Custom NES Controller — As Seen on Adafruit Show & Tell!
Last week on Electronics Show and Tell we had another visit from the talented Guillermo Amaral who shared with us custom NES controller board he had put together using a bunch of Adafruit components. While this controller is in fact for a NES system, we were excited to hear that this is also part of his ongoing project to use a Raspberry Pi to record NES gameplay, potentially to save and then playback on the NES or a NES emulator. Visit his site to see lots of photos and details from the project in progress!
I recently found myself with a surplus of Adafruit Industries components, I decided to put a few of them to good use by making a custom NES controller.
Use a single-sided 65×65 MM square board (since I have a bunch of them).
Design
The design is fairly simple, the only difference between it and a standard controller would be the use of the Center pin on the navigation switch as the Select button….
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: CircuitPython 9.2.1, What is DMA, PyConUS 2025 and More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
