The Four Player Coffee Table Pong Video Game.

Step 9 Install the Analog Controllers.

Lets get into the controllers!

Grab your four Atari controllers and open them up with a philips screwdriver. (there are just two screws)

Take off the back cover and you will find a button and potentiometer inside. De-solder the wires from the potentiometer, unscrew the potentiometer and remove it from it's housing. (see second photo)

Repeat this for the remaining three controllers.

Now we need to drill some holes to mount these potentiometers into. (The third photo explains it all)

Once you have your holes drilled, you will want to mount your potentiometers in the holes and glue in place with some hot melt glue. Do this for all four potentiometers. (see fourth photo)

Once they are in place, you need to solder three wires to each.If we use the potentiometer nearest the circuit board as a reference: (see fifth photo)

• Top connection = +5v
• Middle Connection = player connection
• Bottom Connection = Ground

A tiny bit of theory behind this is that between the entire resistance of the potentiometer there is +5v. When we turn the potentiometer dial we are moving the middle connection closer to +5v or closer to Ground. so in effect we are changing the voltage on the middle connector and this is what gives us our position for the onscreen bat.

Anyway, If you then follow these connections around to the bottom potentiometer, we now have:

• Left connection = +5v
• Middle connection = player connection
• Right connection = Ground

and then follow this same rule for the next two. If you do get +5v and ground around the wrong way, you won't damage anything. Your bat will simply move in the opposite direction to the way you turn it. If this is the case, just switch the GND and +5v connections and you will fix it!

You then need to connect the potentiometers to the circuit board. They are labelled on the board so it quite straight forward. (see fifth and sixth photo's)


And once all of that is done, you can now install your control knobs to the top side of the table. (see seventh photo)

Comments

[philbracy]

i read on google that these paddles used 1M Ohm pots. can we just use these http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062297# instead of buying up old atari contollers at 5-12 bucks a pop just to gut them? or is there some other specific in these controllers that i am missing?

[bradsprojects]

You can use any pots, because all we are using them for is to act as a voltage divider that we can vary between +5v and 0v

So to save money, you can certainly go out and purchase the cheapest pots you can find = )