Spin Rhythm XD Control Panel

[FrancoB]

I stumbled across this game recently and it's ace I starting playing it on my Steam Deck but soon found out you can play using a MIDI controller so I picked up the recommended Hercules Inpulse 200 controller which makes it way more fun.



In game you only need a jog wheel and two button inputs to play and you can use the tap input on the jog wheels for the button inputs. It's crying out for a custom panel though rather than just plonking the controller on the cab. I've been looking at transplanting the guts from one of those controllers into a panel or making a scratch built setup.

I really don't need any more projects but I can't resist this one....

I've been playing this an absolute ton. I never manage to make that much time for games but I've been playing this almost daily where I can. It pains me to stop playing this to work on a panel for it but I think it will be great on a Vewlix


I've collected a couple more Hercules Inpulse 200 MK1 controllers:



The first one I got as an Amazon Warehouse deal and that was £65 but it looked brand new. I then won a second used one on ebay for about £45 but the seller said it was NLA and refunded me Prices after then seemed to creep up and I picked up two more used ones from ebay for £50 and £65.

Why three controllers? Well one I want to keep for use at my desk/PC a) for having a quick blast and b) for testing custom made tracks on the fly. The second controller is the one I'm planning on transplanting the guts from and into the Vewlix panel. The third one is just for spares and/or for if when I **** something up

​I'm just in the initial planning stages at the moment but I thought I would share in case anyone has any input/ideas/tech info etc.


It's early days but I'm thinking of a layout something like this:



Two jog wheels on the left and right, currently the same distance apart as the original MIDI controller. The four buttons at the bottom are UDLR for menu navigation. Top right is Pause (Menu), press again to continue. Top left is restart track.

Back off the controller:



You can see the PCB was original fabricated as a square and one quarter then makes the bottom right PCB. Makes sense from a manufacturing point of view.

Bottom right PCB unscrewed and flipped over:



The square buttons on the original controller press onto those tact switches. They're common ground and will be easy to solder wires to. Any six will do as they can all be remapped in the game software.

There is an encoder on the jog wheel and that looks to be detected by a set of IR optics in the same way that a spinner does:





I'm hoping I can desolder these components, extend them with wires and then mount them to the Vewlix panel. I'm going to try and mock this up for a start before I go any further because it will require a rethink otherwise.

The one part I really don't get is how the 'touch' input from the jog wheels work. There is a single wire for each jog wheel (marked JOG_TOUCH_DA and JOG_TOUCH_DB on the PCB) and these are connected to a piece of single core wire that pushes against a steel cylinder that the shaft of the jog wheel is mounted in.







This is the other side of the PCB:



The IC nearest is a LM393 which apparently is a Low Offset Voltage Dual Comparator. I don't know if this has anything to do with the operation?

With no input to press I can only assume that the wire attached to each JOG_TOUCH_DA and JOG_TOUCH_DB is somehow sensing a touch through vibration? Does anyone know?

I'm going to see if I can also replicate this functionality with the wires extended.

Thats where I am currently. I'm going to try and extend the above wires next to see if this is a goer or not.


Any input gratefully received!


Finally, I started to record (in very bad quality) a couple of games as I'm trying to get a few mates into it too. I've got a few videos in a playlist [here] but I'll post a couple here too. There's quite a variety of styles to play and there's some DLC coming soon too, can't wait I'm no pro but it's great fun trying to improve. Some tracks look near impossible for a start but it's great once you can get into them. This dificulty is easy compared to some of the higher level XD ranked tracks

[geotrig]

love it , I have a very soft spot for rhythm games mind you as with most games I'm exceptionally **** at them , will be watching with interest.

[yosai]

Looks very cool.

[FrancoB]

love it , I have a very soft spot for rhythm games mind you as with most games I'm exceptionally **** at them , will be watching with interest.

I'm crap at a lot of games and many rhythm just seem either really hard or the music sucks. Maybe I'm missing some other good rhythm games, I'm all ears if I am. There are Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert and XD difficulty levels on this with each one generally introducing a new control/input so it breaks you in and builds nicely. You can play with a mouse/keyboard or joypad too but it's much more fun with a MIDI controller IMO. I think it's coming out on Switch soon too.

Looks very cool.

It is a really fun game. I've made control panels for games I've not even played before and so this is definitely deserved of one


I've made a bit more progress. I managed to desolder the IR optics and clean up the PCB without too much drama:




I then soldered the components to some breadboard:



Due to the uneven leg counts on the components leant the IR transmitter to align it to the receiver.

I then ran 7/0.2 wires, initially 50cm from the PCB to the breadboard. I plan to mount these PCBs in another case and this will be ample wiring length for inside the case. I might tidy this up later on with some ribbon cable.

I also extended the wire from the 'touch' input on the jog wheel.



I'm thinking of getting some little PCBs made with these with some right angled 5 pin JST connectors. I can then design bolt holes in them to fit them to a later assembly.


I found a few online website were you can test MIDI devices in the browser, what a world we live in I used https://www.onlinemusictools.com/webmiditest/ to confirm that I'm still getting inputs from the controls after extending the wires:



Everything works I then extended the wires to 1.5m long as this should be ample for the final wiring loom, everything still works

With all that in mind it looks like this is a goer, I wanted to test that before I went any further. I'm now going to order the square buttons from Aliexpress and get on with the next part which is designing a mount to fit the wheels to the control panel. I'll design and print something with similar geometry to the internals of the case but there will be some mounting points to fit them to the CP. I need to try and get the metal sleeves out of the original case so I can reuse those. I'm hoping they've just been pressed and/or in or lightly glued in place and I'll be able to press them out again. If not they'll come out by force

[Neo Gold]

Awesome!!.. This is a break from the norm, great work here

[ChrisBEANS]

I think rhythm games suck…

However, I think Franco is a fricking hero and a wizard.

I’m 100% in. Super excited to see how this turns out.

[wombat]

Keeping an eye on this project. By the looks of it together with your CP this is setup is more arcade then most official arcade games

[geotrig]

love it , I have a very soft spot for rhythm games mind you as with most games I'm exceptionally **** at them , will be watching with interest.

I'm crap at a lot of games and many rhythm just seem either really hard or the music sucks. Maybe I'm missing some other good rhythm games, I'm all ears if I am. There are Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert and XD difficulty levels on this with each one generally introducing a new control/input so it breaks you in and builds nicely. You can play with a mouse/keyboard or joypad too but it's much more fun with a MIDI controller IMO. I think it's coming out on Switch soon too.

Yeah music is generally not to my liking either but you do get a bit used to it !! recently played MAIMAI where I couldn't really hear the sound and it worked just as well ,god only knows what crap music was really playing ....cant go wrong with beatmania's on console either

[FrancoB]

Cheers men

@geotrig I started looking into beatmania a while back but I got side tracked, I'll have to pick it up again

Made some more progress.....

Luckily the shafts just pressed out of the plastic housing so I didn't need to get the hammer out



Next up I thought I would have a go at designing some PCBs to replace the breadboard I was using before. I've wanted to look at PCB design for ages but I've never dived in. I thought this would be a good little project to start with. I had been speaking with @West a while back about PCB design and he pointed me towards a few video tutorials for Kicad (videos in the spoiler below), thanks again bud . Without too much drama I managed to knock the below up in a couple of hours. I spent longer trying to get JST NH connectors into the library than actually doing the PCB design. In the end I went for JST XH as they're in the library already and actually they worked out to be a better choice.

Kicad Tutorials:

DisplayCollapse view

I'm probably going to move the single header pin to the top of the PCB but otherwise I think it should work ok as is. The header pin might end up just being a solder point, it's for the JOG_TOUCH_DA/DB input. One great thing with Kicad is that you can export your files to .STP and then bring them into other modelling software which makes it super easy to design the mating parts.

I've been doing some design work on the CP and the jog wheel housing to mount the jog wheel and the above PCBs etc. A picture paints a thousand words so I thought a video would save me a few more than that:



All WIP at the moment but you can see where I'm currently heading. I'm thinking of a blue/yellow theme for the panel. I've just left the panel blue for now but that will have some graphics. I'm thinking either blue and yellow translucent buttons or I might use clear ones and use yellow and blue LEDs, i'm leaning towards the latter.

I've been doing a few test prints and also got the first test jog wheel mount printed. I'll print this out of something nicer later on.





I've got a few more pics/info about the 3D printing so far but I didn't want to bore anyone too much, I can always expand on that if required.

I was going to buy an 10mm reamer to make a precision hole for the shafts but I tried one of my decent dormer HSS 10mm drills and it opened the 9mm printed hole out really nicely and the shaft is a great press fit.



Still loads to do on the printed parts, need to install the brass threaded inserts and order some additional parts for the JOG_TOUCH_DA/DB wire that touches the shaft.

I'm hoping to order the PCBs soon but I'm going to wait as I might get some others made at the same time. Loads more stuff to do in general but it's all good fun.

Think that's it for now

[West]

This is so dope @FrancoB ! Beautiful work as usually and love all the process photos. Can't wait to see it all come together.

[Monstermug]

Rare footage of the master at work.