Welp, it’s been a year since my [original post](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/sgqny0/i_was_tired_of_waiting_for_a_wireless_n64) and I haven’t caught the wireless N64 controller in-stock on Nintendo’s website yet. A ton of new N64 games have come out over the last year and I can only imagine the nostalgic N64 player base has grown substantially too. My drive to help these players play these games the way they were meant to be played along with wanting to explore new microcontrollers led me to develop a new adapter that’s much cheaper and easier to make than my last!
Similar to my last adapter, once everything is programmed (much more easily this time) and the adapter is hooked up to the N64 controller. All you have to do is plug a micro USB cable into the adapter and the other end into the dock (or into a USB C adapter plugged into the Switch if you’re undocked) and you’re ready to go! This adapter also added mapping L + R + Start to the Home button to stop you needing to reach for a second controller.
A piece of feedback I received on my original project that stuck with me was that the setup looked too complicated. I was excited when I found a way to address this when I recently discovered the Raspberry Pi Pico – a small, $4 microcontroller that’s still readily available everywhere. You can program a Raspberry Pi Pico by simply dragging and dropping a single file! The last/Arduino project required downloading and setting up several tools in order to program a couple of different chips.
What’s more is that there are several features with the Pico that I haven’t even worked with yet that will allow me and others to develop new features in the future (e.g. spending 2 more dollars on a Pico W would allow you to communicate with the Pico over the internet)
Please let me know if you have any questions or feedback!
[https://github.com/DavidPagels/n64-pico-switch](https://github.com/DavidPagels/n64-pico-switch)
Edit: A couple people have commented that their N64 controllers’ analog sticks don’t have the range they used to due to age and use. I forgot to mention that this adapter will auto-scale each axis of your controller’s output up to 2x. While this doesn’t help dead spots in the middle, if your controller’s max reported range is -40% +70% on an axis, it’d translate this to -80% +100% on the Switch (-60% +90% -> -100% +100%, etc., etc.) The scaling restarts whenever the adapter powers on, so to get accurate scaling right away, just spin the stick around at its max once after plugging in the adapter.
by davidp730
7 Comments
Wow, what a cool project! Thanks for your work on this and for sharing it with everybody. I have never 3D printed or soldered anything, but this project makes me want to give it a shot.
I’m waiting for Joycons to restock in my country. They cannot be got
Seems everything from nintendo is out of stock..
Pro controllers
joy cons
charging stations for joy cons
The hero we need but don’t deserve! I’ll try this out.
You guys ever think about where your old consoles are? I believe i sold my n64 to some game store, but things are a bit fuzzy. Has it been destroyed, is it out there somewhere? I should have clearly kept it.
See that’s cool and all but all my joysticks are fucked from OG Mario Party. Tug of war and paddle battle took no prisoners. Either controllers or hands.
I really hate that controller