I've been on a 3DS family modding kick and I wanted to finally tackle the Loopy controller mod, I did still have an old board I never installed but he stopped selling them and released the design files. I emailed him on his forum asking for permission to remix/change his mod and he said yes (he said it was the point of him releasing the design files so someone else could tackle it if they wanted).
After futzing around here and there for months today marks a huge milestone for this modification as I've finally got it hooked up and was able to use my gamecube controller. The main feature of my modifications is to make it far easier to install though I'm not crazy enough to pay for a flex pcb that covers the whole back of the 3DS xl motherboard I think I've found a fair compromise eliminating 11 hook up wire pads. The second thing is tackling the fiddliness of the connector. I've gone with a USBC cable but finding a pre-built cable that has the right conductors has been a nightmare (6 conductor cables usually have CC1 and CC2 as separate conductors so I need a 7-8p cable with no special chips in it for rapid charging or other such nonsense).
Currently I'm using a 24p USBC breakout board and I have some resin cases for the cable in mind but the spirit of the project is ease of use so again if you know any cables/breakout boards that provide these cables/pins:
Please let me know, I had no idea it'd be such a nightmare to secure some off the shelf USB Type-c cables with 6 unique conductors (I'm counting CC1 and CC2 as one seeing as they require you to have the same resistors on them anyway in the spec and for reversibility).
I haven't done too much play testing as I want to rigid some things up with resin prints as double sided tape does nothing when plugging and unplugging this usbc cable. I have a lot left to do for this project:
-Order new PCBs and finalized flex PCBs, test wing mounted USBC
-Measure, design, and print internal supports to support areas where I clipped plastic
-Design a jig so cuts can be done cleanly and reliably on a drill press
-Buy all compatible controllers then do testing for them
-Source or design cabling solutions
-Buy extra cases for experimentation
-do a lot of it all over again for the different 3ds family systems including the DS family
After futzing around here and there for months today marks a huge milestone for this modification as I've finally got it hooked up and was able to use my gamecube controller. The main feature of my modifications is to make it far easier to install though I'm not crazy enough to pay for a flex pcb that covers the whole back of the 3DS xl motherboard I think I've found a fair compromise eliminating 11 hook up wire pads. The second thing is tackling the fiddliness of the connector. I've gone with a USBC cable but finding a pre-built cable that has the right conductors has been a nightmare (6 conductor cables usually have CC1 and CC2 as separate conductors so I need a 7-8p cable with no special chips in it for rapid charging or other such nonsense).
Currently I'm using a 24p USBC breakout board and I have some resin cases for the cable in mind but the spirit of the project is ease of use so again if you know any cables/breakout boards that provide these cables/pins:
B8/A8 |
A5/B5 |
B7/A7 |
A6/B6 |
A4/B4/B9/A9 |
B12/A12 |
Please let me know, I had no idea it'd be such a nightmare to secure some off the shelf USB Type-c cables with 6 unique conductors (I'm counting CC1 and CC2 as one seeing as they require you to have the same resistors on them anyway in the spec and for reversibility).
I haven't done too much play testing as I want to rigid some things up with resin prints as double sided tape does nothing when plugging and unplugging this usbc cable. I have a lot left to do for this project:
-Order new PCBs and finalized flex PCBs, test wing mounted USBC
-Measure, design, and print internal supports to support areas where I clipped plastic
-Design a jig so cuts can be done cleanly and reliably on a drill press
-Buy all compatible controllers then do testing for them
-Source or design cabling solutions
-Buy extra cases for experimentation
-do a lot of it all over again for the different 3ds family systems including the DS family