Finally a good use for an Openbox S10.
After hearing about "Scuf" controllers the other day I decided I wanted to build something like that myself. The idea seemed really good: I've got 4 fingers gripping the bottom of the controller yet there are 4 stock button on the top. In order to use those you have to remove a finger from the analog stick or trigger. Why not put the A,B,X,Y buttons where my fingers are instead of moving my fingers to the buttons each time?
It occurred to me right away that I had found some Openbox S10 front panel boards the other day. The little tact switches for the front panel buttons would be perfect.
Since I didn't want to sacrifice a good genuine (and expensive) Xbox controller I did this on an Afterglow. I put in the 2 LEDs from the Openbox front panel but they aren't bright compared to the blue ones so that part was a waste. The ribbon cable came in handy for use as the switch wiring.
I did have to extend the button some to fit though the controller case. To keep it simple I popped them out of another Openbox front panel board, cut of the retainer flare and superglued them on top of the buttons I was using. Perfect length for the case and my finger resting positions.
The next part was figuring out how the controller worked....easy. A DMM and a bit of common sense revealed that the contact pad shorts the "button" to ground when the button is pressed. Afterglow was kind enough to provide little contact points I could solder to which is much easier than doing it on the button press point where it is easy to accidentally solder the contact to ground.
So basically I found where my fingers naturally rest, used a dremel to make holes for the buttons, hot glued the tact switches in place. I tapped a common ground, soldered one wire to each contact point on the board and put it back together.
It wouldn't have been difficult to design a simple circuit for rapid fire or drop prone when shooting but I wanted to keep the controller fair and "legal" so no cheats in it.
I did also do two mods on the right trigger. I used a short Openbox S10 tuner screw to make an adjustable trigger stop and then a second longer one that holds the trigger right before the "fire" point. Advantages are virtually no trigger pull so you can shoot a bit faster and with reduced throw you can feather the trigger for faster semi-auto or burst fire.
Although this is all setup with the potential to be faster it isn't starting out that way. It requires retraining from a normal controller, getting used to the afterglow vs Microshaft (I don't like the response curve on the afterglow analog sticks) and a bunch of practice. Eventually it should pay off, especially with a cost of $0 to do.
After hearing about "Scuf" controllers the other day I decided I wanted to build something like that myself. The idea seemed really good: I've got 4 fingers gripping the bottom of the controller yet there are 4 stock button on the top. In order to use those you have to remove a finger from the analog stick or trigger. Why not put the A,B,X,Y buttons where my fingers are instead of moving my fingers to the buttons each time?
It occurred to me right away that I had found some Openbox S10 front panel boards the other day. The little tact switches for the front panel buttons would be perfect.
Since I didn't want to sacrifice a good genuine (and expensive) Xbox controller I did this on an Afterglow. I put in the 2 LEDs from the Openbox front panel but they aren't bright compared to the blue ones so that part was a waste. The ribbon cable came in handy for use as the switch wiring.
I did have to extend the button some to fit though the controller case. To keep it simple I popped them out of another Openbox front panel board, cut of the retainer flare and superglued them on top of the buttons I was using. Perfect length for the case and my finger resting positions.
The next part was figuring out how the controller worked....easy. A DMM and a bit of common sense revealed that the contact pad shorts the "button" to ground when the button is pressed. Afterglow was kind enough to provide little contact points I could solder to which is much easier than doing it on the button press point where it is easy to accidentally solder the contact to ground.
So basically I found where my fingers naturally rest, used a dremel to make holes for the buttons, hot glued the tact switches in place. I tapped a common ground, soldered one wire to each contact point on the board and put it back together.
It wouldn't have been difficult to design a simple circuit for rapid fire or drop prone when shooting but I wanted to keep the controller fair and "legal" so no cheats in it.
I did also do two mods on the right trigger. I used a short Openbox S10 tuner screw to make an adjustable trigger stop and then a second longer one that holds the trigger right before the "fire" point. Advantages are virtually no trigger pull so you can shoot a bit faster and with reduced throw you can feather the trigger for faster semi-auto or burst fire.
Although this is all setup with the potential to be faster it isn't starting out that way. It requires retraining from a normal controller, getting used to the afterglow vs Microshaft (I don't like the response curve on the afterglow analog sticks) and a bunch of practice. Eventually it should pay off, especially with a cost of $0 to do.
