After purchasing the excellent SixAxisController for my Nexus 4 so that I could play games on it using my Playstation 3 pad; I came to the realisation that the whole experience wasn't very 'portable' as I had to put my phone down somewhere in order to play it. The best solution is to somehow attach the phone to the PS3 controller.
At first I thought about using a 3rd party device - like the GameKlip. After see the ludicrous price charged for a plastic clip & the even more ludicrous priced charged for shipping, and then buy a holder for the phone, I decided to build my own device.
By pure luck/chance, I was cleaning out my loft a weekends back & was throwing away a lot of old PC spares (I use to build PCs for people) & came across an old Linksys PCI Wireless card. It occurred to me that I could use the antenna connector & the antenna itself as a securing mechanism for a mount that I could attach to the PS4 controller.
Firstly, I removed the antenna connector from the PCI card (I used a small hacksaw) & disassembled the antenna to leave just the base that screwed into the connector.
Next, I removed the back from my PS3 controller:
After finding the optimal spot for the antenna connector, I drilled a hole in the back of the controller body and attached the antenna connector into it.
This required a little bit of forward planning & modification.
Firstly, I had to hacksaw the connector a little bit more in order for it to miss the controller internals before using epoxy adhesive to glue/bond it into place.
Secondly, before the glue set, I had to position/rotate the connector around so that when the antenna base was screwed into place, it tightened up in the right place (pointing up). Once I was happy with the position, I left the glue to dry & reassembled the controller.
Next, I needed something to would hold my phone & that would attach to the antenna base. The best thing for the job I thought, would be a car screen mount.
After 10 minutes of so, I came across this on eBay:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/380641748695?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
It seemed just right & for less than £5 delivered I ordered one straight away.
Several days later the screen mount arrived. For £5 its an excellent piece of kit! I might buy another for my car! The phone mount is removable (might be able to get other mounts if you change your phone), the mount can pivot around a ball joint at the top, this allows the phone to be a set at certain angles, and the arm is flexible allowing even more adjustment.
To fit the car mount to the antenna base I had to cut the suction cup off. Under the plastic cover for the arm I found that is was just a soft aluminium rod, so I cut it about a third way down from the phone mount to leave a short but still flexible piece of arm that allow me to bend the mount if needed. I also cut down the cover so I could fit it of the exposed arm.
The next step was fixing it into the antenna base. This was much easier than expected as the antenna base already had a hole in it which the wire for the antenna use to run through. By pure luck the hole was just a right size to fit the mount arm into.
Using epoxy adhesive again, I fixed the phone mount to the antenna base, again making sure that is was in the correct position before the glue dried.
Once all the glue was dry I was good to go.
Unfortunately, I hit a snag straight away when I fitted the phone. Because of the extra weight, the connector base would pivot at the rotation feature for the antenna. To stop this I just superglued it into position. Once that was fixed I found the mount would shake a bit when using the joypad. I found the reason for this was the 'elbow' joint on the antenna base was flexing a little under the weight of the phone. So, I had to epoxy bond the joint into position. Once this was done the mount was rock solid. I still had plenty of adjustment through the ball joint in the phone mount & the flexible arm.
So, now its all complete, it looks like this:
And of course, a photo of the mount with the phone clipped in:
I'm really pleased with it & it only cost me £5 (plus glue & an old PCI wireless card) :good:
The great thing about this phone mount is that it's removable. If I want to use the PS3 controller on the console, I just unscrew the mount from the joypad & all I'm left with is the little connector which is pretty much inconspicuous.
If anyone has any questions regarding the phone mount or how I built it, I'll be happy to answer them.
Berry.
At first I thought about using a 3rd party device - like the GameKlip. After see the ludicrous price charged for a plastic clip & the even more ludicrous priced charged for shipping, and then buy a holder for the phone, I decided to build my own device.
By pure luck/chance, I was cleaning out my loft a weekends back & was throwing away a lot of old PC spares (I use to build PCs for people) & came across an old Linksys PCI Wireless card. It occurred to me that I could use the antenna connector & the antenna itself as a securing mechanism for a mount that I could attach to the PS4 controller.
Firstly, I removed the antenna connector from the PCI card (I used a small hacksaw) & disassembled the antenna to leave just the base that screwed into the connector.
Next, I removed the back from my PS3 controller:
After finding the optimal spot for the antenna connector, I drilled a hole in the back of the controller body and attached the antenna connector into it.
This required a little bit of forward planning & modification.
Firstly, I had to hacksaw the connector a little bit more in order for it to miss the controller internals before using epoxy adhesive to glue/bond it into place.
Secondly, before the glue set, I had to position/rotate the connector around so that when the antenna base was screwed into place, it tightened up in the right place (pointing up). Once I was happy with the position, I left the glue to dry & reassembled the controller.
Next, I needed something to would hold my phone & that would attach to the antenna base. The best thing for the job I thought, would be a car screen mount.
After 10 minutes of so, I came across this on eBay:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/380641748695?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
It seemed just right & for less than £5 delivered I ordered one straight away.
Several days later the screen mount arrived. For £5 its an excellent piece of kit! I might buy another for my car! The phone mount is removable (might be able to get other mounts if you change your phone), the mount can pivot around a ball joint at the top, this allows the phone to be a set at certain angles, and the arm is flexible allowing even more adjustment.
To fit the car mount to the antenna base I had to cut the suction cup off. Under the plastic cover for the arm I found that is was just a soft aluminium rod, so I cut it about a third way down from the phone mount to leave a short but still flexible piece of arm that allow me to bend the mount if needed. I also cut down the cover so I could fit it of the exposed arm.
The next step was fixing it into the antenna base. This was much easier than expected as the antenna base already had a hole in it which the wire for the antenna use to run through. By pure luck the hole was just a right size to fit the mount arm into.
Using epoxy adhesive again, I fixed the phone mount to the antenna base, again making sure that is was in the correct position before the glue dried.
Once all the glue was dry I was good to go.
Unfortunately, I hit a snag straight away when I fitted the phone. Because of the extra weight, the connector base would pivot at the rotation feature for the antenna. To stop this I just superglued it into position. Once that was fixed I found the mount would shake a bit when using the joypad. I found the reason for this was the 'elbow' joint on the antenna base was flexing a little under the weight of the phone. So, I had to epoxy bond the joint into position. Once this was done the mount was rock solid. I still had plenty of adjustment through the ball joint in the phone mount & the flexible arm.
So, now its all complete, it looks like this:
And of course, a photo of the mount with the phone clipped in:
I'm really pleased with it & it only cost me £5 (plus glue & an old PCI wireless card) :good:
The great thing about this phone mount is that it's removable. If I want to use the PS3 controller on the console, I just unscrew the mount from the joypad & all I'm left with is the little connector which is pretty much inconspicuous.
If anyone has any questions regarding the phone mount or how I built it, I'll be happy to answer them.
Berry.
Last edited:
