Question 64CC (PE); Only for OEM N64 Controller?

[MiseriesChild]

I guess that the title says it all... is the 64CC Portable edition only for use with an original N64 controller or will it work with a really generic 4 wire aftermarket. You can see from the picture what I'm dealing with... and OEM controllers are hard to come, (more rare) and way more expensive. Just figured I would ask before buying one.

The wiring for every generic N64 controller I've found thus far...

 

[Noah]

I guess that the title says it all... is the 64CC Portable edition only for use with an original N64 controller or will it work with a really generic 4 wire aftermarket. You can see from the picture what I'm dealing with... and OEM controllers are hard to come, (more rare) and way more expensive. Just figured I would ask before buying one.

The wiring for every generic N64 controller I've found thus far...
View attachment 1607

Yeah, OEM only. IIRC some of those 3rd party controllers will come with 10k pots for the stick so they can be replaced with GC sticks or the like.

 

[MiseriesChild]

Thanks man!! I searched around but can't seem to find any wiring diagrams for this 4 wire setup... And I've tested my butt off trying to get a GC joystick to work but no luck. The insides look like pots but there isn't any real "power" or "ground" running to them that I can find with a volt meter...

Anyone have any luck with this setup and getting it to work with a GC stick? If not I guess I'm stuck using the original analog... .

 

[Luke]

Seems like since the pots are only using 2 wires each instead of 3 they're being used as variable resistors. If so, you could wire the gamecube pots as variable resistors, but it probably won't work correctly unless the gamecube pot happens to have the same value as the 3rd part pot (10k, 100k, etc).

 

[Noah]

Most likely the wires are just X, Y, GND and voltage.

See if you can use a multimeter to find out which wires are ground and voltage.

You could then use this and try to wire a GC stick up.

 

[MiseriesChild]

Well, there are two wires marked for the "Y" axis and two marked for the "X" axis coming off the main board. I took my Multimeter and started probing around with known ground wires and volt lines but none of those 4 wires register as a ground or positive. It seems kinda like what @Luke said... They seem to be acting as "variable resistors"... I'm guessing anyway.

It's a weird setup for sure. When any one of these 4 wires are unsoldered it just starts scrolling up and down or side to side like crazy, depending on which wire is unsoldered. I've been trying to figure it out but I just don't have the knowledge to trace it down to find out what is actually happening. I was hoping I could use a regular GC joystick and make it work but so far, no matter how I wire it, it just sits there when the stick is moved and doesn't do anything.

I guess I will have to spend the dang $30 and get an OEM controller and use a 64CC PE to make it work. I just hate to spend the money and destroy a nice, getting harder to find, OEM controller...

 

[Luke]

Most likely the wires are just X, Y, GND and voltage.

I suspected this at first, but it bothers me that in his picture there seem to be no wires attached to the middle pins of either of the pots. And like MC said, they seem to be marked 2 for x and 2 for y on the controller board. Idk, I could be completely wrong.

 

[MiseriesChild]

I suspected this at first, but it bothers me that in his picture there seem to be no wires attached to the middle pins of either of the pots. And like MC said, they seem to be marked 2 for x and 2 for y on the controller board. Idk, I could be completely wrong.

Yeah, that's what is throwing me... There are only 4 wires total, none are ground, none are carrying any volts and the middle pins on both sides don't have a wire attached at all... Only the 2 outside pins on each "pot" have wires connected.

Let me know and I can throw up so more pics if you guys want to look closer at it. I just can't seem seem to wrap my head around it. And this is for both the aftermarket controllers I've got, this SUPER generic one and the Yabo on I just picked up.

 

[Cid]

I got one of these generic controllers a few months ago. Replaced the stock stick with a standard third party one like this. The joystick was working, until the controller itself stopped working fine, so I threw it in the trash. XD In short, you can replace the stock joystick on a generic N64 controller with a standard analog stick potentiometer without any custom chip or someting. Just don't get a controller that is going to die after a couple days (like me). Hope it helped ya!

 

[MiseriesChild]

I got one of these generic controllers a few months ago. Replaced the stock stick with a standard third party one like this. The joystick was working, until the controller itself stopped working fine, so I threw it in the trash. XD In short, you can replace the stock joystick on a generic N64 controller with a standard analog stick potentiometer without any custom chip or someting. Just don't get a controller that is going to die after a couple days (like me). Hope it helped ya!

@Cid , I have the same kinda pots you have pictured there!! Do you have or can you make a quick diagram of how you wired it up using only the 4 wires? I have tried and tried different configurations, (lots of soldering and unsoldering) but haven't been able to get it to work. Anything would be helpful at this point.

 

[Cid]

Sure! When I get home tomorrow, I'll show you some pictures of a modded controller and some diagram! I think I have and extra controller that I could mod. It will keep me busy!

 

[MiseriesChild]

Sure! When I get home tomorrow, I'll show you some pictures of a modded controller and some diagram! I think I have and extra controller that I could mod. It will keep me busy!

That would be so awesome, thanks!! I've been Googling everything I could think of and banging my head against the wall trying to figure this out, lol!! I wanted to solve this before going any further with my N64 project so this controller has been a real frustrating hang up for me. Thanks again so much!!

 

[Cid]

Here's the diagram! This is how my analog stick is wired up. The stick comes from a N64 USB controller that I took appart.

 

[cheese]

I would assume one of those wires is connected to either power or ground, and the other goes to the blob. Kind of a dumb design for whoever designed that controller, I would assume measuring resistance would be harder than measuring voltage, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Also, if either of the axis are inverted, just swap the two wires and it should right itself.

 

[Cid]

@cheese Yeah. The red wire is probably common V+ and the brown wire (which was actually black) is probably common ground. That desing was really confusing for me at fisrt. Like you, I'm like: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(BTW TTX Tech and Cirka are using the exact same board!)

 

[cheese]

According to your diagram that's not how they're wired up... They have it set up to be a variable resistor instead of a voltage divider.

 

[Cid]

Now that you mention it...

 

[Luke]

According to your diagram that's not how they're wired up... They have it set up to be a variable resistor instead of a voltage divider.

Yep.
And I mean, probably not measuring "resistance" so much as, the current through the resistor? That shouldn't be too hard to program.

 

[MiseriesChild]

And unfortunately no luck with the regular GC replacement analog stick or the OEM Xbox 360 analog stick that I have here. . I wonder if the generic sticks you are using are a different resistance that the ones I have...

I only tried this on the REALLY cheap knock off controller but I can give it a try with the Yabo tomorrow. It has the exact same 4 wire setup that this cheap one does so I wonder if it will provide different results.

This is really driving me mad, I just want to use a dang decent analog stick on my N64 portable but I just can't seem to find a way to make one work yet. Well... other than buying an OEM controller and cutting it to pieces. It really kills me though, the rest of the controller is working great and will be REALLY easy to wire up... except for the analog stick, which really is horrible and SUCKS. I wonder if I could trade out the pots on original to the OEM GC stick... have to see if that would even be possible...

 

[Luke]

I believe that yes, this has everything to do with different valued pots.

you could wire the gamecube pots as variable resistors, but it probably won't work correctly unless the gamecube pot happens to have the same value as the 3rd part pot (10k, 100k, etc).

Think about it.
We know that V = IR and in both situations, V = 3.3v (or maybe in this case, some voltage being put off from the chip, idk, doesn't matter).
The chip is presumably measuring the current that is coming as a result of the variable resistor R. If the chip is expecting the currents that are produced as a result of R going between 0=>10kOhms and instead gets the currents that are produced as a result of an R that goes between 0=>100kOhms, that controller will most certainly not respond correctly.

That's the theory, anyway.