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| title: The Blue Boss (aka Grafting 8BitDo Zero 2 onto legacy Wico Boss joystick) | ||
| date: 2025-01-04 | ||
| type: post | ||
| author: Beej | ||
| tags: | ||
| - Hardware | ||
| - Entertainment | ||
| --- | ||
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| Basically looking to bluetooth enable my favorite old school Wico Boss joystick from my mid-80's Amiga childhood days. | ||
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| ## Points of interest: | ||
| 1. speaking of Amiga games, [Future Tank](https://amiga.abime.net/games/view/future-tank) gets the most reps =) | ||
| - tip: make sure you find the version that doesn't have the water graphics bug | ||
| - sure is nice to have LaunchBox + RetroArch + puae emulating amiga games so smoothly on Android, besides being mobile, old school computer resolutions are tailor made for small form factor screens | ||
| 1. I chose 8BitDo Zero 2 due to it's obvious good intersection of size, price ($20), features & availability | ||
| - sure would be nice if they threw all of us hackers a bone and broke out some real soldering points though! getting leads soldered to the little traces is by far the most challenging aspect of this approach. | ||
| 1. this was the main 8BitDo Zero 2 soldering reference i found to lead the way: https://www.reddit.com/r/8bitdo/comments/ighlet/8bitdo_zero_and_zero_2_pcb/ | ||
| - sure wish that reddit wasn't closed so i could post some clarifications... | ||
| - main one being, i found no need to have two commons... i was readily able to combine ground from the left side area joy pad with fire button mapped to 'B' on the right side control pad | ||
| 1. i chose to mount the Zero 2 to the outside housing of the joystick so i could use all the other Zero 2 buttons without having to extend any more leads to new buttons on the Boss... | ||
| - i could easily see people motivated for a more self contained aesthetic, this was a practical bee line for me to get something working with the least effort =) | ||
| - therefore i only needed solder 6 connections: joystick left,right,up,down, fire and ground | ||
| 1. but boy oh boy, getting those little leads to hold solder sure is a challenge!!! | ||
| - this is where fiberglass scratch pen is absolutely crucial | ||
| - on amazon there's not many choices, definitely make sure to get the finest tip you can find for this kind of work | ||
| - here's a link to the one i used: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002RMCFZM | ||
| - hopefully anyone looking here for reference gets a good enough sense of where i chose to tap into leads... | ||
| - when you zoom in it's pretty obvious one side of each control button pad with the big black intersection "U" shapes has one U connecting to ground and then most of them connect to an obvious "[via](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_(electronics))" which seems like the optimal place to scratch and solder but but not all of them go to an obvious via so you just have to scratch into somewhere along a fine lead... | ||
| - WARNING - once you have connected magnet wire to a trace lead, be very careful you don't tug the whole thing off... if you look at my joystick right pad you can see i ran into that kind of trouble | ||
| 1. **WIRE** - i also used 30 AWG enameled magnet wire like the reddit post and found that to be a good fit: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CK83CR2B | ||
| 1. PHONE = soldering microscope - i think it's a good cheap hack here to use one's phone as a "soldering microscope"... i found i didn't need to go any more than 8-10x magnification to see these small traces really really well | ||
| - i wound up getting a cheapo articulating magsafe stand to position the phone above the soldering area... i'm not sure this is the optimal choice but it worked well enough: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CP29VTPY | ||
| - little "coin" microscopes are amazingly cheap as well and this seems worth trying: https://www.amazon.com/Elikliv-Microscope-Endoscope-Magnification-Adjustable/dp/B07QB79SN6 | ||
| 1. see [this post](Gen2-GuliKit-TMR-PS4-joystick-drift-fix) for more soldering tips if you're as rusty as i was =) | ||
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| ### final build | ||
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| ### fiberglass scratch pen | ||
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| ### phone stand | ||
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| ### leads up close | ||
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| ### plug on internal joystick side | ||
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