glad there is still a lot of interest in this thread....amazing really!

I followed your diagram but have one question, for the A button do you need to solder on both c48 and r23 on the left side for the a button or is enough to solder on r23 only?

If ya followed the Diagram then you should have attached the wire to the Via. I don't recommend soldering onto the smaller components like that Resistor or Capacitor unless ya know what you're doing or have to. The diagram does show the left side of each are connected, so either or both can be used, take yer pick.

thanks to all, as this thread has been very useful in my modding efforts. i have successfully run a couple leads from my left bumper (LB) to act as my 'A' button with a couple wires on the top of my PCB. however, somewhere along my attempts to fix this, i have accidentally disabled my right bumper (RB). could anyone please post where the traces go for this button in full detail? i didn't have to solder anything on the back of the right side, where some traces for RB run, and i can't seem to troubleshoot the problem. please help!!

Hello everybody.

I'm new to this forum and I know this is an old thread, but I've checked everything here and nobody mentioned the wireless sync button. I'm setting up an 360 arcade stick and I've got every button done, except for triggers and wireless sync.

Has anyone tried the sync already? I've tested short-cutting it in these red/yellow points, but it doesn't work. This button has 3 soldering points in the board. I've tested bumpers and they are good using this way. Any ideas?

I don't have much experience with soldering, but I did manage to hook up all other buttons.

Thanks!

Those 2 spots aren't for the Sync button, and they're actually already shorted together, don't know why they were chosen.

On the actual board it's the center and left spot of the 3 connections, the right one being tied to the left one, as well as the 2 top ones.

Look in the tutorials section for Controller mods, there are diagrams of where to hit all the spots for the buttons to make a Wired or Wireless Arcade stick in there, and the spots for Sync are fairly easy to hit as well as how to do the Triggers correctly.

Thanks a lot, man! I'll search for that.

Im still a little confused. How do you add the two buttons to the bottom of the remote where your middle fingers
lie. Do you have to put the buttons under the curcit board and the wires have to go over the top then under to the button? Because im not sure. if someone has a picture of the inside of their controller where they did this i would greatly appreciate it.

I have done this mod numerous times and have great success with it, but for some reason the last two that i have done have messed up the controller. it seems to happen when i try to add an extra A button. i know that i am soldering in the correct spot because i have done it many times before. the last 2 i have attempted have fried the buttons though. any thoughts?

Dunno what to tell ya without knowing exactly what ya did, and hate to say it but since it's a fact I will, who knows what ya really did to it but you, and unless ya can show what ya did and how the controller acts now it's right impossible to say what or why it happened. I've done all kinds of things to the controllers, left traces cut, had a couple connected together that weren't supposed to be, and never had a single one puke on me, or ever had one die that I did right from the start.

What exactly is the definition of "fried the controller"? Have any pics of the places ya soldered to on these controllers? and not diagrams or anything here I mean, the actual controller itself? I'd be interested in looking at them to see what the damage really is, PM me about it.




The new button gets mounted from inside the controller, just have to drill a hole for the actuator part of it to stick out, then secure it with hot glue or epoxy if yer feeling pretty confident the thing will last it's maximum lifetime. Ya have to make sure ya mount it in a location that's not going to hit the board or anything else in the controller when it all goes back together as well.

This is a typical duplicate A button setup, last pic it's pretty much all done except for the wires being soldered to the new button.

hey, well i just tried doing the A button with your soldering points and got it to work. i still don't see anything wrong with the last one that i did but oh well, i will just use your points for the A button from now on.

p.s. i made my first attempt at the permanent southpaw mod from lamma's website and actually had success. my friggin eyes were bleeding by the time i got done with it. it is a pretty cool mod though, you guys should check it out.

if its a double shot controller, should there be a visible chip that i can see in between the buttons, wires, and traces? like this

added buttons----wires------chip-----wires-----traces

or could it be just

added buttons-----wires-----traces

but then thats just like adding an extra x button right?

looks like the buttons on mouser are backordered for a month or so. Any ideas if there is any place else where I can get those buttons?

Oh yeah, and what is the green stuff in the picture above? Epoxy?

Have a crack at a real Southpaw controller tutorial if ya want an eye bleed. I've also done the SP, LG and LG-SP with no trace cutting involved for the Wired controller as well as Wireless, Wired tutorial can be seen HERE.


Yes the Double Shot controller usually has a chip in there so it can be pulled off by pressing one button, there are people that sell it as the Double Shot though it only has the duplicate buttons under the bottom. That's not a 'true cheap arse' Double Shot controller though, just one that's easier to pull it off on since you still have to push all the buttons.


Green stuff is Hot Glue, never a good idea to Epoxy anything in the controller unless you want it to be pretty permanent, hot glue hold just fine and unless ya leave the thing in the car all day or in direct sunlight for hours it's not going to melt at all.

Any 6mm x 6mm x 7mm Tact switch will work pretty much, the 688-SKHHQW or 688-SKHHQY will work also and are in stock.

I have been working on a project to remotely control an Xbox 360 through programmatic manipulation of a wired controller. So I have read this thread with great interest...

I would like to know if anyone can provide me (use) with a picture of the underside of a wired controller circuit board (where I need to solder wires) with all of the button contacts labeled. I have found the same for the wireless controller on the web but not the wired model.

Thanks, and if anyone is interested in following my progress on this project you can do so at:

Bg's Project Pages

It's a rudementary site I know, but I find it easier to describe my hobby activities with a web link!

Thanks everyone!

-Bg

Look in the Tutorials/FAQs/Guides/Infomation section that's Pinned, I've done all that on both controllers (still messing with the new CG Wireless one) and awhile ago too now that I look back at them.

Thanks very much. I had not seen those tutorials before and they were a big help.

I have the board wired up now and next week (after a business trip) I hope to test it, wired to the relay on my project.

so is it possible to turn the analog stick "clicks" into seperate buttons. and is it possible to reposition the analog sticks

@ Bg360 - You're Welcome


@ Falkenheart - Yes the LS click and RS click buttons can be moved elsewhere if you wanted, or turned into any other button on the controller if desired. As for moving the actual sticks around, that could be done, but you'd be looking at a heap of work to do so, what type of controller setup are you looking to make?

that's kinda hard to explain, but here it goes. I want to move the right analog stick in closer proximity to the a b x y buttons. just a few centimeters. also i would like an in-depth explination on stick click mod. the tut is vague

A few CM?? That will have the thing past directly under the A,B,X,Y buttons and more to the right of them, cutting off half of the B button and hanging half out of the controller. It's really about as physically close to them as it can get right now, and moving it even a few MM would be more difficult than moving it just about anywhere else.

Define 'stick click mod', since there isn't one on here that I know of and my diagrams show where to solder the 2 wires for a new button to duplicate that buttons press, nothing real vague in there unless ya just look at the pics alone.

well i asked if extra buttons meant the same for the ls and rs triggers it was said to be fiesable. I'm not adept at wiring i'll have to reread the tutorial I was only looking at the pics. my bad!

but about the wiring how do you make it reactive to a button press I mean does it just involve soldering putting a button to the wires and voila! or is it more involved than that.

If all you want to do is add in another buttons somewhere, like on the bottom of the controller or wherever, then you just solder up the 2 wires from the new button to whatever spots you want that button to be, LTh1 and LTh2 for the Left Thumb Stick button for example.

If you want the Left Thumb Stick button to be swapped with another button, B for example, that's a whole lot more involved process of trace cutting and rewiring this and that because of the matrix layout the older 360 controller boards use. It can be done, but I'd have to know what ya wanted where and on which controller before I could even go about describing it because of the way the things are laid out.

well what about next to the sticks how would I go about that! that's where i want the ls and rs buttons or maybe even in the spot where the black/white button where on the xbox-s controller

I just explained that to you, solder the wires to the spots on the controller board that are for the button(s) you want to duplicate, then to the new button you're going to install. Look in the Tutorials/FAQs/Guides/Information under the Controller Mods : section for all of the Wired/Wireless Controller Button Solder points. How and where you mount the new button is up to you, so long as it fits and doesn't interfere with anything else inside the controller, placing them where the Black and White buttons of the S controller are is a good place.

thanks for your patience RDC. as simple as soldering. what a relief. sorry with having you re-explain it and all. I thought it was a big to do thanks again.

It's kool, swapping one button for another button is about a mess though, depending on which ones ya want swapped, but adding in a 'duplicate button' isn't too big a deal really.

I'm planning on modding a wired controller, adding a B and a Y button. I think on page 7 there's a picture explaining where to solder for B, but I don't know where to add a Y...

I've had a bit of soldering experience before, but this will be a challenge for sure.

Also if you add buttons do you have to take any motors out? I've heard some people have to take their rumble motors out to make room for extra buttons.

Have a look HERE for solder spots for your B and Y buttons. Some of those spots involve pulling the Triggers out and ya may not wanna go thru that, it's geared more for Arcade stick setups but the spots work just the same for making duplicate buttons. If ya can scrape down and prep a Via properly (have a read HERE for how to) and not tear that up, you can do it without having to remove them and hit these spots. Only 1 Via to deal with, then 2 small solder points, but the Trigger can stay intact and ya wouldn't have to mess with pulling it off the board, then reinstalling it.

Here is a pic of what my friend did with his. The switch is actually for switching one of the add-on buttons function from like A to B (not sure if that's what they really switch just an example.)

I have been experiencing a curious mannerism since I wired up several buttons on a (wired) controller so that I could actuate the buttons through use of another device. Even with this other device disconnected, once the console launches and if I leave the controller without touching it with the current focus on say the Xbox Live menu screen, every now and then the menu will change all by itself as if some spurious signal was being received. The movement through the menus can be up one, followed by another up movement, or it may be left or right (as if the D-pad up, down, left, right were being pushed).

Again, I'm not touching anything when this happens. Usually there is a significant pause between these events.

Could there be something that I may have messed up in my board/wire soldering? An ideas as to what may be causeing this?

Anybody have a good button they use for their 360 controllers? Something that feels as much like the A, B, X, Y buttons as possible?
I've been looking around on mouser and some other sites and found this (http://www3.alps.co.jp/WebObjects/catalog....t/SKRA/SKRA.PDF)
It's rubber so it'll be comfortable. They're like 20 cents each it can't hurt to buy a few.

I'm also going to practice on some vias before attempting the 360 controller.

Thanks for the diagram RDC.
Any other tips would be awesome.

Without seeing or knowing what you wired up to the controller that's impossible to say. If you've wired up just other buttons, then there's no reason for it to act that way unless something was done wrong there. If you have something like Transistors or some other type or electronic switches wired up to do the pressing then the problem is most likely there. Is it also possible this controller isn't causing this issue? have you had the 360 on with it unplugged and know it's the problem?



You're Welcome. There really isn't anything comparable to the stock buttons as far as that 'soft feel' goes that is also still small enough to work in the controllers in a bunch of places. Those switches there are still tact switches and are still going to have that 'click' feel to them when pushed, just with a rubber actuator is all, and that type may give ya a headache since that rubber is going to expand when pushed on and may lead to it binding up in the shell every now and then, just depends on how ya drill the hole for them. They're also not going to work because they're too short, ya need ones with a 7mm height.

The controller is wired to support my project (RCM, Remote Controller Management Project). This link has pictures of the project and shows which button locations I soldered the wires to. The wires connect on the other end to ports on an electromechanical relay. It all works pretty well together except for this peculiar problem.

I have launched the console without the wired controller board attached and the console does not manifest this behavior. I also launched the console with the wired controller board connected, but with the relay powered down. The problem still appeared.

My diagnosis of the problem actually began with disconnecting the major components until I determined that the problem is in the controller boards. I suppose I may have to start over with the board and wire up another one, but before I do I thought I'd check with you 'all and see if this behavior has ever shown itself before.

There are 3 versions of the 360 controllers so far, Wired, Wireless (matrix setup) and Wireless (common ground setup) and ya could have done that whole thing with only 11 wires attached to the board.

I see the Triggers were ripped off and no 10k Resistors in their place to compensate. That's more than likely where the funky behavior is coming from.

Thanks RDC. I recall reading about the trigger/resistor issue and I'll get them installed and let you/everyone know whether that corrects the problem.

Appreciate your review and comments.

I added the two resistors at the locations shown in other posts on this web site. Unfortunately I must have messed up because other buttons ceased working after the operation including the D-pad Down-button.

So at this point I'm ready to start again with a new board, but this time leave the triggers in their place. Who knows what damage I did pulling the triggers off the current board...

Thanks for your help RDC.

It doesn't cause any real damage having the Triggers removed, just makes the controller 'act up' most times since it causes those analog lines to float. Unless ya actually knocked off some small SMT part(s) around them when removing them or bridged something when installing the Resistors, that board should still be in good order.

Thanks RDC, but in this case it looks like I did some damage as the middle hole is completely stripped of solder. Even though I had added the two resistors as suggested the same behavior continued.

So I got another controller and performed the same wiring job again. This time I left the triggers on. At one point the right bumper switch stopped working altogether. This was about the time that I was wiring the Up and Down D-pad buttons.

I read somewhere here that there is a common ground for these but I don't understand how the right bumper would stop working altogether. So I removed the wires connected to the D-pad connect points that I had soldered. I also carefully checked around the switch for any slopped solder. The right bumper switch still does not work, so I may have damaged a trace somewhere.

Another (self-inflicted) problem with this project is that I have been using the wires from inside CAT-5 cabling that I had. It is larger than the 30AGW that I read last night is suggested so it has been a constant struggle to gingerly move the wires around as I work on different parts of the board.

If I have to do this project again I will use the smaller wire. It looks also that the 30AGW wire is single-stranded which should also make soldering MUCH less difficult, especially for smaller connect points.

So RDC, do you think this board is DOA at this point or is there a location that need to more closely review?

Thanks, and sorry for my repeated failure reports but I thought others might benefit from my mistakes...

I'm sure both boards are still alright, but without going over them myself I can't say for sure. I've never been a big fan of using CAT-5 cable for anything except what it was really intended for. I understand that it's pretty handy, thus why people use it, but it's a fairly large solid wire to be tacking on to places on a circuit board and isn't really the right wire for most other jobs either.

The way the traces are all laid out on the controller you can kill one button by messing with another one, just depends on where the damage is or what was done. Try not to use "common ground" for the description, the controller is far from that setup. DU, DD and RB do all share a common line, but in order to 'kill' RB from that common line you'd have to be messing elsewhere on the controller.

Question for ya. Does the board with the intermittent up problem (first one ya did) exhibit that problem still even when not connected to the Relay box and only to the 360 now?

I wouldn't completely rule out the length and amount of wire there causing some weirdo side effects either.

It appears that the prior problematic board is still displaying that odd behavior, but at less of a rate (more time between events). I did consider whether the CAT-5 wires were somehow picking up spurious signals from outer space or somesuch.

I have 30AGW wire on order and can begin to use that sometime next weekend. I'm either going to begin with a new board using the lighter gauge wire or remove all wires from the current board and try again with the new wire. My gut feel however is that I have messed up the board and will not be able to find the problem.

(got your message concerning my use of the word "ground" - bad choice!)

Thanks again!

OK, so this past weekend I wired up a new controller board. This time I used 30AGW wire which was so much easier to work with. This time I also used a couple of screw type connector terminal strips (6 on each) to connect the other end of the wire. Then the wires that run to the relay were screwed in to the other side of the terminals. This eliminates the potential stress on the circuit board welds.

In the first test with this new board, the erratic behavior continued. And when it occurred the menu movements were pretty quick.

I then began removing wires from the relay end to see which circuits were causing the problem. Eventually the problem slowed considerably but never went away as long as the controller board was connected to the console.

I then connected all of the controller board to relay wires again and now I have an unfortunate side-issue that I also have previously experienced. Now the left and right bumper switches (on the board) do not work. Also the wired circuits for D-pad Up, right and the A button do not work. I am able to do the up/down/left/right movement using the left stick.

At this point it appears that my soldering is probably not the issue as this is at least the second controller board to exhibit the bad behavior (erratic auto-menu movement) and also the loss of certain buttons including the bumper button use. This evening I plan to test each wire coming from the controller with a meter. In this test I will code a script to actuate each button circuit to see which buttons still work. I'll post those results here as well.

Any ideas or other areas to check for problems would be appreciated.

Right now I'd say that relay is causing the issue, 3 boards in a row is way too many for it to be user error, unless you're just wiring something up the wrong way not knowing it.

Ohm out the contacts of the relay to ground, as well as to each other. If all of those "common' connections are in fact common to each other in the relay, then that's the problem there.

Do you have access to the schematic or manual of the relay you're using? at least the model number of it? If it's like any other relay, and it should be, just controlled by the PC in this case, there shouldn't be any connection between any one relay's Common, N.O and N.C contacts to another one, but something for sure isn't right with that setup to keep killing boards like that. Unless, and no offense intended at all seriously, you're getting something wrong in the wiring of it all over and over believing it to be correct when it's not.

Thanks RDC, and of course no offence taken.

Sorry if my description was not clear but I am able to reproduce the problems with no relay attached. That is, with all wires from the controller board to the relay disconnected the same wierd behavior exists. If I still need it thought I have access to relay documentation and the company that I bought it from I'm sure would help me with any relay-related issues.

Now when wiring the board I do not maintain a consistency when choosing which wires are soldered to signal and common connections. After reading your response I was wondering whether this could be a cause especially when it comes to the several buttons that use a common non-signal point on the board? I read on the web site here that it did not matter but now that I think of it most visitors here are working with individual buttons unlike myself.

Actually, this is wrong! I just disconnected all of the wires between the controller board and the relay and the behavior is not occuring!!

I will check out the relay and relay documentation and see if I can determine whether it is causing the problem.

Thanks again RDC...

RDC,

I located the user guide for this device. It contains pretty detailed specs and schematics. I read this over but again, I'm not a hardware guy so I'm not sure I can address the points you raised directly. I believe from what I've read that each relay terminal has its own common and that they are not shared.

Here is the link to this information and it is available for public consumption.

Measurement Computing ERB-24 User Guide

Page 3-4 contains a schematic of an individual relay.

I hesitate to ask this but I'm in a kind of "limbo" situation.... but would you mind giving this document a look and maybe you could tell me what I may be experiencing with the interaction between this device and the controller board?

@ Bg360 - That document doesn't really show the kind of schematic that would tell ya 100%, those are more block diagrams and the general workings, but I don't see anything in there that lends to it being the cause either.

If you Ohm out the Resistance between any two of the relays Common, N.O, and N.C. connections and then from any one connection set to Ground and it's open, then that will pretty much rule that out as being the cause and you're back to the controller or wiring being at fault somewhere. If the controller board works fine with everything disconnected that points to the relay or wiring causing it, if the relays contacts are measured and that's proven to not be the cause, then it's back to the wiring or how it's being wired.

RDC:




I just performed this test on the relay, unpowered and not connected to anything. Connecting like points between the relay ports (Common to Common, NO to NO etc.) there was no continuity - all open. I did the same from the Common points to ground on the device and again, open circuit with no continuity. My most excellent meter has a buzz setting that is pretty useful for this type of test. No buzz on these other than for a connection between the NC and C on any port, which we would expect because this is the default setting for the device.




I then connected the controller board via USB to the console and fired up the console by touching and holding the wires soldered to the Guide button for about 2 seconds. the controller was not connected to the relay at all.

I then used the wire touch method to test each wired button. Only the Guide, Start, and DPad-Left buttons work as this point. Others used to work but it appears that over time, possibly with my handling of the board they no longer work. I don't think the cause is a lack of physical connectivity because the connections appear to be fine still. An exception is that one wire has disconnected from one of the right-bumper terminals, and although I re-made the connection the Right-bumper still does not work.

--------------------

So, based on your comments and the results of this testing it would appear that I have toasted yet another board.

--------------------

The way forward...

All soldering/wiring to date has been done soldering to controller button pad locations on the top of the board. All required scraping away of the black anti-oxidant material prior to soldering (except for the bumper terminals).

I have yet to attempt to solder using the connections that you have suggested in your tutorials mostly because they were very intricate and at the time I was using relatively huge wires. I think I could pull it off now.

Do you think it would be better or would make any difference to use the solder points that you suggested in your tutorials now that I have more soldering experience and the proper wire for the job?

Also, would a wireless controller board be a better choice?

If ya go with a Wireless board you'll have to have a way to keep it powered as well as worry about it's auto off feature and starting the controller back up, so I'd stick with the Wired one for your setup as long as running the cable to the 360 is no issue.

The continuity function on meters isn't the best way to tell, most of them will only buzz if the Resistance is around 200ohms or lower, so they still could have a higher resistance between them that wouldn't set off the meter to show a 'short', but still have a resistance that's not good for the board connections at all.

As far as solder points go, as long as they're done right it really doesn't matter which ya use, it all ends up being the same electrically so go with whatever is easier for ya on that part. I've sent ya a PM as well about the problem boards.