Adafruit's Bluefruit EZ-Key

[krssn]

Could this be used to make a wireless DC controller?...

[The-Amazing-Mr_V]

i would think so! i would easily give up the lower vmu slot for the batteries too. my question would be the reveiver on the console.

[Xerxes3rd]

There are a couple important factors for a Dreamcast wireless controller:
1. The Maple Bus communicates at speeds up to 2Mbps. This is difficult for a microcontroller such as an Arduino Uno to handle.
2. When the Dreamcast sends a packet to the controller, it expects a response within 1ms (1 millisecond) or it resets the controller and bus.

Bluetooth LE data rates are insufficient for a communications scheme in which the Bluetooth modules are merely Maple repeaters. The DreamConn Bluetooth wireless controller gets around this by basically emulating the entire Dreamcast controller in the receiver unit. It then uses a custom protocol between the controller and receiver, meaning that the PCB inside the controller is probably also custom.

[krssn]

Too bad. Would've been nice to have an alternative for the IMO overpriced DreamConn.

I know how to solder, but unfortunately know nothing about programming.

[Xerxes3rd]

I know the DreamConn is expensive, but from the reviews, the creator has done a ton of work to make it a viable wireless solution.

[krssn]

I know the DreamConn is expensive, but from the reviews, the creator has done a ton of work to make it a viable wireless solution.

I won't deny that. Quality product without a doubt.

[mstar]

True, from all the descriptions i've read online, this is truely a fine piece of engineering and ingenuity... But as krssn mentioned, the pricing seems a bit... prohibitive

So, sadly have to stick with cabled controllers (could be worse )

[Xerxes3rd]

Although I don't really have anything to announce yet, one of my side projects is designing a wireless Dreamcast controller. Right now I'm prototyping with the Cypress PSoC5, which is basically an ARM microcontroller with a small FPGA inside it. The Cypress PSoC system is pretty slick- the PSoC5 eval board is $10 and has full hardware debugging built-in, including hardware breakpoints. So far, I have it decoding the Maple bus wire protocol and spitting it out over a UART for analysis. The next step will be testing if I can basically build a Maple->SPI->Maple interface, to test out my encodeing & decoding latency. As for RF, I'll probably try the nRF24l01+ radios, since they can support up to 2mbps transfer rate (not sure what the actual rate works out to be). I have some ideas on how to get around the Dreamcast's 1ms reply window. Anyway, here's my tentative roadmap:

* Decode Maple bus wire protocol (95% complete)
* Encode Maple bus wire protocol (50% complete)
* Port Maple bus encoder & decoder to pure Verilog (40% complete)
* Test Maple-over-SPI extender (0% complete)
* Write library for nRF24l01+ radio (0% complete)
* Utilize DMA transfers between Maple bus and the radio (0% complete)
* Hardware integration with controller (0% complete)

Once I get a little farther along, I'll post my code and schematics up to github. One of the other pitfalls I see right now is that the controller draws more current than I'd prefer, (I have measurements logged on another computer) and VMU's/rumble packs only make it worse. If the controller portion of the hardware ends up being an add-on PCB (as opposed to a complete PCB replacement), then the battery life might be in the 3-4 hours range.

Again, I'm not announcing anything per se, but maybe sometime soon I'll be able to demonstrate something that actually works. Also, to be clear- I won't be building & selling these things, but I plan to post code & schematics so others can do so.

[krssn]

Again, I'm not announcing anything per se, but maybe sometime soon I'll be able to demonstrate something that actually works. Also, to be clear- I won't be building & selling these things, but I plan to post code & schematics so others can do so.