SofaRacing

New site for my iPhone apps

Workshed — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 11:10:49 +0000

I’ve put up a seperate site just for my iPhone apps. All iPhone app related news will pop up there as and when it happens

Check it out here.

myPSN submitted for approval!

Workshed — Wed, 20 May 2009 23:17:21 +0000

I just submitted my latest iPhone app for approval (though the first one has yet to get through!!)

This one lets you see who’s online on the Playstation Network, what game they’re playing and how their trophies stack up to yours

myKILLZONE

Workshed — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:16:50 +0000

Struck with the horrendous problem of how to view my Killzone ribbons whilst playing and without turning on my computer I made an iPhone app to handle it

I submitted it to Apple for approval yesterday

Windows Media Center TV Pack

Workshed — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:01:28 +0000

I recently gave this a go, works alright but it prevents you changing the MPEG decoder to one which makes use of the hardware in the machine. This results in poor upscaling on both TV and DVD playback and stuttering when bringing up menus during playback or changing channels. So it had to go!

SSF2THDR

Workshed — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:58:44 +0000

I just had to post this video, everyone should see this
Here’s a link as the video kinda cuts into the wordpress template (i’ll have to try and fix that!)

Arcade Stick Episode 6 - It works!

Workshed — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:35:51 +0000

After pulling apart a spare Sixaxis I spent hours soldering and was amazed to find it worked first time!

Check the piccies:

As you can see the mess needs tidying inside the controller but at 2am I was just too excited to have it working so just shoved the guts in like a medic on a battlefield

I also need to work out a better way to charge it than having to unscrew the perspex base (and have guts fall out) to connect the USB cable to the PCB.

Arcade Stick Episode 5

Workshed — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:09:39 +0000

Painting, sanding, painting, sanding, painting, painting, painting…

Arcade Stick Episode 4

Workshed — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 20:00:55 +0000

Sanded down the plastic wood and mounted the two MDF layers with countersunk screws (I’m hoping the perspex will be held in place by the tight fit and the screw in buttons). I couldn’t resist putting the parts in place…

Arcade Stick Episode 3

Workshed — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:13:00 +0000

2 days off work has given me 2 days of Final Fantasy 12 (I’ll finish it one day, it’s only been 18 months and 70 hours so far!) and building the arcade stick.

An incident involving my jigsaw flying to pieces has ended up with me cutting the front and back pieces (again) by hand and sanding to fit! It didn’t take nearly as much extra time as I thought it would to be fair.

Having now got all of the main parts cut it seemed like the perfect time to order the arcade parts, a few days and a phone call chasing the order up and all the bits arrived along with some freebies (what i’m going to do with 4 extra buttons is yet to be decided but the bubble top is pretty cool)

After scouring all the tool shops in Malvern for a 30mm hole saw to cut the button holes i finally found one on ebay. I also picked up a few other bits like a plastic wood and a coping saw so that I can cut sections out of the middle now the panels now the jigsaw has been annihilated.

Some gluing and filling in with plastic wood later and the base was coming along nicely.

While that was all setting I drilled the holes for the buttons in the top 3 layers, unfortunately being an arcade stick some of the buttons are very close together and perspex being perspex it decided to crack in a couple of places… Remember I said cutting perspex was a pain in the backside? Guess what. It still is. But this time I did manage it better and ended up with a top layer which fits much more snugly than the previous one. Having learnt from the previous drilling experience I clamped the perspex between the two other (wood/MDF) layers and drilled it again this time ending up with a pristine set of button holes.

Then finished cutting out all the sections with the coping saw…

And put it all (loosely) together (in one blurry photo - a much better one is coming soon).

Arcade Stick Episode 2

Workshed — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:03:05 +0000

Following on from the previous post (only a couple of hours ago i know but i meant to write it days ago) I’ve actually started the build (on Sunday!). I bought a couple of different thicknesses of MDF and some perspex and after several issues with initally poor jigsawing (i don’t think i’d used a jigsaw before and i assumed it would be easier than it was!) I’ve cut our the two top sections and the left and right side. Though I still have the front and back to cut out. I’ve also managed to cut out the perspex which was a huge PITA! If anyone has a better method for getting a clean cut on perspex than scoring repeatedly with a stanley knife and then hitting it please let me know

Here’s some pictures:

Here’s the button layout I’ve chosen:

The reason for having two layers of MDF at the top of the stick (of different thicknesses) is that the arcade buttons have a screw thread which will only accept a thickness of around a centimetre (possibly one and a half at a push) and the joystick has a metal plate, the top of which needs to be as close to the top perspex layer as possible. The idea is that the buttons will screw into the top layer and the joystick will screw into the bottom layer. Here’s a sizing of the top plate of one of the possible choices of joystick so you can kind of make out what i mean:

While scouring the net I found an utterly fantastic resource for all this stuff, pretty much answers every question about it all.