Rapid Fire Wireless Controller for Xbox 360 Tutorial


For reference, here is cparsell's schematic. There is one mistake in teh schematic; it doesn't show that pin 2 of the chip is connected to pin 6 of the chip.


Tools necessary:

Solder Iron

Dremel (preferably)

Torx T8 security screwdriver. NOTE: I couldn’t get find a security screwdriver locally, so I just used a small flathead screwdriver to break the center posts of the screws. I was then able to use my regular T8 screwdriver to take out the screws.



Parts necessary.....Radio Shack identification number

TLC555 Timer.....276-1718

10K ohm resistor..... *

100K ohm resistor.....*

1.8K ohm resistor x 2.....*

220 ohm resistor.....*

100 ohm resistor.....*

100K ohm potentiometer.....271-284

1uF tantalum capacitor.....272-1434

100pF capacitor.....272-135

Push button switch x 2.....275-0646

NPN switching transistor.....276-1617

PNP transistor**.....276-1604

Breadboard.....276-159

Diode, type 1N914 x 2.....276-1122

Wire (personally, I used wire from a scrapped USB cable)


*You can find all of these in the resistor 500 pack, Radio Shack number 271-312A
**I couldn't find these specific transistors at my local Radio Shack, I used the "general purpose" PNP transistors they they had in stock. They still worked, but I'm not sure if the ones listed above will work better.


Getting Started

NOTE: The breadboard will come in a pack of two, connected. First, I suggest separating them. I used my Dremel. I’m not sure if that is what “pro’s” suggest, but it worked for me.

NOTE: For ease of understanding I will use an alphanumeric labeling system when referring to holes on the breadboard. Ignore the holes on the perimeter of the breadboard. Ignoring them, you should see two rows on the breadboard. Each row is three holes by ten holes. Lay the breadboard on your work surface with the trace side facing down and the rows going vertical, so you see one row on the left and one row on the right. Take a writing utensil and mark the top left dot. That dot will be A1. The dot to the right of that will be B1, to the right of that, C1, and so on. Each column will be a letter and each row will be a number, so the bottom right dot will be F10.




1. Solder the TLC555 timer into the breadboard with pin 1 of the chip in hole C4. Make sure that when you solder the timer onto the board you are soldering it with the chip, as well as all other components/wires, on the side of the board that doesn’t have the traces. It should be common sense, but I like to make sure I cover the simple mistakes, as those are the ones that really get people most the time.



2. Solder a wire connecting pins B4 and B3. I used a black wire, for ground.



3. Solder a wire connecting C3 and D3. Again, I used a black wire for ground.



4. Solder a wire connecting B5 and E6. I used an white wire in the picture.



5. Solder a wire connecting B7 and E4. I used a red wire, for power.



6. Solder a four inch long wire to E5. I used another white wire in the picture. I also have the NPN transistor on the board in the picture. You can leave that off for now, that was just a mistake I made while taking pictures. The transistor will get put on in the next step.



7. Solder the NPN transistor into F1, F2 and F3. NOTE: The transistor has to go in a certain way. If you look at the back of the package that it came in you should see a diagram showing which pins are the base, emitter and collector. The collector should be soldered into F1, the base into F2 and the emitter into F3. If you threw away the case, then hopefully you got the one listed in the “parts required” list above. If so, then the “round” side of the transistor should be facing the away from the center of the board, as shown in the picture.

8. Solder another four inch long wire to F6. I used a white wire in the picture.



9. Solder the 100pF capacitor into E3 and E7.



continued...

10. Solder the 220 ohm resistor into C2 and D2.



11. Solder the 1.8K ohm resistor into C1 and D1. Look closely and you’ll see that I’d accidentally soldered an 18k ohm instead of a 1.8k ohm. =P



12. Solder the 10K ohm resistor into F4 and F5.



13. Look at your 1uF capacitor. It should have a very small “plus” sign on it. That is the positive side. Solder the 1uF capacitor into A4 and A5, the positive side going into A4.



14. Solder a four inch long wire to B2. I used a green, for trigger.



15. Solder a four inch long wire to B1. Again, I used green, for trigger.



16. Solder a four inch long wire to A3. I used black, for ground.



17. Solder a four inch long wire to B6. I used green, for trigger.



18. Solder a seven inch long wire to A7. I used red, for power.



19. Solder a seven inch long wire to A6. I used green, for trigger. NOTE: If you are not doing the left trigger rapid fire portion of this mod, you may skip this step.





20. Flip the circuit board over and use a sharpie to draw a square around the holes of the board that you used. This will be your guide for when you are cutting the board down to size to fit inside the controller.



21. Your finished right trigger circuit board should look like this…



That completes the right trigger portion of the rapid fire mod’s circuit board. If you are making both the left and right trigger version of the mod, keep reading. If not, skip down to the “Installing the circuit board” section below.





Left trigger circuit board

1. Solder the other 1.8K ohm resistor into C1 and C2 of the other breadboard you bought. Remember to keep all components on the side that has no traces. Again, I accidentally put an 18k ohm resistor onto the board instead of the 1.8k ohm.



2. Solder the PNP transistor into B2, B3 and B4. Again, the back of the package should show a diagram to let you know which pins are which. The collector should be soldered into B2, the base should be soldered into B3 and the emitter should be soldered into B4. Again, if you threw away the package, hopefully you bought the one listed in the parts listing. If so, the flat side of the transistor should be facing the C column.



3. Solder the 100 ohm resistor into A3 and A5.



4. Solder one of the diodes into B5 and B6. The diodes have a polarity as well. If you got the diodes listed in the parts listing it should have a black line. The black line is the negative side. The negative side of the diode should be soldered into B6.



5. Solder the other diode into A6 and A7. The negative side of the diode should be soldered into C7.



6. Solder a four inch long wire into B1. I used black, for ground.



7. Solder a four inch long wire into B7. I used green, for trigger.



8. Solder a four inch long wire into C4. I used a white wire in the picture.





9. So here is the circuit board, pre-cut…



…and the finished product….



Installing the pushbuttons and the potentiometer

1. Take the controller apart using the following instructions: Instructions w/ pictures. Be sure to follow up to the step where they take the controller’s circuit board out of the casing.

2. Remove the “rumblers” from the controller’s circuit board.

3. Using a Dremel (preferably) cut all supports for the rumblers out of the casing. This should provide more than enough room for your nearly finished mod. Here are the front and back, post-cut...


^notice that I'd already cut one of the holes for the right trigger's pushbutton. That is the next step...

4. You should see two circles on the inside of the back of the controller casing. I used those as guides for where to put my pushbuttons. They aren’t perfect, but they’re damn closed. Using a Dremel, drill holes into the back of the controller’s casing to allow you to install the pushbuttons. If you want a nice looking end result, I suggest you go slow and steady, comparing your progress with the pushbuttons often to ensure you don’t overcut. If you are only doing the right trigger portion of this mod then only drill the hole in the right side of the controller.



5. Using a Dremel, cut another hole just below the hole you drilled for the right trigger’s rapid fire button. This hole will be for the potentiometer, so you don’t have to open the controller every time you want to adjust it. Again, go slow and compare often to ensure you have a good looking end result. The picture for this step is above, with the picture of the hole for the right trigger button.

6. Put the pushbuttons into the holes, installing them from the outside and using the captive lock-washers to keep them tight and in place.

7. The potentiometer should have three legs, two on one side and one on the other. Clip one of the legs on the side that has two.


8. Some more experienced may disagree with my following method, but it worked for me, mostly because I was extremely careful. If someone has a better method, I am very willing to learn it. To install the potentiometer, I put superglue around the hole that I’d drilled for it. I then gently held the potentiometer on the hole with the adjustable side facing the exterior of the shell of the controller and the pin side facing in, ensuring that I got no superglue onto the white portion (adjustable part) of the potentiometer. I continued to hold it until it dried.

Installing the right trigger circuit board

NOTE: Trim each wire as necessary, to ensure you don’t end up with a “spaghetti mess” of wires in your controller, before soldering.

1. Solder the wire from B2 of the circuit board to one of the leads of the right pushbutton

2. Solder the wire from A6 of the circuit board to the other lead of the right pushbutton.

3. Solder the wire from E5 of the circuit board to one of the leads of the potentiometer.

4. Solder the wire from F6 of the circuit board to the remaining lead of the potentiometer. You should now have two wires soldered to the potentiometer, one on each side of it, not two wires on both sides. Remember, I instructed you to cut one of the two leads that are on one side of the potentiometer in Step 7 of Installing the pushbuttons and potentiometer. Your project should now loook something like this:


5. Solder the wire from A7 to the Power point of the controller’s circuit board.


6. Solder the wire from B3 to the Ground point of the right trigger of the controller’s circuit board. In my picture it is the point with the black wire soldered to it on the right hand side of the controller.


7. Solder the wire from B1 to the Trigger point of the right trigger of the controller’s circuit board. In the picture in step 6 above, it is the point with the green wire soldered to it on the right side of the controller’s circuit board, just below the black one mentioned in step 5. NOTE: If you are only doing the right trigger portion of this mod, you may now put your controller back together. If all went well, you now have a rapid fire button for your right trigger. Adjust the potentiometer as necessary while testing in game to find the setting you desire.





8. Solder the wire from B6 to one of the leads of the left pushbutton. In the picture below you can see the wire coming across from the right hand side of the controller to the pushbutton shown. That is the wire I am referring to for this step. NOTE: If you are only doing the right trigger portion of this mod, you may skip this step.


Installing the left trigger circuit board

NOTE: Again, trim each wire as necessary, to ensure you don’t end up with a “spaghetti mess” of wires in your controller, before soldering.

1. Solder the wire from B7 to the lead of the left pushbutton that does not have a wire soldered to it. Remember, you should have soldered a wire to one of the leads in Step 8 of Installing the right trigger circuit board. Use my picture above (the last step for installing the right trigger's circuit board) as your reference.


2. Solder the wire from B1 to the Ground point of the left trigger on the controller’s circuit board.


3. Solder the wire from C4 to the Trigger point of the left trigger on the controller’s circuit board. Use my picture above for your reference. In the picture I have am using the white wire.


4. Reassemble the controller carefully, making sure to avoid pinching the wire leading from the right circuit board to the left pushbutton.

And there you have it. You should now have a fully-functional rapid fire controller. Simply adjust the potentiometer as necessary for the setting you feel comfortable with.

Great tut. But personally wouldn't trade the rumble for such a mod. But it's good for those people who would.

Sure enough, I forgot to give credit where credit is due, sorry guys.

RDC, for the endless devotion to the rest of us here at the scene =)
cparsell, for the initial schematics
G4MER360 for helping me fix my tutorial issues
and everyone else for keeping this site alive =D

just a pic of my setup.

hello,
im new and i think this is cool. i was wondering will this work for the right button? This is really newbie but is the potentiomter used for like how many trigger pulls in a second, or how hard you pull the trigger? The trigger and right button is just like a switch, right?

sorry about the noob stuff, thx for any help

the pot is to adjust how fast the trigger pulses. this circuit can you go up to 6.8 pulses a sec.
it can be used for any button. look at the tut for duplicating buttons to find the right spots to
solder.

Thx so much!!! i really apreciate it, thx, and im cant wait to build one cause im goin to radioshack, thx!

this is a great tutorial to bad i didnt come across it 2 days ago when i actually did this using the original schematics. would have helped alot if i had seen this. lol

one question i still have tho is: Can you get banned for this on xbox live?

This particular circuit can go faster than 6.8 pulls a second, I removed the resistor in series with the potentiometer.

As far as being banned from live, I contacted MS to ask this via email and got the run-around, was told to call 4MY-XBOX. Did that, got an *American* guy, asked him if using rapid fire controllers on Live would get me banned. Because there are currently two MS licensed rapid fire controllers, he said no. I didn't mention, however, that I was making my own, not using the licensed ones. He did say that some people may complain and might send in player reveiew/complaints, and those might get me banned. Of course, I have a couple friends who got banned for short periods of time from player review/complaints because they pwn people in CoD4, no mods or cheats. One got banned for a week because he was murdering people with the RPG, how f'd up is that? But, short answer, you can get banned, but only through complaints from other players.

how much faster is it with out that resistor?

this much

here


from


here.
edit* sorry. that was stupid.
edit2* no it wasn´t.

clean up the layout and the soldering.. and I'm sure you could make some money selling this to those too lazy to solder but willing to cut a hole in their controller. (crediting of course all involved)

hey, while trying to get into my controller i broke a flat head so another easy and fast way is to use a drill. I used a super small drill bit that would easily firt in the screw hole and very carefully, at the lowest speed possible dirlled and it for me the drill made half a turn before i heard 2 cracks and the post was gone . I also noticed i didnt strip the screw one bit, so it worked perfectly. hope this helps anyone

Made a mistake!

On step 13 I say that the positive lead of the 1uF capacitor goes to A4. This is incorrect, it be3longs in A4, the negative lead goes to A4.

WTF not that u made the mistake (who doesn't and how can anyone complain with a tut w/ pics), just wtf with it works perfectly fine for me, just i notice everycouple of cycles, it stop for half a second, is that because of the cap. would love to know thx. im trying to remember and i think about evry second it would stop just a little.

also, when cutting the board to size... cut it as small as possible! Phlsphr said he used a dremel but i used a wire cutter and one shoert snip on the board and it would crack in the direction i was cutting...perfect. so very easy.

I also did this only for my right button, witch is a bitch to solder onto cause u half take the trigger off pry up the trigger mechanism to get to the lead. for anyone wondering the negative lead for the right button was th lead under the trigger mechanism.

great tut, well written with great pictures. should be added to the tuts section

just an idea on placement, instead of trading the rumble motors for it, you should be able to dremel out a battery pack and fit it inside there. that would of course require a PnP cable to be pluged it at all times. you could even have it as a point to point contact so that you can also change back to a battery pack if wanted. or you could rewire to batterys to fit inside the case. just some ideas that popped into my head

Good ideas =)

Ya, I wish I could make it smaller, like RDC did his, but my soldering skills aren't near what his are. It was easier for me to use a circuit board, and personally I don't use rumble anyways. It'd be neat to see someone incorporate those ideas into their version, though, post some pics of their mod. =)

YoungGun, have you tried tuning the potentiometer? That may help with your "sputtering" problem.

As far as soldering the trigger, I didn't have to pry anything up. The picture underneath Step 6 for installing the right circuit board shows the two points you have to solder to the right trigger points. I'm not sure if maybe you have a different version controller maybe.

Very good tut.

I would consider making this if it all fit inside the controller without losing the rumble.

you could freeform it so it fits there without removing rumble motors

i did mine and you can with a little finness keep the rumble motors and still put the circuit boards inside..

phlsphr420 read back through your tutorial i think there maybe a problem with how you wired up the A6 and B6 wires im not sure yet though i need to check again tonight on my controller cause im not sure it works and i just read the fact that i need to flip my 1uf cap around

Ya, I wish I could go back and edit the 1uF capacitor bit
I'll try to talk to a mod about letting me do it or doing it for me. I see what you mean about the A6/B6 thing. In the construction of the right trigger circuit board I say that A6 is unnecessary if you are doing only the right trigger, then when I go on to installing the right circuit board I say that soldering B6 to the left button is unnecessary if you are only doing the right trigger mod. Really, A6 and B6 are the same signal. You only need one of them if you are only doing the right trigger version, and either of them can be soldered to right or left button if you are doing both.

yeah true. they both do the same signal. after changing around my cap, my buttons now work perfectly.. rumbles still work all is good now to put this mod through the ringer..

also i have used smaller button instead of the ones listed my mod is a bit of a pain to put together due to the placement of the circuit boards but it works and people who want to keep the rumbles but want the turbo buttons as well
it can be done.

My PROPs to those who came up with the mod.

i believe this step to be a little off and should read as follows. The emitter should be soldered into F1, the base into F2 and the collector into F3.

going by your part # and diagram on the box.

Static: I just checked it, it looks correct. If you lay the NPN transistor flat side down and pin side facing you, the left most lead is the emitter according to the back of the box (I kept it for reference for the rest of the transistors that came in the pack). As per the schematic, the emitter needs to be connected to ground, the base needs to be connected to the 220 ohm and the collector needs to be connected to the 1k8 ohm. The ground is spread across A3 through F3, and thus the emitter needs to be on F3. The 220 is soldered to C2 and D2, so the base needs to be soldered to F2, and the 1k8 ohm is soldered to C1 and D1, so the collector needs to be soldered to F1. Thank you, though, I do appreciate any help in trying to make sure that this tutorial is as accurate as possible. Take it easy. =)

Edit: StrictPuppet, one of the moderators, has been kind enough to offer to fix the other problems in the tutorial, though. Big thanks to X-Scene =)

There is a minor problem with the edits.
Your post contains too many images.
My guess is when you first made the tut, it told you that, so you split it into multiple posts.
When 2 or more posts by the same member are made in quick succession on these forums, they get combined into a single post, even if it breaks the forum settings for number of images, quotes or wordcount.
Basically what I am trying to say is, I cannot make the edit without splitting your tut into numerous pieces as the forum program will not allow it. The only problem with that is that I can only add them to the end of the thread, or replace existing posts.

Confused?? hahahah

There are a couple options here to make the necessary edits since IPB only allows 10 images per post:

1- I change the images to links ( i don't believe the forum limits # of links, but it may still cause a problem if it does)

2- You change the images by making a mosaic of them into a single image and I remove the other ones.

3- I completely butcher your tut and replace other members comments with the hacked up tut

4- You make a completely new thread, waiting approximately 3 minutes between posts, I would close this thread, editing the first post to reflect where the updated thread is located.

Well if you start a new thread you should make a free form version that fits in the controller without losing the rumble.

I am having a problem guys, just wondering if anyone has some advise for me.. I built your rapid fire board to exact specs, ( and I did catch the mix up on step 13 with the capacitor ) I have checked over this thing 30 times.. everything is to exact specs.. When I pull the trigger to fire I only get 1 shot, i have tried to adjust the potentiometer, double checked all the resistors.. cant get it to work.. could i have burnt something soldering? Also i see in cparsells write up " If you want this to work on the 360 wireless controller, you need to use a CMOS 555 timer(runs on 1.5 volts up to 16 volts, regular 555 takes a higher voltage). "
Will the radioshack tlc555 perform correctly for this app?

Thanks for any advice/ help

Yes the radoshack TLC555 timer works fine. You could have bought an IC that was bad from the start. I've had that happen in past.

Other than there are a couple of problems that might have happened during assembly. IC chips are sensitive to heat and depending on your soldering skills you could have damaged the chip, caps or transistor, if you held the iron against the contacts too long. To eliminate the chance of frying the chip I installed a radio shack IC socket (pn 276-1995) to my board and installed the chip to the socket.

Check the POT with an Ohm meter and make sure it is adjusting from a low resistance to a high resistance.
Laslty check to see if you have any solder bridges between any contacts that should have a high resistance. There's only one or two jumpers in the system that will read low.

To me it sounds like the POT is messed up or not adjusting. I would check that first because its the simplest thing and those rado shack POTS are junk. I broke one myself during the installation.

I hope this helps.

in the steps in soldering the board onto the button you have it down to solder b2 and a6 to the button im having trouble with getting my button to work because it looks like you have b2 and b6 going to the button? and how do you adjust the potentiometer i know nothing about this i tried turning it with a screwdriver any help here would be thankful

Ya, it's a mistake. B6 should be soldered to the button instead of A6, but really, it's the same signal, as B6 and A6 are shorted together. There should be no difference. I use a small flathead screwdriver that came with my solder set to adjust my potentiometer.

ya i broke my first one trying to adjust it

I am about to go out and buy everything from RadioShack to do this mod. I'm a little bit confused about the corrections though. Has the tutorial been edited so that it is correct? If not, what exactly needs to be done different? This will be my first time making a circuit like this and I want to make sure I do it right.

The mistakes are as follows:



Should read as:

7. Solder the NPN transistor into F1, F2 and F3. NOTE: The transistor has to go in a certain way. If you look at the back of the package that it came in you should see a diagram showing which pins are the base, emitter and collector. The collector should be soldered into F1, the base into F2 and the emitter into F3. If you threw away the case, then hopefully you got the one listed in the “parts required” list above. If so, then the “round” side of the transistor should be facing the center of the board. The picture is wrong, unfortunately. It still worked for me for some reason, being soldered wrong, but if you want to do it right, follow these written instructions instead.



Should read as:

13. Look at your 1uF capacitor. It should have a very small “plus” sign on it. That is the positive side. Solder the 1uF capacitor into A4 and A5, the positive side going into A5.



Should read as:


5. Solder the other diode into A6 and A7. The negative side of the diode should be soldered into A7



Should read as:

2. Solder the wire from B6 of the circuit board to the other lead of the right pushbutton.



Should read as:

8. Solder the wire from A6 to one of the leads of the left pushbutton. In the picture below you can see the wire coming across from the right hand side of the controller to the pushbutton shown. That is the wire I am referring to for this step. NOTE: If you are only doing the right trigger portion of this mod, you may skip this step.

Thanks for writing that up, i'm sure it will help out others until the tut gets edited. I did my transistor like how your picture was. So the way I have mine now is wrong correct? Not sure if mine is right or not, heres a pic.

http://i27.tinypic.com/2gso9yd.jpg

Everything look okay besides that transistor being reversed?

Yep, looks good. =)
The transistor is in backwards, but ya, that was my bad on the tut, sorry about that. Like I said, though, strangely enough it worked for me anyways. I turned it around to see if it made any difference, but it didn't that I can tell. Anyways, looks like you're well on your way to a fully auto G3 =D

Found another mistake:



Should Read: 6. Solder the wire from A3 to the Ground point of the right trigger of the controller’s circuit board. In my picture it is the point with the black wire soldered to it on the right hand side of the controller

Well guys.. I have built this unit twice and still no luck.. I have metered everything out and everything checks out, I still only get one shot when the button is pushed.. I am thinking of trying this on my other remote.. I dont see how it should make any diffrence, but i'll give it a shot..

I just completed mine 5 min ago, and it works perfect. Must have messed it up somewhere. Make sure you look over the errors in the original tut.
Oh, and phlsphr420, i also left mine backwards and it still worked so I guess it doesn't matter? haha oh well

ive built 3 of these, 2 with the original schematic. 1 with this guide all work, but are a liitle buggy.

if it doesnt work you messed up, check your orange cap ive somehow had 2 die. test it for resistence it will only show resistence for a second thats normal.

besure your using a TLC555 Timer, the other 555's take more voltage

Final Pictures of Mine:

http://i27.tinypic.com/vifog7.jpg

http://i32.tinypic.com/262tkja.jpg

I was looking around on ebay seeing what these go for and i saw someone selling them with a toggle switch to turn it on or off and it worked through the normal R trigger. Would it be possible to wire this up that way? Im guessing you would just take the wires that go to the pushbutton we added and put them onto the R Trigger points on the board. I have no idea if that would work or not but it seems like it would.

Aight guys, still no luck... I thank all of you for your help and suggestions.. Later on tonight I will post up some pics and I will meter everything out and see if I can compair readings to one of yours.. ( the wife's up my ass about painting her room right now) .. Thanks again

ok so i made 2 of these exactly as described and no luck first one i made it worked off and on then i tried adjusting the potentimeter and broke it ahhhhhh.. then my second one i made when i pushed down the button nothing happend and my right trigger wouldnt even work... So basically what im getting at is could someone IM me and make one for me and i will paypal you some money for one of these cause i have already wasted like 50 bucks on this project my aol instant messanger name is:RINGSHOUSE or you can just private message me on here thank you...

Um, did I miss something here?

Why don't you guys just program a PIC chip and be done with it? With a PIC you can adjust timing and handle any kind of key combination you want. This was done in H2.

Its just that using a 555 timer seems a little primitive here. You might as well go for a PIC.

onyx:

got a tut?

Yeah the main reason that we don't use a PIC chip is cause its just tapping a button really fast. The second one is that no one here knows how to program it or at least they're not telling us.

i was working on a code for a pic axe chip. but then i priced the chips and the programer and the
555 timer is just alot cheaper.

does this tutorial work with a Wired controller?? Would i need a different 555?? How much does the list of parts cost??

I believe it does work with a wired controller, it works fine with my play/charge kit hooked up. I'm not sure if that simulates the wired controller setup, but it's a start unless someone wants to just try it. The parts altogether cost about $15 at Radio Shack. The timer that is listed should work, it works for voltages ranging from 3 to 18 vdc.

Im planning to do this Mod for my right trigger alone. In your part list,it doesnt say how many of each part I would need for only one side.

Also i've never soldered anything in my life before. Im planing to buy a soldering iron. When you soldered the parts into the orange board, On the back side all i see is a layer of iron. Alll of which are connected.

Any advice on how to "solder' would be help me alot

I'm pretty new to soldering as well but if you haven't soldered before dont try this as the first thing you do. Just trry soldering random stuff or fixing broken things.