The GP2X F200 d-pad, pictured above in its original form. What a bunch of bastards. Here’s how I (and a few plastic hacking proteges) solved the problem and made the device much more enjoyable. This is a minimal skill level mod that can be done with a pair of sidecutters / snips and some superglue. A soldering iron and a Dremel will make the job easier if you have access to them.
The first step is to snip out the center crosspiece, being careful to keep it intact. Then the tabs are snipped 2/3 of the way up from the bottom so they splay upwards. This will allow them to follow the angle of the button surface:
Using a soldering iron (I keep a spare tip handy for plastic work), the center piece is “tacked” into place:
Once it’s tacked around the sides, it’s flipped over and tacked around the bottom. Now it’s solid:
At this point some glue should de dripped into the seams to bond it all together more solidly. Try not to get any on the top surface of the d-pad! Here’s the first reassembly:
At this point the opening was not really wide enough, because the pad now needs extra lateral room to pivot. Disassembled, hit the opening with a Dremel, reassembled, all good. The total size of the opening is only about 1mm bigger (all around) than you see in the above pic. I was worried that I’d have to add a pivot point in the center of the pad too, but it’s not needed.
So how does it feel? Well it’s no Nintendo pad, but it’s still 100% better than before. There’s a bit of travel there and your thumb really “rolls” around when you’re playing, but hitting all the right spots in those unforgiving fighters and platformers is no trouble at all. It also works beautifully in games like Descent and Payback (GTA clone).
Here’s a quick demo vid, don’t judge my gaming skills yo. I was busy filming.
The original version of this post along with a heap of Q&A can be found here.
