Connecting NES original socket to Raspberry Pi 3b

[Tripwire]

@iggy I only installed the driver through the manage packages menu following the steps in this guide and rebooted:
https://retropie.org.uk/docs/GPIO-Modules/

I forgot to check the FAQ below the manual I must say (was kinda late last night). Anyways the controller doesn't respond at all but i'll check out the configuration once I get home. I remember that I made one mistake connecting the + to the 5.5V on the breadboard once thus connecting the NES socket to the 5.5V could that do any harm to the raspberry pi?

[iggy]

Hmmm hard to say....it quite possible. If you connected 5.5v to the controller then it might have indirectly sent 5.5v to the 3.3v data pins. Only way to really know if they still work is to make those pins (GPIO 2, 13, 26) input pins via a quick python script and hook up a button to see if you get any response. Make sure to use a ~10k pull up/down resistor when testing. Use this as a guide:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/projects/raspberrypi/tutorials/robot/buttons_and_switches/

[Tripwire]

Right so I checked my gamecon.conf and it was wrongly configured it's now:
0,0,0,0,2,0

This works but it doesn't detect the gamepad on 3.3V and only the A button on 5V (with the clamp circuit). So I guess I have to order the 74HCT244 and see if that will work :)

[Tripwire]

Right so i've got a 74HCT244 and hooked it up, but still only the A button is working. I checked on my original NES if the controller is functioning and it's working fine so it's not the controller. What I did:

1. NES socket white wire on +5V of Raspberry Pi 3
2. NES socket brown wire on GND of Raspberry Pi3
3. NES socket yellow wire through the clamp circuit on PAD 1 of the Raspberry pi3
4. NES socket orange wire on the 74HCT244 port 18
5. NES socket red wire on the 74HTC244 port 16

Then I've hooked up the 74HCT244 as follows:

1. port01 on 74HCT244 is connected to the GND of the Raspberry Pi 3
2. port02 on 74HCT244 is connected to the GPIO10 of the Raspberry Pi3
3. port04 on 74HCT244 is connected to the GPIO11 of the Raspberry Pi3
4. port10 on 74HCT244 is connected to the GND of the Raspberry Pi3
5. port20 on 74HCT244 is connected to the +5v of the Raspberry Pi3
6. port18 on 74HCT244 is connected to the orange wire of the NES socket
7. port16 on 74HCT244 is connected to the red wire of the NES socket

Is it a problem that the NES socket i'm trying to connect to is still attached to the original circuit board from my french NES (the small circuit board which has the colored wires attached to it?)

This is the chip I got:
http://www.datasheet.hk/view_download.php?id=1241663&file=0138\m74hct244ttr_1270896.pdf

[Wulf]

@Tripwire I haven't done what you are doing myself, just looking at the guide, so keep that in mind.

You said that you connected the, 'NES socket yellow wire through the clamp circuit on PAD 1 of the Raspberry pi3.'

Looking at https://retropie.org.uk/docs/GPIO-Modules/.... mid-way down, it has this blurb:

IMPORTANT: Gamepad1 & Gamepad2 are only available on the Raspberry Pi B. Future versions of the Raspberry Pi have hidden these GPIO connections, i.e. no physical pin exists. If you are using a Raspberry Pi B+, 2 or 3 you will NOT use Gamepad1 or Gamepad2 connections and they must be assigned ‘0’ as their controller type in the gamecon.conf file

I don't know if this will help any, but good luck with your project!

[Wulf]

@Tripwire Also, if you think that your controller isn't 3.3V compliant (like Iggy mentioned), I'd suggest finding a 3.3V compliant controller vs trying to add extra hardware, unless if you have experience in doing so. If you do decide to add the extra hardware, just be mindful of static electricity, you could easily destroy your chip if you aren't careful.

[Tripwire]

This post is deleted!

[Tripwire]

@Wulf

Your totally right! Should've figured that out myself! I'll put the data wire on pad 3 and change my cfg I'll let you know if it works :)

[Tripwire]

So i've switched to the Pad 3 pin on my Raspberry Pi 3 (GPIO4) and it's still not working... It again recognizes the A button being pressed but that's it nothing more. I've used the Clamp circuit again as that is the only way I got retropie to actually recognize the NES gamepad at all. I've tried using the 74HCT244 bit shifter but that doesn't help as well. I've now ordered 2 second hand original NES controllers to see if those work. Otherwise maybe the NES sockets i'm using are broken, or maybe the circuitry that is attached to the NES socket is broken...

[Tripwire]

So i've finally got further with this issue. I've removed retropie from my SD card and reinstalled it. Added the correct driver and set every GPIO pin in de conf file to 2 so my config now looks like this: gamecon_gpio_rpi map=0,0,2,2,2,2
Interesting enough now all of my controllers seem to work without the 5v mod or extra wires whatsoever. I've attached the NES pad to the PAD 4 pin. The only thing not working right now is in-game. The NES controller works in the menus of retropie and emulation station but not in an actual NES game. Going to figure that out next!