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Questions/Comments?: Email me at neal0007@tc.umn.edu
LED MOD:
Hello everyone. Its me again. Not stopping with my first(and easy) mod persisting of switching control sticks around(and colors if you so please), I have completed my second mod of the gamecube controller. This mod can be used solely with gamecube controller containing a clear bottom(which right now come with purple top). And no its not the z-button, sorry. That is coming, but mounting concerns make it take longer than I would like. My Next mod looks like this:
What is it?
Well you can tell from looking at it. I added 2 LED's to the controller, connected to the leads of the rumble motor. Now every time the controller rumbles, the LED's flash along with the rumble. Its a pretty cool effect, although I intend to improve upon it in the near future. This is a perfectly viable mod for anyone to try, and a good starting point for anyone that wants to take it any further. I stress that only those that have a experience in electronics attempt this mod. You're dealing with very low voltages, so that isn't a concern so much, but you don't want to accidently lose functionality in your contrller just because you made a mistake during this process! I'm going to walk you through this one step by step, but I will be telling you how to do it a little differently than I did, since the way I did it is not ideal, but was the only way I could do it given the equipment and materials I had with me at the time...
What you'll need for this mod:
1. Gamebit screwdriver (if you don't have one, use a 2.0mm flathead screwdriver)
2. Spool of 24 guage electrical wire(its pretty thin stuff)
3. Wire cutter/splicer
4. Solder gun with solder. The gun should have a nice fine point for precision.
5. 2 LED's, colors of your choosing. I used Red and Green, although I think two of one color will be more vibrant and effective.
6. 47 ohm resistor
7. Black electrical tape.
You can get all of this(with the exception of gamebit) at you local electronics store(like Radioshack).
Here we go...
Step 1: Remove the back of the controller, carefully ensuring that you don't strip the screws. I used a stanley 2.0mm flathead screwdriver for the job.
After getting the bottom off, it should look like this:
Step 2. Next, prepare thin, 24 gauge wire for soldering to the two leads shown below:
Step 3. Now, before doing any wiring or soldering, make sure you have a plan on where you will want to put your LED's and run your wires. Replace the back cover on the controller and peek in, paying attention to where there is free space to run the wires and LED's. I can't really tell you exactly where everything should go, but I'm confident you will be able to figure it out.
Heres a picture of where my LED's are placed. The wires are really sloppy, but like I said this isn't my intended final version, as I haven't even soldered them yet! (my solder gun is too bulky to do the trick):
This is the way I wired my LED circuit...
[positive terminal]--wire---LED----Resistor----LED--wire--[negative terminal]
TAKE NOTE: LED's have to obey polarity. Make sure you keep the longer wire of the LED towards the positive potential(the positive lead) in the wiring circuit!
Now you're ready to do the wiring. You will need two wires total, each will have one end soldered to the leads. Be very careful while soldering the wires to the circuit board, as any slight screwup could ruin it. If you don't feel comfortable soldering, find a friend that is willing to do it for you.
Connecting the wires to the components(LED's and resistor) and the components to other components will require a different method. Due the lack of space, I resulted to wire wrapping for connecting the circuit items together. It is similar to putting two wires together and twisting one of those plastic caps on, but this time you don't use the cap(due to obvious space reasons). Take one of the wires and tightly wrap the stripped wire around whatever you're connecting it to. You can use my method, or some other that you devise. Its totally up to you.
Once you have all the parts wired up and soldered where needed, you need to make sure that the wires and LED/resistors are out of the way of the controller pieces. In order to route the LED and to the other side of the controller, I actually cut into a piece of plastic holding the rumble motor in. If you look at the black plastic, you will see a plus-sign shape. If you cut a notch in the plus nearest the motor, you will have space to run any wire to the other side. Make sure you check one last time to make sure all your connections are solid(moving the wires around ot free them from obstrucing closure of the controller could have loosened something). If they are, DON'T put the controller back together yet! Keeping the controller upside down, plug the controller into the GC, and turn on a game that supports rumble(pretty much all of them). Do something in the game that you KNOW will cause the controller to rumble. If the controller rumbles and the LED's light up, then you're all set to go! IF the controller rumbles and the LED's don't light up, make sure all the wires are connected and the solder good, and also ensure you have the LED's properly connected(remember the polarity issue I mentioned earlier). Close up your controller very carefully, making sure none of the wires or components obstruct each other. Put all screws firmly back in, and enjoy your new lit up controller!
A couple pictures of it in action(they're not all that good, as its hard to take pictures of these things.)
Well, I hope I covered it all. Its already late here (1 am), so many of you probably won't see this until the next day. I'll answer questions as they arise. Have a great day, and for those of you brave enough to attempt this mod... good luck and enjoy! Any and all responses are welcome.
-Pete
Questions/Comments?: Email me at neal0007@tc.umn.edu
Copyright © 2002 Peter Nealy.