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I finally hoped onto facebook and that has consumed a bit of my time lately. Nice to be able to network with so many people I known over the years. Any case, purpose of this update is to talk about the second arcade controller I am putting together. I will get some pics of it in the works. This designed will be different as it will have a top that will come off. I will make use of ribbon cable to neaten up the wiring and I will definitely stick to using a new wired controller. The PCB is just that much easier to work on for the new revision versus the older revisions.

I shall also be taking many more photos this time around to document the build process. I will have a couple pics uploaded tomorrow. I also have my hardwood of choice I am going to make the top out of. It is called Purple Heart and I picked up at wood workers source today. That and a couple of extra clamps and some clear coat. Yes the wood is actually purple and a wonderful hardwood to look at.

We finally completed the first Joystick build and used it quiet a bit. It works very well after I re-attached the the analog button section to the control board.

Here is a link to all the pictures we have taken of it. Pictures of Arcade Stick for 360

Next project is to build one for myself.

As promised, I have some pics of the almost completed arcade stick. Click them for a much larger photo.

Almost completed

The inside of the controller

More to come later.

My brother and I finally got a working arcade stick last night after realizing that the first PCB we used from the used 360 controller was damaged during the initial soldering. So after purchasing a brand new wired 360 controller, finding the pin outs for the new PCB designed used in the controller ( which was much easier to work with I might add ), we had a successful test last night. So far we are very pleased with the results. Playing around in the training arena in Street Fighter IV, we can tell that it was definitely more responsive over the standard controller, the feel was there, and how easy it was to execute the movements.

Things I learned so far in building this.

• A good soldering iron is important here
• Even more important is a good clean soldering tip appropriate for the job
• Burning the PCB is bad, but burning the PCB and lifting up a couple traces is much worse
• Building the box was easy (pics to follow soon)
• But building the box and not taking to account that the Sanwa JLF arcade stick was meant for metal panels and not 3/4″ of red oak made it more difficult.
• A hole cutter bit for the drill works wonders

That is it for now, I am going to grab a few pics as we are applying the finishing looks to the box.

Over the last few days, my brother and I have been busy designing and building an arcade stick for use on our XBOX 360 systems. We are using a used XBOX 360 wired controller, Sanwa JLF joystick and Hap competition buttons. The easy part of all this was just building the box, while the hard part was all the soldering work needed on to be done on the existing controller board. I think I should honestly write up my own guide to this as he guides I used out there left out a few useful tips that would have saved me a few headaches.

You are now wondering why go through all this trouble. Street Fighter IV is the main reason, plus Soul Caliber as the other one and some other up coming fighting games. The existing XBOX 360 controller is just horrible for fighting games. So we opted to build our own with the very same parts found in arcades. Hopefully we’ll have the first one completed for testing soon (assuming I didnt burn the pcb during soldering to badly ). I’ll have to post picks of the completed project as well. I know of a few friends who are interested in this.

I am yet another year older today as I turn 33 years old. I celebrated with some family and friends this past Saturday with dinner and a few drinks (thanks guys). We had a good time and enjoyed some good spicy Mexican food from Los Dos Molinos. Even though it is my birthday I am still working at finding a job. Which has me wondering, should I have tried to focus my skill set more? I have always seem to land positions that require a wide range of skills as well as learning new skill sets.

The more recent job was no different as I was doing development, database design, project management, reporting, administration, support, etc. Basically every bit of the internal site was handled by me, which was from the database design to the front end and beyond. On top of that I also oversaw our Etalk and Nexorce applications as well as designed and administer our entire web and database environments. Come to think of it, I really did a lot of things in my last position, and I did them rather well.

I am hopeful I will be able to find something that suits my talents best. I like a good challenge that puts my talents to the test.

So Microsoft finally unviels what project Natal is all about. Looks pretty interesting. I wonder how the general public will take it up, not to mention how will third party publishers properly take advantage of it. Come to think of it, I wonder how long before someone round house kicks their TV

Such is life that I find myself for the second time in my career looking for work due to business decisions to better utilize company resources outside of the US. However this time I am more optimistic, more experienced, and in general more prepared to hit the job market full force. I will take any advantage I have and try to make full use of it. I can not afford to take it easy this time, nor will I let myself get complacent. So from now on my job is to find a job. I will not stop until I am gainfully employed once again.