Bringing to life/reviving the Xbox 360 wired gamepad

Gamepad broke? Let’s try to revive it and upgrade it to a repairable one 🙂

I was planning on doing a big post on the repair, but for that I need a good camera so that in addition to the blog post there would be a video review with explanations. So for now, let’s just talk about replacing the cable, the subtleties, and a small upgrade.

To unscrew the controller, you will need a regular Phillips screwdriver (at least on both controllers the screws were standard Phillips, on the wireless controllers we would need an asterisk screwdriver). When disassembling the controller, you should pay attention to the fact that one of the screws is hidden under a sticker, which you should carefully pry up:

After removing the cover, we carefully disconnect the board from the front panel and start dealing with the cable:

To keep the cable tightly in the controller and not have strong bends, we need to put on our new/old cable the rubber band that is at the connection of the cable with the gamepad. Since it is glued, it will have to be cut on both sides and remove the cable braid that remains in it. In my case, a screwdriver and a small diameter drill were suitable for this:

We do the same with the ferrite ring located on the cable from the controller side. I’m not sure how much it is really needed on the cable, but I decided to do it “as it was”. First, we put the ferrite ring on our cable, then we put on the rubber band, put the cable aside and move on to the controller itself, or rather to soldering the old plug with the cable cut:

In my case, I used a soldering iron with temperature settings, I would recommend setting the temperature to about 240 degrees. The tracks on these (one might say old) controllers are thin, they can be easily burned, which, of course, we don’t need. In order not to torment the board again in case of a repeated cable breakdown, it was decided to solder a more sensible type of connector to it. There are actually many options. You can use a board with USB port contacts, soldered from the motherboard like this:

I went the other way – I had an FDD drive power connector with angled contacts, which I soldered to the board:

The plug had to be cut a little on the sides, as the controller cover did not want to close, but overall everything turned out perfect.

With a plug, everything is easier/more complicated. The usual floppy from a computer power supply is very thick and will not fit, you have to tinker. I had wires from the Arduino kit, which I used to check the overall performance of the gamepad after cutting the cable:

The connector is soldered, the check showed that everything is OK, so let’s move on.

In the photo above you can see that the gamepad was tested (conditionally) on the twists. In my case there were two options – cut the wires and solder the USB cable to them or … I selected or pulled the pins from the connectors of the same Arduino cable:

The USB cable coming from the computer was soldered directly to them. What I got in the final version (already with the cable soldered) can be seen in the photo below. The cable was adjusted to size, heat shrink was used at the end of the braid (the original USB cable of the gamepad has a braid that also acts as a ground. So that it does not short anything on the board, it was decided to put it in heat shrink). We check the cable again, having previously compared the original pinout and ours:

Everything works for me, but just like yours (at this stage it can’t be any other way). There’s one small thing left – to fix the rubber band on the cable. In my case, I used Moment Gel glue, I think any other will do. Given that our cable turned out to be completely removable, it’s not necessary to do this, but I did it just in case, for greater reliability. This should be done at the end, when you have accurately measured the required cable length on the gamepad:

The gamepad is ready, we are doing well, but…here’s the bad luck – the controller turned out to be dirty. Often, people playing the console do not pay much attention to the cleanliness of their hands, so gamepads are often clogged with all sorts of greasy (and not only) dirt. I have come across gamepads covered in cola, with moths, drawn with a marker, scratched, painted with nail polish. I will tell you what to do about it.

At a minimum, we will need cotton wool, alcohol (or alcohol solution), a toothpick/match:

We clean the dirt from the corners with a toothpick, it should be easy to get out of there. Most of the time it is in the recesses at the ends of the controller. After cleaning, we go through it with alcohol. We do the same with all the buttons and holes in which the buttons were located. It happens that something sticky gets into the button hole and the button is pressed poorly.

After cleaning, the controller is a pleasure to look at. Mine looked like this:

I will tell you about the joints and buttons (as well as their diagnostics/repair) in a more complete article, in our case the sticks should be cleaned of dust with an old toothbrush. If the controller has been used for a long time, there is a possibility that the sticks have worn out. And there is also a nuance here. Here is a photo of the old and new joints:

Is it true that the lower ones look fresher and more beautiful? That’s right. The original sticks are on top of the photo, the new ones on the bottom, but bought on Aliexpress. The dots on the cap are clearer, the rubber is a little different. But this rubber on the sticks from Ali (and those that are mostly sold here) is thin, in some cases it may not even be rubber, but plastic. The original sticks on my old controller were in a completely live condition, so until the sticks are completely dead, I would not recommend changing them to new ones, but of poor quality.

Here is an example of side joints:

On the Chinese joints, traces of unpolished plastic are visible. This is unpleasant both visually and in use. This is not the case on the original joints. Often the left joint is more worn than the right, so I just swap them.

In general, that’s all! The instructions turned out to be a bit confusing, given that the post and instructions were not originally planned, but after taking a couple of photos of the process, I decided to publish it anyway, at least in this form. If you have any questions, write in the comments, I will try to help.

Link to the gamepad testing program – XBOX360ControllerTest