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I got a cheap controller with only 5 buttons. I thought about soldering a few more in parallel so that pressing any of the additional buttons would trigger some other two buttons simultaneously. Then I would use JoyToKey or LLJoy to map those buttons pressed together as a separate command.

But to make it work, I need one of those buttons to get "pressed" a bit earlier than the other. I guess introducing a delay to one of the connected buttons is the way to do this, but I'm unsure exactly how. Was looking into NE555, but it says you need to power it with 5V or more, and the controller is powered by two AAA batteries. Which is also the reason I wouldn't want to use microcontrollers or really anything that would need its own power supply.

Is there a way to get a small delay with a transistor or optocoupler maybe?

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    \$\begingroup\$ An RC delay could work. If those buttons have any hardware debounce, just changing the values on one might do the trick. \$\endgroup\$
    – Cristobol Polychronopolis
    Commented Aug 23, 2019 at 20:37
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    \$\begingroup\$ why do you need one button to be pressed before the other? \$\endgroup\$
    – jsotola
    Commented Aug 23, 2019 at 23:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ Can't you use diodes to combine button presses? \$\endgroup\$
    – Oldfart
    Commented Aug 24, 2019 at 5:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ LLJoy lets you assign double press as a separate command only when it's done in a particular order. \$\endgroup\$
    – tereya
    Commented Aug 24, 2019 at 12:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ Sorry, not sure what do you mean by combining them with diodes. Are you talking about multiplexing? \$\endgroup\$
    – tereya
    Commented Aug 24, 2019 at 12:38

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Sorry, not sure what do you mean by combining them with diodes. Are you talking about multiplexing?

If your buttons are connected between signal and ground (with a pull-up) you can often use a set of diodes to make a combined button:

schematic

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab

This does not work if your buttons are in a 'button scan matrix'.

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