Retro Game Controller

In this guide, we'll learn how to wire up a Mini Analog Joystick to the Adafruit Arcade Bonnet for Raspberry Pi. Most of the arcade buttons plug into the Arcade Bonnet with quick connect wires – Making it much easier to put together a retro arcade controller or cabinet.

Adafruit Arcade Bonnet

This cute little bonnet is designed for quickly adding arcade buttons to your Raspberry Pi. It has six JST connectors that are compatible with our arcade button quick connect wires, so no soldering required. There's also dedicated pins for wiring up an analog joystick and an 8-way switch joystick.

Prerequisite Guide

I suggest walking through the following guides linked below to get familiar with the components. If your new to soldering and electronics, these guides will help you get started!

Parts & Components

A nice handful of parts and components used to build this project. Always a good idea to have more on hand in case something is damaged or burns out!

1 x Raspberry Pi 3
Model B ARMv8 with 1G RAM
1 x Adafruit Arcade Bonnet
Raspberry Pi Hat with JST Connectors
1 x Mini Analog Joystick
10K Potentiometers
8 x Mini LED Arcade Buttons
24mm Blue, red, yellow, white or green
1 x Quick Connect Wire
Arcade/Button – Set of 10 pairs
6 x M3x55 M3 Standoffs
Female Thread Brass Standoff Spacer 55mm High
12 x M3 machine screws
Phillips Flat Head Machine Screw A2 SS - M3 x .5 x 6MM

Cool Tools!

These things really do help make building the project smoothly. You don't need them all of them, but I recommend them.

1 x Wire Strippers
Hakko Professsional Quality 20-30 AWG Wire Strippers - CSP-30-1
1 x Wire Cutters
Flush diagonal cutters - CHP170
1 x Soldering Iron
Adjustable 30W 110V soldering iron - XY-258 110V
1 x Panavise
Panavise Jr. - PV-201
1 x Helping Third Hands
Helping Third Hand Magnifier W/Magnifying Glass Tool - MZ101
1 x 30AWG Wire
Silicone Cover Stranded-Core Wire - 30AWG in Various Colors
1 x Solder Wire
Solder Spool - 1/4 lb SAC305 RoHS lead-free / 0.031" rosin-core - 0.25 lb / 100 g
1 x Heat Shrink Tubing
Multi-Colored Heat Shrink Pack - 3/32" + 1/8" + 3/16" Diameters
1 x Mounting Putty Tack
Loctite Fun-Tak Mounting Putty 2-Ounce

This guide was first published on Jul 26, 2017. It was last updated on Jul 26, 2017.

This page (Overview) was last updated on Jul 25, 2017.

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