My annual playthrough of Faith: The Unholy Trinity is quickly approaching. If you've not played it, I highly recommend it. Set aside the fact it has Atari 2600 graphics, it's a spine chilling experience.

Probably going to pause send-in orders for November and December (maybe even January) so I can focus on PCB design, website migration, and local game store services. Been falling behind lately due to a combination of events (prep and travel), health, and other responsibilities.

6 years ago, I had never designed a PCB. I'd touched maybe a few lines of code. Almost a high school dropout. I found resin casting when I was in pursuit of making some custom joycon buttons and shells. I wanted to make something that no one had made yet! Not knowing where to go, and with a pretty severe lack of good info on the subject, I found the CGCC discord channel. That became my new home for this hobby. Other makers there were doing resin casting just like I wanted to do! I made my first set of resin cast buttons. It was an addiction at that time of my life. I couldn't get enough of the hobby, and started an Etsy store. I would cast buttons at night. I'd bring my fresh castings to work and sand them/clean up the edges during my breaks at my 9-5. 5 years ago, someone asked me to do some LED buttons. I had barely soldered before. I got it done. I immediately became fascinated with the idea of doing LEDs that could change colors. I picked up an ATTINY85, as many people do, and found Arduino. I wanted to make something that no one had made yet! After much tinkering, prototyping, I finally realized I'd need some way to do a custom flex PCB. I had never done a single PCB, let alone a flexible one. I found Fusion 360, and got a student license with my community college email, and got to work. A few more months later, and many sleepless nights, I had a working prototype inside of a joycon. I even turned it into a kit, sold a bunch, and learned about the woes of flex PCB fragility. A bit later, I became obsessed with microsoldering videos. I got into doing diy repairs. I found folks on Facebook needing help with consoles and I helped them. I learned how to microsolder and use hot air guns etc. Eventually, someone asked me if I would take on doing a "padhack" of a GameCube into a pro controller. After starting with the button PCB, I quickly gave up and decided to just make a new PCB. How hard could it be? ProGCC 1 was born. Around this time I had made a game boy color RGB led kit. I wanted to make something that no one had made yet! LED kits existed, but not something fully customizable like I wanted. I quickly became overwhelmed with my Etsy and selling GBC RGB kits, and I began shopping around. That's how I met Kyle at Handheldlegend and eventually I joined the team because it was a great relationship and it took a huge load off of me for warehouse/fulfillment. ProGCC 1 had a home, and we grew it from there one step at a time. I have painstakingly clawed my way through THOUSANDS of hours of tutorials, hundreds of electronic component datasheets, hundreds of GitHub repos. I've spent more time than you can imagine trying to perfect my craft and learn as much as I could. All of this has led to the GC Ultimate 2. I've had to build these skills entirely on my own with little to no guidance. There are numerous open source and free tutorials I've used as a help. For all of the wonderful references that exist, I am eternally grateful. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, don't we? Where I'm at right now is that I'm a bit disappointed that there has been a great improvement in recognition of indie software devs, but not so much for hardware devs. I wish that would change. Most of all, thanks to everyone who has believed in me for this long. I've made a lot of screw-ups and I've fell short, and with the support of random makers and nerds online I've been able to continue in my small corner of the world. Thank you, sincerely. Here's to GC Ultimate 2 and beyond! Pictured: one of my first shitty soldering jobs, some of my favorite resin buttons, and the GC Ultimate 2

Update is live for all existing GC Ultimate owners, as well as ProGCC with wireless features enabled.

Wii GC Ultimate 2

Messed with this myself, very cool :)

HOJA3 Arena test mode haha Opus 5.5 if you know you know

I know what im doing when I get off work tonight

Uh... Hall Effect analog triggers? Not really a 1:1 replacement for analog sliders... Maybe a new type of mod for OEMs? Yes, I know it looks hideous inside.

Send-in PS Vita 2000 USB-C mod I did (forgot to take a photo of the USB-C board after it was populated, whoops). I think from now on I'll list my settings and equipment in case it can help someone do their own repairs... Or at least I'll try to do this. - iFixit Screwdriver with a PH0 bit - iFixit spudger (to gently pry the halves of the shell) - Pinecil v2 w/ Chisel Tip at 420°C - HAKKO FR-301 Mode 2 (~400°C) - Miniware AirGo Hot Air Gun at 400°C at air speed 2 / 5 (so medium-low air speed) - MG Chemicals 60Sn/40Pb w/ no clean flux core - Chip Quik Sn42/Bi57.6/Ag0.6 low melt solder w/ no clean flux core (for port removal only), SMD2SWLT.040 - MG Chemicals 8341 no clean flux in a syringe - Zericuf 320m³ Fume Extractor w/ HEPA filter - iFixit Flush Cutters (had to trim an internal piece of plastic that was butting up against the USB-C port) - MaAnt D2 Electric Grinding Pen (for board and shell grinding) - 99% Isopropyl Alcohol in a glass Noverlife acetone dispenser - Excel angled precision forceps - HAKKO C1390C Omnivise - Q-Tip brand cotton swabs - Kimtech wipes w/ fine bristle toothbrush (for a super clean finish on the board after the work is done)

Here's what I've been working on in my time away. Not going to claim I know a thing about programming (my knowledge is very very limited), I had Chat GPT build this, but it will be free to download and also use on the website I'm building and planning to migrate to. This app, on the website, will run off Gecko Emulator (it has a webapp, unlike Dolphin) and rather than using Nintendo IP which Gecko needs to run, it utilizes Dolphin equivalents... So I guess a Dolphin-Gecko hybrid. Not quite ready, but I'm very happy with how this is turning out. Definitely needs to be tested thoroughly, but it's all looking very promising. - Detects whether a controller is OEM or a Phob - Has a Phob Combo page for quick offline lookups - Records values for each setting you change on the current Phob calibration session - Key Notch values light the stick up on the Controller Input Test screen - Trigger Oscilloscope and more! Also tested on a Wii and works just as beautifully as it does on PC via Dolphin Emulator.

First day since the 18th I've gone without ibuprofen. Still in pain, but it's finally getting to the point where I can bear it. Expect orders to be fulfilled in the coming days. Thanks for the patience and continued support ❤️ The time off did not go unutilized, worked on website migration (moving off of SquareSpace to CloudFlare) and GameCube controller test software I plan to have available on the website. More on that in the future.

The good work continues and I'm making great progress. It's hard to comprehend that it's been about a year since the first prototype of this.

I guess I'm getting old, got another crick in my neck, so orders will be paused until then. Just going to be stretching it and resting till I'm able to get back in action.

Catch me playing on the PhOEM. Experimenting with PS5 TMR modules on an OEM T3 Motherboard. Need to figure out why snapback modules don't work with the TMR modules and see if I can come up with a workaround. Very promising results otherwise. NFS, it's my personal build, but here's what it features: - OEM T3 Motherboard - Lubricated T3 Stick Boxes w/ PS5 TMR Modules - Mouse Click A, B, X, Y (120 gram-force), and Z (60 gram-force) - Tactile START and D-Pad (harvested from Wii Classic Controllers' -, HOME, and + buttons) - SSBU Digital Trigger and No Spring on R - Short Plug, Cut Aftermarket Spring, and Lubricated L - Paracord by @skyw_z - Left Stick by @CSS_Kief - Buttons by @shorthopcustoms

Ain't no way.

Yes, I know, I suck. Taking photos and listing like 40 builds seemed too much of a mountain, so I never did list them. However, now I only have 7 builds, so DEFINITELY expect to see those listed on the website by the end of next week. Attached are some of the builds I have.

For those wondering, it literally does nothing. There's no advantage, no secret sauce, nothing. It's literally 4 chips stacked on top of each other, soldered in parallel. Why? Because we can lol. It just works and sometimes spazzes. Sorry for the shocking plot twist 😅 Almost reminds me of that one SM64 YouTube short about Scuttlebugs and their travel path. Everyone was asking, however, the answer was very boring and disappointing XD Wait till Riptide 2027 when we make the sextuple or octuple OEM, the hot rod of OEMs... Or maybe some other weird random thing we decide to cook up at 2am.