June 25, 2007 @ 8:53 am
Street Fighter Joystick for the Xbox 360 with Happ’s Perfect 360
I have a friend that is an avid Street Fighter fan that has been playing it for the past 15 years. He came to me with a project to modify his old custom Xbox Street Fighter controller to work on his Xbox 360. I said sure thinking that it would be an easy project, but when I opened his controller, it was a freaking mess. I ended up just gutting the old controller and modifying a new wired Xbox 360 controller.
So once again, I am here doing a write up for all you DIY’ers. This was not an easy task, so all you newbies beware. I can not take any responsibility for your mishaps with in this conversion.
First off, the components that were used. When I opened up this controller I was happy to find a Happ Perfect 360 Electronic Joystick. For those that you don’t know, the Perfect 360 is probably the best joystick out there in market. As Murphy’s Law stats: If anything can go wrong, it will. I searched all over the net and did not find any instructions on how to wire up the Perfect 360 to the Xbox 360 controller. I found out that no one has done this modification, but I thought I give it a try.
This joystick isn’t just plug and play but can be used with a few relays from Radio Shack. The relays I used were a compact 5VDC/1A SPST Reed Relay (Radio Shack Model: 275-232). I chose this one because it was small and has a fast response time—who wants their controller lag in the middle of their game.
And the last few things are the housing and the buttons. I am not going to go too much into detail on this portion because these should be self explanatory. The buttons can be found on Happ and al over eBay. A hot glue gun also helps out to cover up live circuits and to make sure those solder connections stay.
So, depending if you are building it from scratch or gutting out an old one like I did, you need to start off with a clean empty box with the button and joystick in place.
Next thing is that you need to take apart your Xbox 360 controller. This can be done by removing the 7 screws from the bottom of the controller. There is one screw under the sticker with the serial number as shown below.
The controller board should now be exposed. From here you can pull this board out and pull of the vibration modules as well, as these are not needed to complete this joystick.
Now for the fun part—the wiring. You will need to solder on 2 wires to each of the button’s terminals. I like twisting my cables for a much cleaner look.
The joystick needs a 5V power source and luckily the USB provides just the perfect amount. You can tap into this power by finding the power connections on the back of the controller as shown below. The red wire is the 5V draw and the black is the ground.
From here, the next easiest thing is to wire up the buttons. The Xbox 360 controller as a little switches as well, so what we want to do is “short” the two terminals that complete the circuit of the buttons. This can be easily observed by looking at the bottom of the button pad and the location of where they connect. For the right and left bumper you will see two prongs under the white button switch and those are the buttons you need to “short.” Be careful because these are small soldering points. I used the hot glue gun here to cover all the solder connections to ensure a firm stay—you don’t want joystick to die on you in the heat of an intense game. The controller map is located below.
Now for the harder part, wiring the Perfect 360. This requires the relays explained above as the joystick gives out a singe 5V output. This is where the relay comes in. There is a wiring schematic on the back of the package so I’m not going show the drawing but I’ll explain it as I tell you how to wire it up.
You will need to connect the coil terminals to the 5V power wire as well as the Up/Down/Left/Right terminal to the relay. A relay is activated when power flow through the coils. When it is activated it connects the “common” terminal to the “normally open” terminal. Now that your electronic lesson is done back to the joystick..
So how do we wire this up? What I did was connect four wires to each of the terminals on the relay and as show above to get started. The two terminals that are located farthest apart are the “common” and the “normally open.” The other two are the coils. One side of the coil goes to the power source (I tapped into the red wire where the Perfect 360 gets it power) and the other side to the U/D/L/R terminal—one relay per output. Remember to use hot glue gun the board so your connections do not get loose-they have really small areas to solder on. I also used the glue gun to hold the relays in place.
Clean up the wires and Viola! You got your new arcades controller. Time to whoop some ass on street fighter, or get your ass whooped on like the good old days. At least it will be in style!
To find more pictures of the install, click here.
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Posted by Terry Ng
June 25, 2007 @ 9:46 am
Thanks so much bro for doing this awesome conversion!
The radio shack fast relays were definitely key in being sure there was no lag in the joystick response.
Now I can pull off perfect combos instead of randomly jumping with the D-pad.
Btw… take his word about hot gluing the connections, because solder doesn’t seem to hold very well on the Xbox 360 controller board. :p
How about some videos soon???
Posted by Bahn
June 25, 2007 @ 8:14 pm
That was dope. You should put this up on the xbox forums.
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July 4, 2007 @ 5:53 am
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Posted by 94playmaker
July 4, 2007 @ 7:56 am
I’m looking for a controller that is split between the two handlebars of a stationary bike or treadmill. Any links or ideas?
Thanks!
Posted by Fable
July 4, 2007 @ 8:48 am
Okay, I gotta’ admit that joystick is pretty sexy.
Posted by alfred
July 4, 2007 @ 8:52 am
94playmaker>> I would probably hook up two joysticks together on the d-pad but reversing the left/right on the left joystick so you can simulate a right turn and a left turn on a bike. that way you can also have realistic one handed driving
Posted by Deneteus
July 4, 2007 @ 9:07 am
I modified the Pelican Universal with a Perfect 360 years ago wtf its all posted on Shoryuken.com - somebody needs to do some research before claiming first anything.
I had pics posted on my web site for at least 2 years now.
Posted by alfred
July 4, 2007 @ 9:23 am
What I said is that did not find any instructions on putting a Perfect 360 joystick with a xBox 360 controller. The Perfect 360 joystick has been around for a long time and I know it has been used in a lot of other controllers. This is a write up for a for the P360 with the Xbox360.
BTW the Xbox 360 hasn’t even been out for 2 years yet.
Please no trash talking on this site. I am just trying to share the information to those who want a step by step on how to do the modification. All trash talk will not be tolerated and will be deleted.
Posted by Arlieth Tralare
July 4, 2007 @ 11:38 am
Hey Alfred, this is some pretty sweet work here. One suggestion, though- Microswitches for buttons are notorious for puking out at tournaments, and it’s impractical to carry a soldering iron with you when changing out a switch. Getting some .187 quick disconnects for the microswitches allows you to make a field repair on your stick in five seconds.
Posted by Aaron Peschel
July 4, 2007 @ 12:01 pm
Alfred,
Do you know if this Joystick is usable on a PC, since it uses the same circuit board as a regular 360 controller?
Posted by kokutou
July 4, 2007 @ 5:49 pm
Arron,
There is no reason it wouldn’t be able to be used with the PC, the PC would still recognize the input as an xbox 360 controller and function normally. So yes you could play WinMugen with this controller mod just fine.
Posted by alfred
July 5, 2007 @ 4:55 am
Thanks Kokutou! I was thinking the same exact thing…
Alfred
Posted by Nelson
July 5, 2007 @ 9:49 pm
Alfred,
What kind of wires did you use for this? I’m going to give this a shot.
Posted by How to Wire up the Perfect Fighting Joystick for the Xbox 360 at Hi-Tech Hype
July 7, 2007 @ 11:03 am
[…] for matching the best fighting stick on the market (Happ’s Perfect 360) with your Xbox 360.read more | digg story Filed under: Technology | […]
Posted by Robert W. Gleason
July 8, 2007 @ 3:06 am
What I need, is to be able to use a xbox controller on a xbox 360. This is my prob. I’ve got a steering set up for driving games on the old xbox and ps2 . I found a converter for ps2 to ps3 but am having trouble with the 360. Got any ideas? Oh, I found a converter cable that allows me to go from the xbox controller to USB. But that’s not doing it.
Posted by alfred
July 8, 2007 @ 6:21 am
That is the exact reason why I did this mod for my friend.
Posted by ritz
July 13, 2007 @ 11:38 am
I am looking for a mod to switch the two analog sticks in an xbox controller so i can use the “southpaw” configuration of controlling a first person shooter without doing it in the game (some games do not offer this in their settings). Any mod ideas or sites you can direct me to?
Posted by Mike Kyle
July 18, 2007 @ 2:31 am
I have a friend, xbox live id, MrNasty, who’s in a wheelchair, his hands are parylyzed. He plays by putting 1 hand on the stick and hitting the buttons with the other hand. The guy’s amazing. He kicks my butt on nfl 2k.
We got a joystick from quasimoto.com He has a problem with pushing the analog buttons hard enough on racing games. A regular button just has a switch. Analog buttons have a switch and a plug with 2 prongs. Is there anything we can do make the stick work with regular buttons? Thanks
Posted by Xbox 360 Joystick retrofit at iPhone Tweak Zone-Tweaks-Cracks-Software-Wallpaper-Info
July 18, 2007 @ 9:14 pm
[…] joystick retrofits aren’t usually that interesting. This one sent in by [Jock] caught my eye for one reason - using those cheap RadioShack reed switch relays to […]
Posted by Michael Kyle
July 19, 2007 @ 7:07 am
My friend with the paralyzed hands has a SuperProstick from Mas Systems, http://www.massystems.com/ProStick.html , that he used on the Deamcast. Do you think this would make it 360 compatible? Also is there anyone out there, who’d do this for a reasonable fee?
He’s desperate to get a stick that he can use for xbox 360 racing on xbox live. Most of his pals have moved up from the original xbox.
Thanks. Mike
elmerhewo@cfl.rr.com
Posted by Jay Galway
September 4, 2007 @ 7:05 am
Hey Alfred that looks awesome!
I dont suppose you have the details for reversing the two the thumbsticks. I am left handed and want to perm switch the thumbsticks.
Please let me know so I can start playing around
Posted by How to Wire up the Perfect Fighting Joystick for the Xbox 360 « Xbox 360 News
October 3, 2007 @ 1:36 am
[…] read more | digg story […]
Posted by Nemanja
February 9, 2008 @ 9:38 am
hi, i wonder if there any software that alows me to use simple joystic (USB 2-axis 10button gamepad) as xbox360 joystic.
I have instaled Kane and Lynch dead men on my computer and i have simple
joystic…. ar there any solution for my problem ?
my english is bad (maybe)….sry 4 that…
Posted by Lee
March 23, 2008 @ 9:36 am
This is the kind of mod I need for my ps3 controller. Does anyone know how to switch the joystics around for this controller? If so, email me at symphinity@hotmail.com. There are so many games I wanted to buy but didn’t because they can’t be switched to southpaw.
Posted by Unsurance » How to Wire up the Perfect Fighting Joystick for the Xbox 360
May 8, 2008 @ 7:48 am
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