Mini Gamepad DIY
I made this tiny little gamepad using ATTINY85, I wanted to make this for a long time but didn’t have enough time, finally finished it and it is so much fun to play with.
Mini Gamepad DIY
Supplies:
What you would need to build it :
- A couple of ATTINY85 chips (only a single game fits on each attiny85)
- PCB (you can use any size and design the gamepad your own way)
- Female and male headers
- Li-Ion Battery or CR2032
- Passive buzzer
- OLED display (am using a 128 x 64 pixel)
- Copper wire (you can use any wire basically)
- Tactile buttons x 3
I have color-coded the diagram to make it easy to understand. The headers have dual functions in this project, one to hold both the top and bottom PCB’s together and the second is that they are the physical connections to the buttons on the top PCB. The buzzer is optional, the attiny has 5 usable pins but an extra pin labeled RST or reset can also be used as an input by creating a voltage divider between the VCC and GND. You can change the design as you wish so long as the connections are correct. The slant design can naturally rest on a flat surface, it is also comfortable to hold with two hands. You can choose to power the gamepad either using a rechargeable battery or a button cell such as the CR2032 but make sure the battery outputs at least 2.6v to work properly.
Mini Gamepad diagram
This layer has the LEFT, RIGHT buttons along with the FIRE button. you can see that as per the circuit diagram I have used 2 x 1k resistors for the LEFT and RIGHT buttons and made a voltage divider on the right side for the FIRE button as am repurposing the RESET button on the ATTINY. I used the smallest PCB I have for this project because I wanted a really small gamepad and the display which I had was also a tiny one which is apt for this small PCB. If you have a larger display then plan the power requirement accordingly, I have seen from other makers that a CR2032 roughly lasts about 2- 3 hours if played continuously.
I’ve added the buzzer, a switch, a battery connector and also on the backside you can find the ATTINY85. The reason I have added the ATTINY on the backside is to allow easy removal of the chip to load different games and it’s also a stand for the gamepad.
