Mechy's Story
Toward the end of 2017 I was playing dark-souls with a PS3 controller, but the squishy buttons were frustrating every time I was sure I dodge rolled and it was too late, and you know if your timing is off in Dark Souls, you’re dead.
After one particularly painful and pointless death, I remembered every controller I have ever used from the NES through to the Xbox 360 controller, all were rubber dome buttons and all of those unnecessary deaths. I thought "why isn’t there a controller with mechanical switches?" After scouring the internet and only finding a couple of controllers with “mechanical” switches for the action buttons which weren’t even keyboard mechanical switches. I decided to make a controller with mechanical switches for all the important buttons; action buttons, d-pad and shoulder buttons... ...and so Mechy was born. |
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Mechy Prototype - Photo Gallery
Mechy Current Model
G6: Generation six enclosure.
After a lot of feedback, we went back to the drawing board with a designer and it was well worth the time. |
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Mechy Enclosure Generations
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G1: Generation one enclosure.
Where it all began for Mechy's enclosure, a very boxy shape slightly larger than the PCB and high enough to contain the switches and thumb-sticks. |
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Directional pad: four separate circular buttons. Action buttons: diagonal with circular button caps. |
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G2: Generation two enclosure.
The same as generation one with the addition of small curved hand grips which were a slight improvement on the boxy shape of generation one and much more comfortable to use. This was dubbed "the inflatable rescue boat" because of it's "flattering" shape. |
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G3: Generation three enclosure.
Some improvements were made by rounding the shape a bit and adding more palm support which was amazingly comfy for using the thumb-sticks but awkward for the buttons. Directional pad: First attempt at a integrated button pad which was way too bulky. Action buttons: Trial of hexagonal buttons. |
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G4: Generation four enclosure.
This model was called "the croissant" and was more comfortable than G3 for the sticks and buttons. However it required your wrists to be turned, so the ergonomics could be improved. The PCB is populated with just the switches and thumb-sticks for testing purposes. |
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G5: Generation five enclosure.
Directional pad: isolated buttons on a rocker with four CherryMX™ blue switches. Action buttons: staggered with hexagonal button caps. |
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PCB Revision 0.1
Revision 0.1 was made to test the switch and thumb-stick footprints made and they fit perfectly! The PCB also allowed the testing and further development of the firmware.
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100 Cherry MX™ Blue Switch Pile
There is no way we were going to miss out on some gratuitous switch photography for your viewing pleasure.
If you are interested in getting updates about Mechy head to the Home page and sign up for the mailing list. |
Downloads
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We love mechanical switches so much we made some Windows icons of popular brand switches.
(ver0.1 has 6 Cherry MX icons, more to come in version 0.2) We have included both *.icl and *.dll files which have the same icons, just in case security permissions prevent the use of *.dll files. |
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