MiSTer FPGA Forum

Hi,

I have put together a Damonbite adapter tutorial and uploaded it to Youtube. I have shown this in my Twitch stream a few days ago.
I use a customized encoder board PCB to connect game controllers like Sega Mega Drive, Arcade Sticks, Neo Geo or various home computers.
Basically the tutorial is in German, but for the international viewers I have added English subtitles. You will also find all sources for the gerber files (PCBs), sockets, the Arduino code and so on.

I hope that this is helpful for the MiSTer community.

The video is available here:


You will find my Twitch channel and my Tutorial blog in the signature.

Thank you for this tutorial, very interesting and useful !.

Thanks for this. I need to practice my soldering on these boards...

A small addendum to the topic of daemonbite adapters and PCBs. We are currently designing a 3D printed case for the assembled PCB.
I will provide a link to the STL file soon.

evidencedj wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 2:02 pm I have put together a Damonbite adapter tutorial and uploaded it to Youtube. I have shown this in my Twitch stream a few days ago.

What a fun little exercise. I just built 2 Daemonbite adapters. This takes you through so many interesting steps. You learn the basics about how to order your custom PCB using a Gerber file. You learn how to upload software to an Arduino and last but not least it is a good training for your basic soldering skills.

Mine are almost non-existing, I soldered a little when I was a kid and my dad taught me the fundamentals of electronics, but since then I used a soldering iron maybe once every 5 years.

But this adapter is easy enough to solder (you can't damage anything, because you just solder pins on a PCB) but on the other hand you have to solder almost 60 pins. If you don't have much experience you will have a little bit more routine with the soldering iron than before when you are finished.

Last but not least I ended up with a Daemonbite adapter for about 30€ and I can built 9 additional adapters for 7€ each, because I ordered 10 PCBs (price was the same as 5) and 10 D-Sub connectors which means the only thing I need for every additional adapter is an Arduino Leonardo board.

One small addition, if you are annoyed by the constant LED flash signal of the Arduino when you press a button on the controller simply edit the void setup section of the ino file by adding the following:

void setup()
{
pinMode(LED_BUILTIN_TX,INPUT);
}

This will put the LED in input mode so that it only blinks on receiving data and not on sending data anymore. Unfortunately the Power LED seems to be hardwired and can't be disabled.

So far I have build a Daemonbite Arcade stick with real coin mech. I have build a Sega genesis 2 player, NES 2 player and a SNES 2 player adapter. I am very happy with all of the results. I basically cannibalized extension cables for my ports uses a multi-meter to figure out the pins and encased the project in electrical tape for cable strain and electrical protection.