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Perfboard prototype with WT51822-S2

A project log for Bluetooth Gamepad Phone Case

A bluetooth gamepad integrated into a phone case.

maaveMaave 03/19/2018 at 21:060 Comments

Here's the current state of development. The test hardware mostly works! I've been using through-hole components on perfboard and connecting them to the WT51822-S2 with magnet wire. My soldering skills are low but it's getting the job done. Inspiration comes from NE555's beautiful perfboard work.

Here's an early pic with no wiring.

Current version's backside. The ground wire runs around the perimeter so that I can easily wire buttons to ground. Two buttons don't work - I probably didn't strip the enamel well enough for those wires - but all the rest works.

Close up to the module:

Ugly soldering but functional. The low temp enameled wire is pretty easy to work with (I had some high temp and gave that up very quickly). Flux and tin the contact. Strip and tin the end of the wire with a blob of solder. Solder the wire to the contact. Helping hands would make this easier to solder.

I modeled this grip in Fusion 360 and 3d printed on our CEL Robox.

Those pegs were meant to hold the perfboard. They broke off in a heartbeat. In their place I tapped some nails through the grip to hold the board. The grip itself isn't really comfortable but it's better than holding the perfboard. Good enough - I'll conserve my effort for other tasks.

Here you can see the BlackMagic Probe reflashed STM32 that I'm using for development. SWD is used for programming and UART for serial output, both running simultaneously on the same device thanks to BMP firmware.

The software sorta works. I'm using Gamepad Tester on Android to verify.

Using mbed OS I managed to get it to work although there are some bugs and quirks. Fixing these are my main work right now

RAM usage - Mbed + the SoftDevice (Nordic's BLE stack) runs dangerously close to 16k RAM. Newer versions of mbed will throw out-of-memory errors.  Build 131 has been working fine. Unfortunately mbed dropped support for SoftDevice S110 which uses 2k less RAM. According to some guide (which I lost, gotta re-find that) I should be able to allocate less RAM to the SoftDevice in the linker as long as I don't use the Central role.

HID Report Descriptor - My HID Report Descriptor isn't working with multiple bytes. The BLE API gives me BLE_ERROR_INVALID_STATE when I try, even when using the working source from Ozan's nrf51822 controller. I have a vague idea what the issue is. Right now I'm using a single byte, with 1 bit per button. This is my main priority since I need to send the d-pad buttons separately from the regular buttons - either as a pair of X/Y axis or as a hat switch.

Windows 10 quirks - Win10 has two issues. First is that the buttons aren't coming through to the gamepad configuration thing. Second is that sometimes the BLE will instantly disconnect after connecting. For now I'm simply ditching Windows as a target. It would be nice for testing but in the end this all intended for Android use. I have no idea what's causing either issue.

That's all for now! More updates later when I have some solid software written.

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