Inspired by Azeron Game Pad DIY Under $35 : 11 Steps (with Pictures)

I have created a discord so people can talk about issues and fixes for this project. Hopefully we can have a great community come together and make this 10x better!

Discord link Please join!

I WILL NO LONGER BE UPDATING THIS TUTORIAL, YOU SHOULD STILL BE ABLE TO BUILD IT AND MAYBE OTHERS CAN HELP IN THE COMMENTS>

This is a tutorial on how to build your own azeron keypad with 3d printed parts, a micro controller, a analog joystick, some switches, screws/nuts and some cushion pads.

Here is a list of the things you will need.

Supplies

Needed

3d Printer

STL files to print ($13)

3/8in silicone pads 100/$10 10c each project requires 10

12 micro switches $10/25 switches

Micro controller. $7 each ( you need 1) $21

M3 screws and nuts $9 (you will use about 1/3 of them

Analog dpad $2 5/$10

22awg wire, I stripped from old cat 5/6 cable (ethernet) about 12ft

Soldering station/flux/solder

Micro Usb cable

Optional

Braided cable cover $1 25feet you need about 1`

Step 1: Print Your STLs

You should end up with everything in this photo. I had altered the handle file for personalize it for a friend.

you should have the following

1x Base Plate

8x Button Big

4x Button Small

4x Finger A

4x Finger B

4x Finger Base

1x Joystick A

1x Joystick B

1x Main Body

1x Palm Rest

1x Soldering switch holder

1x THumb Base

10x PADS (optional, i used silicone ones highly recommended)

You do not want to alter these files at all, they are extremely precise and messing around with them can cause trouble.

I printed at 0.16mm layer height to get a nice finish. Its really important to have a dialed in printer, you do not want offset x or y axis.

Step 2: Install Nuts and Bolts

Here you will need to secure the nuts to the print. There are a few ways of doing this, i just used a lighter, you can also just use an old soldering iron bit as well,

Simply heat up the nut and place it in the hole. I just used a long M3 screw barely attached , heated it with the lighter, pressed it in the hole and then smuged the outter side to secure it.. Just unscrew lightly so you dont pull the nut out. You can also just put the nut at the tip of the iron, once hot, put it in. I dont like this method as much since i feel i have better control with screw..

Once you are done start putting together the fingers of the board.

There is also a round dot for a magnet, i did the same, i heated it and then applied a bit of crazy glue and added 2 more magnets for extra strength, its for a allen key so you never loose it.

Things that need nuts secured

Palm rest x3

each finger housing x2

thumb housing x2

each finger x2

thumb housing x2l

Step 3: Smooth Down Your Key Pads

I just used some 150 grit to smooth them out,

I actually used a dremel through the hinges to get a nice smooth finish. be very careful as they are thin and can easily break.

Step 4: Setup Your Soldering Station and Use the Jig to Solder Your Switches

So what i did was use 10ft of Cat 6 cable. pulled it out of the sleeve and had 4 pair of wires. i used the color wires for the buttons and a white wire for ground. As you can see i had the Brown/white as my ground. THey are all soldered together and each switch needs a dedicated wire. To keep things simple i used the same colors for each switch, it will help a lot when you have to wire this thing up. you will want to give yourself about 6-7 inches of spare wire, and you will want to twist it up. . once your are done do the other 3. try to keep them all the same.

Also make sure you have the right switches, if you buy a different type or size it wont fit/work.

Make sure that the buttons of the switches are in the right position, you can see for the big ones, they have to be at the bottom (so one is flipped)and for the small one it has to be on the left,

Step 5: Place Your Buttons and Switches in the Holster.

This was by far the toughest part. I had to learn the hard way how to do this.

1st thing you need to do is remove all the metal tabs from teh switches. be careful these are thin plastic. but should come off early, just try not to damage the switch body. then place each button in its place, ( no the switch) you might want to get a long m3 screw to hold it there. Once the buttons are in, you will need to insert the switches. There isnt a lot of room, you may need to sand/shave a bit off the sides. (i did) just remember the switches are going to hold the buttons in place, you will not be able to remove the buttons when all 3 switches are in place.. you will have to take the switches out 1st to alter anything.

once you have it all in place, test the buttons that they switches make contact. I found that with m3 screws they were way too tight and just used tiny m2 screws. ( its really just hinge and doesnt need to fill the entire hole) You may get a few that stick, which means you will have to take it apart and sand/.file down parts of the button.

it will most likely happen on the rest as well, so if you need to alter 1 button, might as well do them all like that.

I noticed i needed to sand down near the hinge to allow more room between the buttons,

Once you have them all setup, place the covers on and put your m2 nuts on the bolts.

Also you will want to braide your cable when its all done, be careful not to pull the wire off the solder joint.

Step 6: Wire the Dpad

This one is pretty straight forward. I didnt get many photos, but solder the wires to the prongs and take a photo for reference.

put the dpad in the housing and screw it shut.

Step 7: Put Together Your Buttons and Get Ready to Solder

This step is basically just assembling the joystick, put everything together except the palm rest, fee the wires through the opening.

This is where you can add the braided sleeve if you like. Once everything is pulled through you can start soldering the wires. I printed off the pinout and labelled each one. Also remember when you put on the pegs and solder from the bottom, each side is flipped!

Step 8: Test the Code

install The arduino IDE here make sure you have the right drivers, im pretty sure the IDE has them.

Then select board "leonardo" it wont compile if you use a different one.

upload the code and plug the board into a computer. and a bread board.

Here is the code for the controller

test the buttons against the pins to see if they register. I just opened up textedit (wordpad) to do this, take a ground connection and test it against the pins from the simple drawing i made./ Only test the ones that have a letter beside them.

Next test your buttons, Easiest thing i did was wire up a LED with a resistor and put each switch between them. i did this one at a time and since they use the same ground i just move the +. Press the button if the light goes on, its working. you can also test for continuity with a multimeter.

After you have all working switches, you will want to wire up the switches. In the drawing you can see what i had going to each key. the circle with the X/Y are analog controls. make sure you wire them to an analog pinout. (All the A' on the diagram)

Over the time, I have changed my binds so you need to make sure in the code at lines 84-96 you have the correct pins. If you copied mine, this should work, but if you used a different pin, just relable that pin. You can also set the bid there as well,

You can also alter the code so any digital pinout does any key stroke. For the analog goto line 69 and start there, do not change the dPadNon = 0 but you can alter wasd.. Its pretty straight forward. If you want the current S to bind to J, just change the S in the code to J. This is done at lines 84 through 96

Step 9: Put Your Controller Inside the Joystick

DO NOT USE PINS 0/1 use 9/10 instead.

Once you have soldered everything, gently move the cable around so you can put the controller in. Its a tight fit so you may need to sand or file a bit. This project originally used a Teensy 2+ board but since they were over $50 i just used this one to save a lot.

One thing i did was use hot glue around the USB port, just to give it more support, we all know how many devices have broken simply because the usb port snapped off.

After placing it in secured the board around the edges with more hot glue. once you have done this, you are ready to go.