Build Your Own Joystick

macgyver_joystick

What can you build with a ballpoint pen and some extra parts? [gzip] found himself with a bonus box of right angle switches and other miscellaneous parts and set out to build a joystick. Simple arcade joysticks use switches that are actuated by the movement of the stick and this design embraces the concept. The four tactile switches are mounted on protoboard facing each other with part of a ballpoint pen in the middle. When the pen is moved it presses against one or more switches to close, completing a circuit. For good measure he even incorporated a fire button into the top of the “stick”. Now we just need someone to make this work with a tiny Ms. Pac-Man emulator.

38 thoughts on “Build Your Own Joystick

  1. Herp! Derp! this is hardly a Hack! its just 4 switches!!! OMG hack a day RIP..

    Naw.

    Really cool, dont imagine it would work too well in practicality, cant imagine it being confortable, but awesome nonetheless!!

  2. *claps* This reminds me of when I hacked together a second controller for my 5200. Just looking quickly, I think the above design could easily be made pin compatible.

    Thanks for the memories.

  3. don’t be haters. this is one of the better things I’ve found on here as of late. hackaday still rules. they just need to go back on 1 decent hack per day rather than flooding us with crap.

  4. you know what would make this “hack” complete?

    if instead of using switches,each of the four contacts was instead a compete arduino,with two MORE arduinos as backups in case the first arduino failed,for a total of 12 functional arduinos plus redundant aruinos just glued onto the circuit board to look nice and instead of using a handle for the joystick actuator have 4 or 5 MORE arduinos glued together!!!! then make a case out of more arduinos,and then cover the case with more arduinos and then put the whole thing into a 55 gallon drum full of arduinos and the cover the drum with arduinos!!!!!

    i would use no less than 175 arduinos to properly complete this project!!!

  5. @bobob: needs more arduinos.
    @Mr.Q: And a twitter interface would be wasted on this. You need a imageboard wordfilter to trigger it. Peanut butter=left, over 9000=right and so on. maybe even use the arduino cluster ddos a site. I’m ashamed hack-a-day. Less talk, More rock.

  6. @bobob, @mikula, @Mr. Q :
    I lol’ed for a good hard 15+ seconds.
    +5 internets for all of you.

    The pen clicker button is a great idea! Never thought about that. I would however put reinforcement behind the buttons. Getting a little too excited with a game might rip those out.

  7. @samurai
    That’s getting a little too picky. I understand the “not a hack” comments for some posts (I’ve posted a few myself), but when you say he didn’t hack it, just hacked it together, that’s just you being an ass. He didn’t have a joystick, so he took what he had and quick hacked it up into a functional joystick. At the very least, you can say he hacked that ballpoint pen =P.

  8. Wow! I have an idea but before that… Clever idea. Its not rocket science but it was interesting. As far as the idea goes…. Hack a day has always been a community driven site, from the first time I ever saw Hackaday, there has been the ability to submit hacks or even reference them. If everyone who is displeased with the current type of posts, helped to “support” by sending in ideas/interesting hacks that they have found, then we could probably get plenty of “technical/advanced” hacks to be posted.

  9. It’s a good quick-and-dirty joystick but it won’t last long. Real joysticks (even the cheap $8-10 variety) use a restrictor to limit the movement of the stick to keep it from destroying the switches. You’d be surprised how much force the person will put on a stick during a typical game.

  10. FYI: The people criticizing this as not a hack are mostly being cynical, i.e. not serious. So those of you defending this post lighten up.

    Yeah this is the kind of hack I like to see… Something repurposed :)

  11. You know what’s stupid?

    There’s just no way to win with these lousy, bitching flamers.

    1. If a hack is posted that’s less than highly-technical, they’ll complain that it’s not a hack and that their valuable time is being wasted.

    2. If a hack is posted that has some complexity and takes some high-level skills, THEN they’ll line up and flame the poor guy for making it too complex. “*I* could’ve made that with a dirty pillowcase and some cardboard. You were stupid to include an Arduino!”

    3. The middle ground between these two types of bitching is vanishingly small. I can only think of one recent one: PodeCoet got accolades for his spotwelder a couple of days ago, but his previous post in the spring he got flamed so bad I’m really surprised he even came back.

    Come on, bitchers. I know you LIKE to complain, you WANT to complain and defend your RIGHT to complain. But you’re really just an attitude problem waiting to go off again. So shut up already.

    Crankily yours,

    gyro_john

  12. oh for the record i was trolling. this is project is pretty much the definition of a hack, but for the love of god we need moderation on these comments – or at least heaven forbid – accountability.

    “intense debate” could work? otherwise any sort of up down karma voting please!!!!

  13. nice hack … in light of it being a nice quickie and dirt;gotta mention i have done some thing similar to this with one of them cherry brand switches from the interlocks of microwave ovens. the switches on their sides with the commons wired together and a sharpy pen as the stick. a thumb switch rigged inside of the stick{a push button from an old colecovision controller. all mounted inside of a small plastic project box with hot glue and a lil bit of wire .
    kudos i might just try to build one hmmmm :-?

Leave a Reply to andrewCancel reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.