SNES Controller to PC mod

Hi guys, I found this forum through Google, I'm hoping you guys will be able to help me with my planned SNES mod


I own a few SNESs, and I have modded one of them (a PAL one) previously with the Region and 50/60Hz mods to allow me to play my NTSC cartridges (without having to dust off my NTSC SNES that I don't like to use often!). I absolutely love the SNES controller, and I am wanting to be able to use two of them on my PC to allow my girlfriend and I to play some more modern games


I have done some research on how this can be done, and I found this wonderful product, which would seem to make the task easy, provided you can do some simple soldering and build an enclosure for the circuit.


Now, this may seem like a silly idea, but I want to incorporate this circuit into my SNES and build a panel mounted USB slot into the back or side of the case, allowing me to 'plug-in' the SNES to my PC and have the controllers work with my PC games. In other words, I don't want to have to unplug the controllers from the SNES (as I use it often) and plug them into another enclosure (which I would be terrible at building) just to have them work on the computer. In my head, this all makes sense but I have a few questions!


They way I was planning to go about it was to solder the wires for the SNES-PC chip in onto the back of the connectors for the controllers on the controller circuit board at the front of the console. I would use a short length of USB cable with a female panel mount connector (like this) soldered to the USB connectors on the new chip to provide a way of 'plugging in' the SNES.


Would I be damaging the SNES if, for example, it was turned on and had the USB plugged into a PC (which was also on)? I guess the voltage from the USB and the voltage from the SNES itself would be in parallel so maybe it wouldn't be a problem? Can anyone provide any insight into this for me?


Further, does anyone know if the Latch, Clock, VCC and Gnd for the controllers in the SNES are on common rails (if that's the right terminology) already? The circuit diagram on the website for the SNES-PC chip would suggest that's how it will be set up, but I obviously don't want to short the controllers out for use with the SNES as I would still be using it.


If this is something that can be done, where would be the best place to connect the chip to the controller circuit board? For each of the Latch, Clock, VCC and Gnd connectors, could I simply solder wires from the associated pins on Port 1 and Port 2 on the SNES to the relevant point on the new chip? So for the Latch, for example, I solder a wire from Latch on Port 1, another wire from Latch on Port 2, and solder these together onto the Latch soldering point on the new chip?


Can anyone also see any problems with this project, or maybe just tell me if it's misguided? I would really appreciate any help you could offer I appreciate there's a few questions here but I'm eager to understand this project fully before undertaking it.


If I haven't been clear enough with some things then let me know and I can try to explain better, or use pictures etc.


Cheers guys

 

Seems like a lot of work and maybe a risk having both console and PC hooked up at once if I'm understanding your post correctly.

Maybe better to buy a couple spare SNES Gamepads, bypass the internal SNES PCBs and wire the buttons up to a PC Keyboard encoder. This will offer you the best compatibility of various PC games and Emulators.

 

I agree with this, which is what I did personally.

Raphnet makes quality products, but if you want to order from within the US, this is what I used:
http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=44

Retrousb also sells premade adapters which you can just plug your controllers into if you don't want to permanently mod a controller for exclusive USB use.

 

If you're dead set on doing this to keep the controllers plugged versus just getting pre modded SNES USB PC controllers you can just use this adapter with the USB panel port you're thinking of. Just solder the wires from the adapter controller ports to the SNES controller ports, mount it and the USB port, wire the USB up, done. For the potential issue of having both plugged in at the same time, just pay attention to what's powered up and/ or plugged in.