Updated on 12.05.02 10:58 AM

Madcatz - Panther XL mod page

Please hit refresh on your Browser,
I have changed several items recently.
Back to main Panther page

Super Panther - Custom Joystick
Click on the thumbnails below.


All the buttons	12 buttons	rear view	Gimbal	Gimbal
-	-	-	-	-
			-	How does it play?
Back view	Front view	Side view	-	-
-	-	-	-	-

Wax casting	Top view	Tilt one way	Side view	Tilt both ways

FrankenPanther update 1

12/16/00 - I know that some of this does not apply to the regular panther but I have been fooling around with the super panther and I thought some of you would like to know what I have been doing.

The pots are always a constant source of irritation to me. They screw up and I get drifting and other goofy problems. After my last experiment I realized that I can just use switches for the four directional movements.
I removed the pots and installed four PC board switches under the stick. Then I assigned the four switches to the POV hat, which I don't have any more. JOY 24, 25, 25 and 27 are now forward, back, right and left. I installed some fixed resistors to the wires that the pots used to connect to and set the joystick dead zone up high in my config file. Now I have reliable movements in all four directions just like the keyboard keys.

The next area that needed attention is the joystick springs. I have four springs instead of two on the super panther. The springs would fatigue and break just like all metal will. I had to replace them frequently and you never knew when one was going to break.
Well I finally got rid of the metal bastards once and for all. I am now using rubber bands. They last quite a bit longer and are more predictable. You get a really nice feel from the rubber springs and they have a much greater fatigue life. You can buy a whole bag for not much money. They need to be replaced about once a month. It is a piece of cake to replace them.

So what's left from the original panther.
-----------------------------------------------
The Trackball mechanics are gone, the optical mod is installed.
The plastic Joystick is gone, a custom joystick is installed.
The Joystick pots are gone, switches are used for movement.
So I guess that leaves the plastic outer housing, the red trackball and the circuit board as the only original parts.

The joystick is turned off in my game config files and the original trackball is turned off. I really don't need the panther circuit board inside anymore.

FrankenPanther update 2
The "Look ma, no circuit board" mod. (Lmncb) Click on the thumbnail photos below
01/26/01 - Well, after some earlier experimenting I decide to go ahead and install my "look ma, no circuit board" mod. I have removed the panther circuit board completely and turned off the joystick in my game config files. All the switches on the panther are hot-wired directly into the keyboard itself. When I press a switch on the panther it is actually turning on a keyboard key. This means no joystick leaching off your gameport on your sound card. It's pretty bare inside the panther now. Here are some fuzzy pictures for you to look at.

Fuzzy pic 1	Fuzzy pic 2	Joystick switch swivel	Stick switches	Stick/connector board

Lonely mouse board	Panther connector	Stick switches	Roller cutouts	Rubber springs
As you can see in the photo's, I only have my Klamath mod optical mouse board, my custom joystick and a small turret lug board where all the connections going to the keyboard are made. The cable leaving the panther is a parallel printer extension cable. The other half of the printer cable enters the keyboard and all the connections are soldered to a keyboard switches themselves. The keyboard is a switch type keyboard, not one of those soft touch keyboards. This is an old rock solid keyboard with actual switches under each key. That allowed me to make an actual solder connection on the back of each keyboard key switch. You cannot do any soldering on the modern el cheapo keyboards that have the rubber membranes. I can disconnect the panther from the keyboard using the 25 pin connectors on the ends of the printer cable. The panther has the male 25 pin connector and the keyboard has the female 25 pin connector. I just took a 5 foot printer cable and cut it in half, stripped each end back a bit and started soldering, soldering and soldering. Some other mods that have happened since I first made the Frankenpanther: The area around the roller bearings has been opened up to allow me to swap bearings from the outside. The joystick is now operating on rubber band springs instead of metal springs. The metal springs were breaking all the time, the rubber bands last way longer. (And they are cheap) BTW, The panther works great and is very fast and responsive, just like a keyboard. This mod is a vast improvement over using a gameport connected device. In fact, the response is so fast that I have to be careful not to hold a button too long because you are dealing with key repeat rates on the keyboard and I have all my keyboards set up at the fastest repeat rate in windows. I used the keyboard panther a couple days and then I uninstalled the Panther XL software. No more joystick binds to deal with. The game binds are all to keys on the keyboard and the panther is actually just activating a keyboard key.

FrankenPanther update 3

Optical switch mod - Click on the thumbnail images below

07/02/01 - The directional movement switches and the paddles that pushed the switches down were breaking once in a while and there was some maintenance involved. I have been wanting to convert the four directional switches into optical switches and this is what this update is all about.

The four switches The paddle Power supply board The circuit Panther inside

The evolution continues