Fictiv, a custom parts manufacturing company, publishes product teardowns of game controllers and consumer devices, plus articles on its open-source motorcycle and VR projects.
HN links it for its detailed controller teardowns. One commenter calls the Nintendo controller teardown the most comprehensive and enjoys how overbuilt the old controllers are.
The most important section is on involute curves. It's the curve formed by unwinding a string against the circle:
https://ciechanow.ski/gears/#strings-attached
It creates a constant angular velocity ratio at all points where the gears mesh (the law of gears).
In layman's terms, the tip of the tooth gets thinner so that the angular velocity there is reduced at that larger radius. Otherwise the gears advance/retreat as they rotate, which creates vibration.
I think there might be a whole host of curves that work for this, the other main one being a cycloid, which I'm not really familiar with:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycloid_gear
I first learned about involute curves from a cousin that works as a machinist. Mr. Wizard also blew my young mind with noncircular wheels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg4_Kf9B0MI
Edit: stumbled onto this technique to make involute gears in CAD:
https://www.fictiv.com/blog/posts/creating-involute-gears-in-cad
If someone has a simpler method, I'd love to see it.
This is definitely cool but if you want a more comprehensive teardown of the NES, SNES, N64 and Gamecube controllers, this is the one:
https://www.fictiv.com/teardowns/nintendo-controller-teardown-part-1
I just love how overbuilt the old controllers are. I still have my original SNES and controllers and as far as I can tell they work as well as the day they were made despite decades of abuse. One has bite marks... not sure if that was the dog or me playing The Lion King.
I don't understand this comment- gcode never had loops, branching, or variables. And most folks use more capable controllers now based on ESP32 or whatever.
Update: I guess gcode does have loops, branching and variables: https://www.fictiv.com/articles/cnc-machining-macros-subprograms-and-parametric-programming
Love AVE's channel. Fictiv also has more of these, it looks like: https://www.fictiv.com/blog/topics/teardowns
+ they've done the other Nintendo controllers:
https://www.fictiv.com/blog/posts/nintendo-controller-teardown-part-1
https://www.fictiv.com/blog/posts/nintendo-controller-teardown-part-2
Looks like current incarnation is Stewart platform lookalike optical setup for all axes[1]. I misspoke in a different comment: Mine was older SpaceBall 5000 model, and it was more like two joysticks joined at the stem.
1: https://www.fictiv.com/teardowns/spacenavigator-3d-mouse-teardown
Did you try and drag it into fictiv to see what they would qoute you for making it :)?
https://www.fictiv.com/