Pixel Theories | a gamer getting older...

Xbox 360 DIY Arcade Joystick - part 4

Cracking the 360 controller open will require a torx-8 security bit, or screwdriver.  But for those daring few like myself, you can drill through the holes.  It's not elegant, but it is effective.  Be careful as drilling to deep or at anything besides a straight down angle throught the screw wil damage the PCB; as you can see I knicked it where the middle screw is below.

 
You're going to have to forgive the photos from my iPhone.  My wife has "liberated" our digital camera and well, I want to get finished with this project.

So when soldering to the 360 controller it would appear the most important thing to do is scrape the black contact material.  If you try to solder without scraping the material off, you'll end up with a mess.  I learned this through a guide over at Xbox-Scene.  To do this I used a leatherman, but patience is key.  Being too aggressive, or trying to make a go of this too quickly will most likely mean damaging the contact.  Below you can see the A & B buttons scraped clean.  While the X, Y, Start, Back, Guide buttons still have the black contact material.

I started soldering with the X button.  As you may be able to see that's probably the worst solder contact on the board now.  After about two hours of this I would suggest two things.  One, cut all of your line, and strip it before you start.  It just saves time.  Two, buy a third-arm, or soldering arm.  It will help you in the long run and as holding a wire, the iron and solder in two hands becomes difficult.  Even though you adjust over time.

After getting the buttons I, scraped the D-Pad contacts.  I was a little apprehensive about scraping anything more than the contacts on the outside of the buttons.

Not exactly finished.  I have to remove the LT & RT plastic hardware before I can solder the shoulder buttons and triggers.  Though it took only two hours to do this phase of the project, I found that the smoke being burned off from the solder creates one hell of a headache.

The housing is almost complete.  But I have to find some acrylic sheets to protect what will be the art work below the buttons and another sheet for the bottom of the housing.  Expect the next update around Wednesday this week as I have a few days off from work.

Xbox 360 DIY Arcade Joystick - part 3 (the setback update)

I haven't had much time lately.  After a recent trip to LA for business, I have been taking time to clean up around the house and plan for my Super Bowl party this Sunday.  In light of my latest setbacks, I am starting to think that it's likely that I won't have this stick done for another week or two.

Things were looking up initially, I made the four side pieces with miter cuts.  And the console board with a jigsaw, thought I'll probably make the next one with a circular saw.

After getting all four sides of the housing cut, I gave practically coated each angle in glue stuck the four sides together and put them in a vice for an hour.  I stuck two larger pieces of wood on the outside of outside of the housing to evenly distribute the pressure of the vice.

Next I started to get the button/joystick layout on the console board.  This took a little research, I went to a couple of arcades about two months back or so and eyed the spacing between buttons.  The standard spacing between buttons at an arcade is pretty wide I'd say about 3/4".  I on the other hand like the buttons closer, so the below configuration has them spaced at about a 1/2" between the buttons.

Here's were things got really hairy.  During drilling the holes for the buttons I noticed that the spacing between holes were getting a little nicked when starting the adjacent hole.  Moreover I wasn't paying close enough attention to the housing that had dried with two of the four corners at a less than perfect mesh.  After an a initial appraisal of my errs...I went a little apeshit!

I spent nearly two hours trying to realign the housing, and at one time went as far as trying to fasten the corners with screws, but the damage had been done.  The buildup of glue and my later attempts to sand it off had made imperfect cuts by an imperfect craftsman so fucked that I was only left to start cutting new pieces for a new housing.  Then adding insult to injury, when I tried to drill the last four holes a huge nick came out of the wood - I am Jack's wasted life.

I have started a new board and housing though I am going to use a circular saw to cut the board and I have increased the spacing between the buttons to reduce damage done to the board.  This time around the housing will be regular straight cuts and will be fastened with carpenter nails.  I expect to be done with the board and housing sometime next week.

Xbox 360 DIY Arcade Joystick - part 2

The buttons and joystick have arrived.  But feeling the weight of the joystick, has me concerned about the balance of the board.  So I've decide to make it larger and include the left/right triggers and add the sync button, which I initially forgot.  Monday I'll pick up the wood and start crafting the case.

The parts were ordered from Lizard Lick Amusements.  Coincidentally, everything came as ordered in a small box and shipping was excellent.

The beast of a joystick, I don't really like the Sanwa style joysticks, but this baby is a monster.

I now need three more white buttons; my mistake.

Part 3 to come later next week, it's going to take some time putting together the frame.

Xbox 360 DIY Arcade Joystick - part 1

So I've decided to take the effort to put together a DIY 360 arcade stick.  There seems to be enough literature out there on the interwebs for a layman like myself.  I have an idea of what I'd like to do as you can see below, please forgive the quick blueprint as this was done in under fifteen minutes.

 

I do know that I'd like the joystick to be fairly big, at least the size of a standard 8^1/2" x 11" sheet of paper.  And the border of the joystick will be fairly malleable wood, but I have yet to venture to the hardware store so this is TBD.  I have already made the purchase of the parts online and they should be here in a couple of days.

It will basically be a HAPP controller.  The joystick is the black 8-way HAPP competition joystick, and the pushbuttons are HAPP competition as well.  I have decided to keep the 360 style theme as the A,B,X,Y buttons will be Green,Red,Blue, and Yellow respectively.  The LB and RB buttons will be white, as will the Select and Start buttons.  And I want to keep the 360 guide button.

Between the online instrusctables and multiple designs I've seen over the past couple of weeks, I'm sure it won't be that hard.  But as this is my first whack at this I may aim for functionality over aesthetics.

Breathing life into the 360

Well I am trying to turn around some Xbox 360's with the RROD or RLOD, whatever you'd like to call them.  Anyway right now I am 1 for 2.  I bought the first unit for $60 from a kid off of Craigslist.  The exterior was in decent condition, some spilled cola on the side and little nicks and scratches along the case.  This one I was able to fix, with many of the vids on the net.  The following pics were taken with my cell phone.
 
Unfortunately you can't see it, but the bottom of the case on both sides has been scuffed pretty badly, and there is a noticeable stain on the top of the unit.  I will eventually mod this unit, though I am unsure of what color/design etc.
 
As you can see the second step was making a big mess all over my wife's new kitchen table.  Being that this was my first attempt at fixing a unit I wanted to make sure I had plenty of light as well as the laptop handy in case I missed anything.  The end result was a success, though I never took a picture of that. 

I moved on to the second unit, which I bought off of eBay.  This unit was in worse condition, unlike the first model, this unit had been opened several times, and smelled of what could only be described as a foot like odor.  That being said I had my reservations about being able to bring this model back to life.
 
It's when I see something like this I sometimes I wonder about the gaming republic.  How do these people treat the items that give them so much enjoyment like crap?  It makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

 
As you can see, the more I delved, the less hope I had for this console.
 
When flipping the motherboard over I found the eraser method on the bottom of some of the RAM chips.  At this point all hope has been lost.  This time the end result, was an unsuccessful, after removing the X-clamps you see in the above I found the motherboard had been seared beyond repair.  I am keeping the parts, and hopefully I can find a broken model to cannibalize for parts, or vice versa with this unit.