Hey folks, thanks for checking this out! This project was "completed" several months ago, but i only got around to posting it now. I wanted a better control layout for gaming, but the only option out there seemed to be that folding bluetooth game pad. It looked perfect, except that i had read here that while it does work with the Axim, it did not fit on it. Once i got the necessary money together, i got it with the intention of extending it somehow. When it arrived, i did just that. It worked OK, but it was awkward to hold--and isn't that why i got it in the first place?
While not a big console gamer, i am a fan of the way Sony designed their Playstation controllers. With that in mind, i decided to take the innards of the BT gamepad and put them in a modified PS controller. I was extremely lucky in acquiring the controller. i wanted a black one (like the PS2's), but also one with out the analog sticks (PS1 only). Ebay said there was no such thing, so i was prepared to compromise. When i went to the local GameStop, however, two minutes of searching yielded exactly what i wanted--and for only $3!
The wiring was not as easy as i thought. The D-pad was OK with one wire for each button and a common ground, so it wired into the PS controller's board just fine. No such luck with the action buttons, however. While Sony did it the logical way (like the D-pad), the BT gamepad did not have a common ground. WHY?!?!? Well, a bit of dremmeling took care of that and each of the PS's buttons now had 2 wires. I then wired the PS's "L2" and "R2" shoulder buttons up to the BT's "L" and "R", and the "R1" up to the BT's "start" (as the PS's original start button had been removed).
Now all it had left to do was attach to the Axim itself. The brackets it the center are cut up pager belt clips that i had laying around. the hug the edge of the axim like they were made to! The underside is where things get really ghetto. as you can see, i made spring cylinders out of two mechanical pencils. The spring itself was pulled from an old battery charger--it fit perfectly in the tube! These cylinders allow the whole thing to stretch, in order to hold the Axim.
As any maker/hacker/fiddler knows, no project is ever really "done". In the future i plan on:
1) angling the axim back a bit
2) replacing the pencils with something better (brass tubing, perhaps)
3) increasing the amount it stretches a bit for landscape use (i had intended this since "v1.0", but a measurement error left it short this time)
4) Do something about the flagrant hot-gluing
You can see some pics of it on flickr. Be sure to click the ling, as there are far more (and better) pics to be seen. I hope you enjoy!