DIY Uzebox / SNES arcade joystick

Topics regarding the Uzebox hardware/AVCore/BaseBoard (i.e: PCB, resistors, connectors, part list, schematics, hardware issues, etc.) should go here.
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danboid
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Re: DIY Uzebox / SNES arcade joystick

Post by danboid »

It was only in the last couple of days I found out how much this design reduces the cost of the BOM.

The joystick was designed for a board that retails for about £90 new but I've replaced that with a £5 SNES controller - 1/18th of the cost, board wise!

I'll try to get it weighed tomorrow.

This is my 644th post to the forum!
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danboid
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Re: DIY Uzebox / SNES arcade joystick

Post by danboid »

The fully assembled joystick including screws and rubber feet etc weighs approx 868 grams.
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danboid
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Re: DIY Uzebox / SNES arcade joystick

Post by danboid »

I have edited the OP to add the weight and I've edited post #3 to add a pic of the nutsert that I used for the handle and a pic with the 3D printed handle attached, this pic:
bat-top-uzestick.jpg
bat-top-uzestick.jpg (438.82 KiB) Viewed 391 times
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danboid
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Re: DIY Uzebox / SNES arcade joystick

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I have configured my X96 Max+ TV box as a MAME box to use with this arcade stick by installing CoreELEC nightly on its internal eMMC, dual-booting with Android. It just so happens that SNES controllers are supported OOTB in the nightly builds of CE. CE works perfectly with my DaemonBite SNES to USB adapter.

64 (actually closer to 56) GB of onboard eMMC space is enough to store all the MAME roms and it took less than 15 minutes to copy them over via sftp. I reckon I could fit the TV box inside of the joystick's case whilst keeping the TV box case on if I wanted.

The X96 Max+ 64 GB only cost me £30 inc. postage so it works out at about 1/3rd of the price of buying a RPi 4 4GB, case, PSU and memory card, in the UK at least. All of the MAME roms I've tried on it so far have run full speed with sound.

The X96 Max+ also runs Armbian and cuzebox great. Best £30 I've ever spent!

If you can find an X96 Air 64 GB you may want to get that instead because the Air has an extra USB 2 port compared to the Max+.
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D3thAdd3r
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Re: DIY Uzebox / SNES arcade joystick

Post by D3thAdd3r »

danboid wrote: Thu Apr 06, 2023 5:13 pm The X96 Max+ also runs Armbian and cuzebox great. Best £30 I've ever spent!
Nice! Does the Android version work with Bluetooth controllers or only USB? I think I have a new device on my wishlist 8-)
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danboid
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Re: DIY Uzebox / SNES arcade joystick

Post by danboid »

D3thAdd3r wrote: Thu Apr 06, 2023 7:44 pm
danboid wrote: Thu Apr 06, 2023 5:13 pm The X96 Max+ also runs Armbian and cuzebox great. Best £30 I've ever spent!
Nice! Does the Android version work with Bluetooth controllers or only USB? I think I have a new device on my wishlist 8-)
On my X96 Max+ I have had BT working fine under the stock Android rom, SlimboxTV, Armbian and the current stable version of CoreELEC but I'm having probs with BT under CoreELEC nightly.

I was unable to get my Uzebox/SNES USB stick configured properly under the current CE stable release so thats why I'm running nightly as I can live without BT on my TV box although that would be nice to see fixed.

A couple of warnings for anyone thinking of buying an AMLogic TV box like the X96 Max+ or X96 Air. There are only 4 AMLogic TV boxes officially supported by CE. They're listed here but the X96 boxes aren't in that list despite them mostly working great:

https://discourse.coreelec.org/t/how-to ... -tool/7630

Another issue is that if you flash Armbian onto the eMMC and decide you want to return to running the stock Android or SlimboxTV Android you have to open it and short a couple of headers on the eMMC chip to get Android reflashed but apart from that I prefer it to the RPi as a general purpose, low power/price ARM machine.

It is possible to run Armbian or CE off uSD card but you get (~4x) better performance installing them to eMMC. CE can dual-boot from eMMC with stock Android or slimbox if you want to run both off eMMC.

The X96 boxes have a barrel jack for power and include a PSU (and IR remote and HDMI cable) in the box but its also possible to power them off USB bus power. I bought mine from geekbuying.com.
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danboid
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Re: DIY Uzebox / SNES arcade joystick

Post by danboid »

I wrote this guide to hacking AMLogic TV boxes for Manjaro but it nearly all applies to Armbian too:

https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Amlogic_TV_boxes

Armbian for AMLogic TV boxes:

https://github.com/ophub/amlogic-s9xxx-armbian

CoreELEC:

https://coreelec.org/

slimBOXtv

https://slimboxtv.ru
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danboid
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Re: DIY Uzebox / SNES arcade joystick

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Bluetooth is working fine for me now under the latest CoreELEC nightly on my X96 Max+. It might be because I updated to the latest nightly but its more likely because I didn't configure it properly last time I tried it. Under the CE BT menu, choose "Pair", not "Connect" when you right click on your BT device. My Rii i4 BT mini keyboard and touchpad is working great now. Today I chucked all the PC Engine / TG16 roms on there for good measure.

Today I'm going to install Armbian on my X96 Air TV box and configure it as a FOG imaging server so that I can do full system restores of both Linux and Windows machines over the network by PXE booting FOG. I'll be documenting the process for anyone wishing to replicate it.
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D3thAdd3r
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Re: DIY Uzebox / SNES arcade joystick

Post by D3thAdd3r »

danboid wrote: Tue Apr 18, 2023 10:46 am Today I'm going to install Armbian on my X96 Air TV box and configure it as a FOG imaging server so that I can do full system restores of both Linux and Windows machines over the network by PXE booting FOG. I'll be documenting the process for anyone wishing to replicate it.
I might follow along. I had worked on some PXE stuff for a solution at work, but never got to a usable point. Didn't know about FOG but sounds interesting.
danboid wrote: Tue Apr 18, 2023 10:46 am Bluetooth is working fine for me now under the latest CoreELEC nightly on my X96 Max+
Just ordered one with a BT keyboard. Hopefully can get CUzeBox running with peripheral support.
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danboid
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Re: DIY Uzebox / SNES arcade joystick

Post by danboid »

D3thAdd3r wrote: Tue Apr 18, 2023 11:19 pm Just ordered one with a BT keyboard. Hopefully can get CUzeBox running with peripheral support.
Cool! Which one / what spec?

Building cuzebox under Armbian couldn't be much easier. Something I've not tried yet is getting the Uzem libretro core working under CoreELEC.

I didn't get the time to install FOG on my tv box today. I've only ever installed FOG on x86 machines before but I've read that it works fine under ARM Linux too, at least the FOG server does. I've never tried imaging any ARM machines with FOG, I've only used FOG with Windows clients so far.

Have you already got a RPi or any other ARM boards DA?

When you get it, the first thing you need to do before you try any alternate distros on it is go to Settings -> System -> About phone under its stock Android and make a note of what it says the model is.

I've got an X96 Air tv box but there are at least 8 different X96 Air variants and theres no way to distinguish them from their case or box alone. The main difference is the wifi/bt chipset they use, the amount of RAM/eMMC and some only have 100Mb instead of a Gb NIC. By going to About phone I discovered its a X96 Air Q1000. My X96 Max+ is a X96 Max+ Q2. Distros work interchangeably between the X96 Air Q1000 and X96 Max+ Q2 as they're essentially the same thing bar an extra USB 2 port on the Air Q1000.
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