult to replicate by others (I mean even skilled ones or another me that knows everything background-wise, has the tools but never attempted the project) even if I write a very specific guide on how to set everything up. Also I don't really have the intention of doing it for $$$ because orders could pile up easily but it may never reach the level of (low-quantity) mass production. Also my setup isn't at all optimized for mass production so that's another minus.

That being said, if you just want a slider, checkout @steelpuxnastik 's solution since it looks a lot easier to do by hand and the result was somewhat good from what I saw.

 

Apparently the arcade controller mode is also in the western release of MegaMix that just came out (screenshot courtesy of ghiacc on discord)


Yay, I guess? I don't think the slide buffer issue is fixed though

 

And that's what I was looking for, but 2 things cause me issue :
- He based his work on the japanese doc... I don't read moon rune...
- Am I able to translate it as Joystick input for Arcade Controller mode in-game ?

Just those two things restrain me for trying, like I feel I'll do something wrong because of those two things :/
What should I do actually ? (specially for the japanese doc part... :/ )

As now I can finally go out after 2 months because of this shitty virus, I start thinking about this project again...
I just can't stay with big buttons for sliders all my life lmao.

 

That's not a problem, because everything you need is a scheme, especially, may be, that scheme that I littlelly modified to a more simple buttons LED control. That's simpler, because uses less pins or Arduino and stupidly takes up less space, so I like it more, Also you can use my PCB for it, so you simply need to solder connectors to it and connect all components to it. The most difficult side of it is making simple chinese button work with optocoupler: I just glued little piece of thick paper to the lever that presses the button, the optocoupler I glued too, because I tried to make it faster and glued optocoupler without mounting holes and that was a mistake, because useing optocoupler with mounting holes gives you possibility to make universal "button", if you dismount it from button (if you'll calibrate carefully your paper, that you'll glue to button) - you'll no need to memorize from which button it was (but better to memorize, it's ideal variant). And calibrating lenght of paper is also some kind of difficult, but can be done very fast. That's, may be, main for buttons.
About slider: you can use my PCB for a slider, but at first you need to configurate your design of controller and how large slider will be and in according to this, adjust the PCB. I made in some kind of original dimensions, so.. About how you'll mount it - you'll need to think, because I made it stupidly simple: PCB was mounted to plywood sheet with bolts, and this conctructions to controller with hot glue. Thats really not great solution, but I do not know how to make better with that constructon of controller I have now. @Doctopus have ideas of making construction of slider very similar to original, but it needs radically different construction of controller at all + different slider (pcb) model + 3D-printer usage + even more something else different, that I do not know at this moment, that is why I really want to use it for my next version of controller, but, as I said before, I do not know how for now :))
You can ask me in private message if you'll have questions :)

 

Thanks for all of that, the only thing that scare me now is how to translate all of that to the Joystick inputs in a way that the Arcade Mode will be used correctly with it :/

 

;~; I don't think I should have started trying to make my own diva controller.

Everything is so confusing, especially because I've never done anything like this before. I'm doing an 8 100mm button layout with a touch slider. Using Pol's guide and with help from @erikchan002

I'm not too sure how I'm going to use the slider with PC AFT, because I don't think I can use it as "native" arcade slider input, and PDAFT PC only takes joystick data as Up down Left Right. Like as a toggle (I'm not sure how to explain it)

My Japanese isn't proficient enough to be able to follow Pol's Guide 1:1

I guess I should start throwing things together and hoping it works lol...

 

Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum and to DIY arcade controller projects.
I know a bit how to work on hardware and soldering and should be able to follow a scheme, still never tried made my homemade something.
I have few questions for you if you are willing to help.
How hard would be to "upgrade" my original Hori mini controller to use 100mm illuminating buttons and Sanwa microswitches?
Is it really even worth "ruin" the aforementioned controller to simplify the work?
I red in this forum about custom made touch sliders but I suppose that is something advanced? And maybe not possible to apply on my Hori controller board?
Thank you in advance.

 

Recently just finished a build(won’t let me upload picture of it)

But I was wondering does anyone know where to buy new Sanwa 200g springs? Akishop seems to be out of stock and does it come with a set of 10?

 

Check Rakuten shop, they have 100g, 200g, and 400g Sanwa OBSA-SP

 

Yeah I already checked that one but they said they have been closed as of June 1st

 

No thats Rakuten Global Market, I said "Rakuten", the main site here

 

I recently purchased an original arcade control panel and I have it all fully working now, however I'm finding the buttons to be quite hard to press (due to health issues I get a lot of pain in my fingers) and I just wondered if there are any softer springs available (I heard the stock ones are 200g) that would be a drop in replacement for the genuine buttons?

 

I just recently received my springs with the help of correllroy linking the site and using white rabbit to order them(a little expensive but worth it). As long as you know how to take the controller and the 100m buttons apart it should be a simple drop in replacement. They make the buttons spring back really nicely and easy to push.

 

Hey been lurking on the site for a while and was wondering if anyone could help me. I just got the divaller with the sanwa buttons and switches and wanted to change the springs to 200g springs but, i can't figure out how separate the button from the switch. Google isn't helping and i really don't want to break it.