Xbox 360 controller mod: rapid fire

With my newly fixed controller I decided to take it a step further and try out a mod. The rapid fire mod is used mostly for CoD and allows a semi-auto weapon to be fired at the rate of a fully automatic weapon.

The mod itself is simple. You need a button, some wire, a solder iron, a drill, and steady hands.

Looking at the board, we will be soldering two points. The point on the left is where we get will get power to our button. The point is where the vibrating component connects and is the one furthest right. Because this is the vibrators power, we can only use the button when the controller vibrates. However this won't be an issue because the controller will vibrate everytime we shoot.

The second point is for the right trigger button. There are 3 points in a row, I want the middle one.

Now that we know where our wires will be going, we need to find a location for our button. I chose to put it on the lower right handle portion of the controller. This made sense because there is a lot of room and it is going to be near our solder points. Since I chose this location however, I cannot have both vibrators in. I kept the smaller one because it vibrates the most. When choosing a location I kept the board in so I know everything will fit at the end.

To make the hole for the button I drilled a hole in the appropriate location. My button came with a nut and washers so it mounted easily to my case.

The next step was to solder the two wires to my button. I kept the wires a little long so they are easier to work with. After that I mounted the button to my case and put the board in to begin soldering.

I cut the wires small so that they didn't get in the way of the other components of the controller. When soldering to the controller be very careful. If you are careless you can ruin the controller. With the solders done and the button attached I can begin putting the controller back together.

Putting the controller together after the mod is really frustrating. The button will fit but you have to force it in. I had to remove some of the internal parts of the case to allow room for the button. After everything was done the controller worked great. Fully functional and the mod was a success.

Xbox 360 controller revive

I got an old, broken xbox 360 controller and time to kill.

After plugging it in, I noticed the buttons are all sticky and the "a" button doesn't even work. The plan is to take it all apart and clean it. Possibly get the "a"button working again?

Trying to remove the outside case is harder than it looks. The screws require a special bit to remove them. However, I was able to get them off with a 2mm flat head screw driver. There are 7 screws all located on the back of the controller. One of them is hidden beneath the barcode sticker where the battery pack lays.

After removing all the screws, the back casing came off easily. I was able to take off the top and bottom pieces. At this point I also removed the two connectors holding the components on the lower left and lower right. These components vibrate the controller and make removing the board easier if they are off.

Removing the board is a little tricky. I was able to pry it loose by pushing in the xbox guide button and removing the front case. The part that struggles the most is getting the anolog sticks to come free. It works best if you pull it off straight.

Remove the rubber cups beneath the buttons and continue to remove the buttons themselves. Everything will come out freely except for the d-pad.

  Removing the d-pad requires a little more work but is simple. On the backside you will notice two screws and two tabs. Remove the two screws with a small philips screw driver. Once the screws are removed you have to push out the tabs. I used to small screwdrives to push the tabs outward, releasing the d-pad.







 With everything completley disassembled I can start cleaning. I soaked all the buttons and the case in a bucket of warm water. With a q-tip and some rubbing alcohol I was able to get all the sticky stuff off the buttons. I used tweezers to get all the hair off of the board...I'm not really sure how it got there though??  Once it was clean I put it together and tested the controller. Everything was working smoothly except for the "a" button.

To troubleshoot I connected the board and tried to locate the problem. After a while, I found out that the rubber cup was the issue. I needed a new rubber cup for the "a" button. I was able to dig up an old ps2 controller and grab a rubber cup from it.

I used a utility blade to cut off the bad rubber cup. The new rubber cup fit perfectly and was working great while I had it apart. When I put it all back together it was a different story. The rubber cup was free to move around so the button would only work if it was aligned correctly. I need a solution to keep the rubber cup in placed.

To solve the issue I tried to tape the two rubber pieces together. This worked but was only temporary and not good enough for me.  Because the rubber cup was from a ps2 controller it was thicker and didn't fit under the xbox button nicely. I put the original ps2 button on it so it stayed snug and in place. The only problem is the ps2 button is significantly shorter than my xbox buttons. On the left you can see how I stacked the two bottons compared to the original xbox button layout. It worked great but was a little too tall so I cut took about an 1/8'' off the "a" button.

After putting it all together, every button worked smoothly and I was ready to game!

My Blog

I am new to the whole idea of blogging. I started this blog to share my knowledge, and perhaps more importantly, keep an archive of the random projects I take on in info sec. More to come..