How-to: re-wire an arcade joystick for the Xbox 360

by James Ransom-Wiley { Mar 3rd 2006 at 2:30PM }

First things first, the ingredients:

Wired Xbox 360 controller
Street Fighter Anniversary Collection joystick
Soldering iron
Razor blade
Wire
Phillips head screw driver (small and normal sizes)
A lot of patience

If this list makes you nervous, turn back now. Otherwise, purbeast's how-to guide is the solution to bringing your A-game in DOA4—or the forthcoming version of Street Fighter II for XBLA. You down?

[Thanks, alvin]

Related From Joystiq

Amazon deal: Mad Catz Street Fighter IV Tournament FightStick for $99
5 days ago
Super Street Fighter IV anime in the works, explains Juri's creepy eye
13 days ago
Super Street Fighter IV trailer: the fight calls out to us
14 days ago

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

purbeast @ Mar 3rd 2006 2:55PM

lol ... it's "purbeast" ... not "pure" ... :p

Titus W @ Mar 3rd 2006 3:01PM

That Looks like a nightmare

Jay Graves @ Mar 3rd 2006 3:34PM

Any reason why you couldn't do this with the wireless controller?

purbeast @ Mar 3rd 2006 3:48PM

You could very easily do it w/a wireless controller, however you would need the battery pack part exposed at all times so if it runs out, you can take it off and charge it or put new batteries on. Also, even though we don't really notice it, there is a millisecond delay w/the wireless controllers. And since the joystick is mainly for fighters, timing is everything.

It really is not hard to do. It is not as hard as it looks. I'm going to wire up the headset plug once I get some more wire. I'm out of wire and couldn't make em long enough to mount the controller in the correct spot so the headset plug would be exposed.

James @ Mar 3rd 2006 4:34PM

"lol ... it's "purbeast" ... not "pure" ... :p"

My bad, pur. (It's been corrected)

kilo 113 @ Mar 3rd 2006 4:37PM

wow! great to see the insides of the AC stick on joystiq!! hey purebeast, did you find +5v point for maybe a p360?
anyway, yeah the wireless could be done as well(same holespoints for signal), but to be practical you'd also have to bring the battery compartment out of the box for easy changes. actually...that's a pretty good idea! making a wireless stick for DOA4(w/ sanwa stuff)...

but yeah, what really sucks is that there is no(right now anyway) xbox->360 controller adapter. the interface is usb for both! stupid move by MS, and a lot of people already have sticks for their xbox. but if they did, less people would buy 360 padsaccessories, so i guess that's why they haven't introduced some kind of converter.

Armin @ Mar 3rd 2006 5:03PM

Looks like a bomb... where does the C4 go?

mofomojo @ Mar 3rd 2006 6:44PM

Now, just for a hack where you don't have to waste 25 dollars on a controller and make your own.

If somebody could figure this out, you are a god. Other wise, it's a waste of a controller. You might be able to take advantage of parts of the keyboard funct. on the xbox and do something like that.

This hack is very uneconomical.

dsub @ Mar 3rd 2006 9:17PM

it's possible, but I don't recommend doing this unless you've got alot of experience soldering or with arcade machine repair. I bought a simpsons arcade cabinet at a local collector's auction for $50 because the joystiq's (no pun intended) were broken, it took me 3 months to obtain the parts, and almost another 2 months just to figure out the wiring and get everything fixed. Of course now I have the ninja turtles arcade board that I can switch out for it, and to me it was worth the effort. My suggestion?

http://www.hori.jp/us/products/doa4/index.html

save your time, and your money. The cost of all that stuff required, and the time/headache it would take to do it, is simply not worth it...unless you want to build a 360 arcade cabinet. The DOA4 arcade stick is $59.99 and it's guaranteed to work out of the box. No soldering/cutting/re-wiring required. Of course this thing is out of stock everywhere online, but I'm sure there plentiful in retail locations/ebay/amazon.

raindog151 @ Mar 3rd 2006 9:36PM

"Now, just for a hack where you don't have to waste 25 dollars on a controller and make your own....This hack is very uneconomical."

Heh, until CvS2, MvC2 and SFAC are ported, I agree. After that, I'll probably build 3 of them. Damn you Capcom, damn you all to hell.

My only question is why port the SFAC stick? Even an X-Arcade with a Hepp Comp Pro is better.

*registered 3s junkie*

kilo 113 @ Mar 4th 2006 12:19PM

uneconomical?! no way, it's by far THE best route to go if you want yourself a GOOD stick. real arcade parts, especially american happ parts, aren't hard to come by, and most of the off the store "high grade" sticks uses cheap knockoff parts that don't last nearly as long as the real stuff. you can of course buy sticks that already have good quality parts, but those are fairly expensive, and you can save yourself lots of money buying parts, a box, and a cheap little controller. i mean, you can build a happ stick with comp buttons(10 - $15) and stick($10) for a little more than $60 counting whatever else needed. this doa4 stick ain't all that for the price really..then again, all hori stuff is horribly overpriced.

but yeah, using a $40 official xbox controller is pretty uneconomical, but right now modding that pcb is the only way to go if you want to use happ parts(like in this ^tutorial) as opposed to the DOA4 hori japanese parts. also, soldering isn't that bad really(especially with 3rd party controllers as they have much betterbigger signal points), and when i built my stick it was my first soldering job...really messy but you don't need pro precision skills.

ah, in any case, this isn't something that most people do anyway, right? only hobbyists or guys that take fun in it really do this stuff, and yeah it is really fun. it only looks hard, but really it's nothing. also shoryuken.com(hardware section), and places like arcadecontrols.com are good resource for tutorials, whatever..

rokobungi @ Mar 4th 2006 9:26PM

only thing is you really need a true joystick of this sort floor standing (I've built a mame cab and know from experience that having a controller like this in your lap is quite uncomfortable) and 2 player with the second joystick starting at least 8" away from the last button of the first players setup

also the layout looks kinda bad on this why are the wires flailed out everywhere and you can screw the xbox 360 pcb to the cab at least. (or just use hot glue to tidy up the wires) (plus I don't like those leaf spring to switch joysticks would much rather use a short throw stick with a overstrength spring and plastic block for the best percision. )