Gotta say though the shoulder buttons are all clicky, the pad feels... really well constructed.
when I say clicky though, I mean in that REALLY, REALLY pleasant, 'soft click' way??
like, you can feel a click, but it's... I dunno I really don't know how to describe this. There's a bit of an audiable "clk" but it's not super loud, and it FEELS great. I could just... ... fidget with this. even the face buttons click really really pleasantly. I ... I think I really like this pad. I dunno how good it'll be for long term use given its form factor but I am genuinely impressed so far.
(I also went for the SN30 pro because colourful buttons omg)
@Nine YES the s[nf]30 pro is such a good controller
the snes-style lack-of-handgrips is a bit of a mark against it though
@Felthry Oh yeah 100% that's a downside. :/ it would make it nigh impossible for friends of mine who have issues with their hands to use it sadly :/
@Nine Hmm
I wonder about learning how to do 3d printing and using the 3d print lab on acmpus to make a hand grip thingy for it
@Felthry Oooo.. that might be pretty good, though cheap PLA filament extrusion type printers would probably make lots of uncomfortable striations on the finished piece that would be a nightmare to smooth off for comfort, even though the piece would be solid as a rock and take a sledgehammer to shatter probably.
A stereolithography type printer like the FormLabs types would probably make a more comfy product for this.
@Nine I don't know the first thing about any of this stuff i'm afraid
@Felthry that's okay. Miq's had both a MakerBot (PLA filament extrusion type, basically heats up a filament of plastic to melting point, lays it down on a build plate in layers, building the model from the bottom upwards. Very hard wearing, tends to be 'low resolution'.), and currently has a Form 2 from Formlabs (Stereolithography, builds by firing a laser into a shallow vat of special resin, pulling the model UP as it builds; way more accurate, higher "resolution", slower, more messy)
@Felthry the SLA (stereolithography) printers are able to print far more complicated and interesting structures, but this comes at a higher price point, of course, and maintenance is WAAAAY more involved. It's harder to get right, and dear god it is messy as hell. alcohol is used in quite copious amounts to wash off excess uncured resin from the bath it was in, the tanks have to be treated very carefully, as does the entire device. God help you if a tank cracks D:
@Nine Wasn't there also one that used lasers to selectively heat metal powder to the sintering point?
@Felthry (those ones are huge and probably p. noisy but wow I bet they are cool as hell and can make some amazing stuff!)
@Felthry Ooo cool! :D That I did not know!
@Nine basically after producing the silicon portion of the thing, they build up layers of aluminum (I think some more modern processes use copper or other metals), layer by layer, using a photomask system similar to how they make PCBs
@Felthry that's cool as heck :o
@Nine the coolest part is when you realize that the scales of these things are measured in nanometers.
@Felthry hwuahaghalsfafhg omg
omgomgomg i dunno why but that makes me super excited to think about? :D
@Nine they're actually working on photolithographic processes that use extreme ultraviolet because the current light source used has a wavelength substantially larger than what they're trying to "print"
@Felthry that is... also genuinely kinda hilarious to me somehow. I dunno why?? But I hope they manage to do it! :D though I know there's a major problem that when circuitry and stufuf gets too small you have a problem with no way to stop electrons literally just going "oh hey this part of the circuit is pretty close what if I just... HUP" and hopping across, literally shorting simply because the circuits are small enough for them to just... do that
@Nine actually!! a professor at our university, and one we work closely with, is doing research somewhat related to that
turns out, silicon carbide (aka carborundum, moissonite, etc) is a pretty useful semiconductor for this sort of thing. it has a wider bandgap than silicon which means faster switching, and smaller feature sizes before tunnelling becomes significant
@Felthry holy crap!? that's AWESOME! :D Wonder if the major chip manufacturers will take heed??
@Nine they already have for power devices, you can get silicon carbide MOSFETs for switching converters and they have much _much_ lower losses than conventional silicon devices with similar specs
they aren't cheap though
our project actually uses one, the Cree CAS120 dual MOSFET module (which is rated for 120 A and 1200 V, which is ridiculous)
@Nine come to think of it, the way they build the metal layers on semiconductor dice is also a form of 3d printing by photolithography