project_C was the first circuit board I ever designed. It allowed for the creation of controllers like project_B but without the need to solder. This was designed to lower the barrier to entry of creating controllers like these. I assembled and sold about 15 of these before creating a much better solution in project_S.

Since I was very unfamiliar with circuit design at the time, I decided to use off the shelf components for this PCB. I chose an Arduino micro as it can be used as a controller on PC with just a USB connection, and I chose USB-C for its excellent durability.

I used KiCAD to recreate that breadboard circuit as a PCB, and got this first board made by OSHPark.

I decided to add a nunchuk port as it was pretty simple when using the Arduino Micro, and I added a 20 pin header to connect to a Brook board to use the controller on Playstation and Xbox consoles.

I made several mistakes with this board, including having the USB data lines backwards, having a couple of the nunchuk port’s lines backwards, and not connecting the Brook header’s 5V lines as I didn’t think they’d be needed.

I also realized that I would prefer using screw terminals as opposed to pin headers.

I fixed all the issues I had with the first prototype, and ordered about 20 sets of parts so I could make these for other people.

Overall, this design worked pretty well, but it had a few issues that could only be solved with a design that is made from the ground up.

Namely, the cost of parts was really high as I was using three preassembled boards, the time to assemble was very high with all of the solder joints required, the Micro-USB port found on the Arduino Micro is very fragile, the PCB couldn’t work on GameCube setups that are only providing 3.3V, and the Brook Board would require a separate externally accessible USB port.

I later fixed all of these issues with a new PCB design, project_S.