Wireless Spinner Paddle

If you are like me and have your computer connected to your TV, you don't like visible wires on your game controllers. They are unsightly, and people can trip on them because the wires run across the floor while you play your favorite games. That's why I have wireless controllers. This has been quite a challenge with some controllers that just aren't available in wireless format. One thing I could not do is play Atari paddle games or Arcade games on my PC that required or played best with spinners. So I built my own wireless controller, using an Atari paddle controller and a wireless optical Logitech mouse with a unifying receiver.

Why use an optical mouse instead of the tried- and-true mechanical mouse? Because the wireless technology in the newer optical mice is much better. Why a unifying receiver? Because you can add another controller, and still use the same receiver. You can do this, and not waste a USB port.

How Does it Work?


The optical-style mouse doesn't have a ball and separate encoding wheels for X and Y axes. Instead, it uses one sensor that does both by picking up changes in the desk's surface.

So how do you get just an X axis for a spinner? Simply put: you don't. The sensor in this controller picks up mostly the X axis, depending on how you mount the mouse. However, it still picks up some of the Y axis, but because spinner games ignore it, it still works fine.

The only problem I have encountered is with Atari Stella for 2 player paddle games. For 1-player in Stella, it works great but for 2-player Stella, you'll have to use the X axis for player 1 and the Y axis for player 2. Due to the nature of the optical mouse, it picks up both axes, and moves both player 1 and 2 with one controller. I'm still searching for a solution to this. Everything else aside, this is an amazing spinner controller.

What you will need:

• Atari Paddle games controller. (eBay)
• Logitech 910-002974 M325 Wireless Mouse (Amazon)
• Install Bay 89-00-9031 ABS Plastic 12 X 12 X 1/8-Inch (Amazon)
• 3 Extra buttons (Amazon eBay or Electronics Store)
• Broken hard drive (eBay or laying around the house)
• Bolts (Local Hardware store)
• Rubber Bands
• Clothespin
• Soldering Iron & Solder
• Dremel
• Hot Glue Gun
• Metal File

First, you will need an Atari Plug and Play Console. You can find them on eBay. There are two versions. Make sure to get the one that looks like the picture to the left. It does not need to work. We will be using it only for the controller case. Take it apart, and keep all the pieces. Next, we'll use the Dremel to clean out a lot of the plastic insides.

Bummer. I did not get a picture of just the inside of the controller before I started working on this. However, I marked the spots you need to to leave in this picture. The rest can be removed.

Next, you will need to get the spindle from the broken hard drive. This is by far the best-spinning mechanism for a spinner. All others don't spin as smoothly. The hard drive I used was a MAXTOR 2B020H1 541DX 20GB. Other hard drives will work, but the spindle may not be optimal for mounting the spinner top and bottom bolt. Take everything apart until you get to the main spindle. You will want to cut off the 3 screw mounts on the side of spindle. We won't need them, and they will get in the way.

You will also need to drill a small hole in the bottom center part of the spindle that turns with a small drill bit. This is so you can thread a bolt in it for the encoder later. You'll need a bolt for that and a couple of nuts and washers. I tried gluing a bolt to the bottom, but sadly, it doesn't hold. Drilling a hole just big enough for a small bolt to thread in works much better, as you can see in this picture.

Cut down the section marked on the side of the spinner/paddle top (in the red box in the image), so it lays flush with the spindle. You also need a nut and bolt to connect the spinner top to spindle. You will need to file a spot in the bottom of the spinner top as shown for the nut to sit inside of. Then glue it in place with Super Glue. You will need to cut the top off the bolt and thread it through the nut and Super Glue it in place. Then the spinner top should thread into the spindle. Note: The spinner top might wobble a bit, depending on how flush the nut is in the spinner top, and sitting against the spindle but it's minimal and doesn't effect game play at all.

You will then need to cut a hole out of the top of the enclosure, so the spindle can come up through it without touching anything on the sides while it is spinning. I used a step bit drill bit for this.

Next, hot glue the spindle in place. It should fit in place from the top if you made the hole big enough.

To ensure it is centered, and the spinner knob doesn't drag the sides, I put rubber bands around the spinner knob and sat it above the controller so there is no friction when spinning. Then I hot glued the spindle to the top controller piece from the bottom. You can then just cut the rubber bands and remove them when the hot glue dries.

After the spinner top is on, and spindle is glued in place, it can be almost impossible to unscrew or tighten the spinner top because it's moving. Thus, I drilled a small hole in the back of the controller and drilled an indention into the spindle. This is so you can put a small screw driver in the controller's hole and spindle indention. This keeps the spindle from moving while removing or tightening the spinner top.



I used black ABS plastic from Amazon. I used a hole saw to cut a 1.5" hole in the plastic and then popped the part I cut out of the hole saw with a screwdriver. This will be the encoder. Clean up rough edges with a file. This encoder wheel attaches to the bottom bolt on the spindle. Since the hole saw makes a much larger hole than needed, center it on the bottom spindle bolt with nuts and a washer as best as you can.

I went back and cut the bottom of the bolt where it would sit the encoder the right height. Notice how it sits within the main big hole in the top controller piece, as shown in this picture.

Here comes the fun stuff! Take apart the mouse. The Logitech 910-002974 M325 Wireless Mouse only has 1 screw holding it together. It is hidden in the battery compartment, underneath the sticker. Locate all mouse buttons and battery solder points. I marked the solder point on this picture of another broken Logitech 910-002974 M325 Wireless Mouse board I had as a visual aid. There is no need to remove the switches from the board; just connect to the solder points. This won't be an issue because nothing should be pressing against the switches inside the controller. I used 22-gauge stranded wire and a fine soldering tip on my soldering iron for this.

You will solder this battery holder onto the board for the one AA Battery. Make sure to remove the original battery connectors from the board first, so they don't short out against anything. You can just clip them off, or heat up the solder and pull them out.

At this point, if you have been following along, the spindle should already be hot glued in place to the top piece. You should also have an encoder wheel connected to the bottom bolt on the spindle where it can spin freely inside of the controller. Make sure the rough side of the encode wheel is facing outward. The mouse optical sensor works better on the rough side.

I still wanted to use the bottom orange button and power switch, so I cut the top piece of the original board off and kept just the bottom piece. I would then wire up the power and push button switches to the mouse. I didn't wire up the LED because the 1.5 volts for the mouse are not enough voltage to power it.

To wire up the orange menu button and power switch, it will take a little more board modification. You will need to take an Exacto knife and cut all around the the section marked with boxes (see image to the left), so they are not making contact with the rest of the board and not shorting anything out. Cut the ground wire to the battery holder, and put one end on the 1st power switch ground and the other side on the 2nd ground, so it breaks current when switched off and completes current when switched on. Make sure you do this with ground. Otherwise, the power wire won't work, and will cause things to burn.

Getting the mouse board to sit over the encoder where it doesn't touch and still tracks over the encoder is a tedious process. It needs to sit up at an angle to clear as the wheel because the spindle angle doesn't let it turn perfectly flat. I used a clothespin to give it the proper angle. I took apart the clothespin, and cut the part that angles up to make kind of a ramp for the board to sit on.

I hot glued the clothespins to the top right before the encoder and glued the mouse board to the clothespins, so it sits just above the encoder like it shows in this picture.



The next thing to do is drill holes for your extra 3 switches and mount and wire them to the correct wires on the mouse. If you open MAME like you are inputting buttons for a particular game, you can find which button is which. You should have mouse button 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4. 0 and 1 are left and right click. 2 is scroll wheel click, and 3 and 4 are scroll wheel tilt buttons. Not all buttons work in all programs, so I put the left-click on the main orange side button then mounted the right-click button underneath. I then mounted the scroll wheel button first on the right side of controller and left scroll wheel tilt button 3 next to it. Next, I mounted the right-wheel tilt button 4 to the menu button. In MAME, button 3 and 4 don't always show up when setting up buttons, unless you press 1 of the first 3 before you press enter to enter button. Then it works. But then it seems to work in the game later.

All that is left is to screw the controller back together, and find a place to mount the battery. Space was becoming limited in the controller, so I mounted the battery to the bottom cover so you can get to it pretty easily. Just leave a little extra length of wire for this.

Now you're ready to play without unsightly wires! The End.