Day 360

I'd forgotten how much I hated doing soldering. I spent a whole afternoon last week trying to get one wire to stick to the circuit board and got frustrated in the process. So last weekend, I picked up a ten-pack of micro alligator clips from Radio Shack and simply crimped the wires and clamped them in place.

Now where to attach the buttons. Whilst rummaging around my garage, I came across the metal endcaps that attached to our old closet doors. So I grabbed one and tested it in the holster hole of the cabinet. The hole was just a *tiny* bit too small. Then I grabbed the Dremel tool and started sanding out the hole and made the whole house smell like a lumber yard. Then I drilled three holes in the endcap and attached the buttons in place and clamped the other end of the alligator clips, fed the whole thing through the holster hole and voila!

Now the left button escapes from any game and the two in the center control volume up and down. Now I can disable the special keys on the X-Arcade Solo so I can stop accidentally exiting a game I'm in the middle of.

Day 351

 After several months of playing games with the X-Arcade Solo, I realized that the buttons I set up for changing the volume control weren't working too well and I was accidentally hitting the escape button too many times.

So I found several instructables and videos on Youtube for hacking (modifying) a regular keyboard to make a custom button set. I went to Radio Shack and purchased a bag of 4 momentary pushbuttons and spent this afternoon disassembling and tracing the button lines to the control board. I had to take it slow as the tightness of the lines make it difficult to follow. I'm pretty sure I traced them correctly.

Now I have to get some wire, solder them to the control board and solder the other ends to the buttons. If the test works, then I'll attach them to a board and attach the board to the left hand hole on the cabinet. Then I can pretty that up, disable the custom buttons on the joystick and everything should be good.