XBox Arcade Stick - Controller Electronics
Hijacking the electronics.
;)
After the opening the controller, I removed the PCB.
The plan is to attach wires to each of pair of points soldering them in place, then securing them with hot glue.
I wanted to route all the wires towards the bottom of the PCB as I had a project box that the PCB would fit into.
The wires would all then come out the top of the box and be secured to barrier strips.
The project box would then be secured inside the enclosure.
;)
I used 20 gauge speaker wire for the project.
I first cut, stripped and labeled all the pieces.
Since this mod uses a ground wire from each connection I kept the wire as pairs.
When the ground is common, you can daisy chain all the ground wires together.
;)
Before soldering on the PCB, the black coating of each pad needs to be cleaned off.
I used an X-Acto knife to scrape the black coating off each pad until I got to the copper underneath.
The D-Pad has tiny points to solder to.
This would end up causing problems later.
After each pad is cleaned, the pads should be tinned.
To do this, gently heat up the pad and apply a small amount of solder to coat the copper pad.
;)
;)
Midway through the soldering process.
Each wire was stripped about a quarter inch on each end.
The wire strands were then wound tightly and tinned.
Tinning both sides of the connection ensures that you're applying heat for the bare minimum of time.
After each pair was soldered, a small amount of hot glue was applied over the joint.
;)
After all the connections are made, the controller was plugged in to verify it still worked.
What I didn't do was check that the all the connections were good.
At this point I should have touched each pair of wires from each button or pad together.
This would verify each pair had a good solder joint at the controller end.
As it turns out, the D-Pad down button was NOT a good connection.
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