What kind of leds are in a xbox 360 controller

The first step of this is determining what animations exist and then measuring the timing intervals for each LED. To measure the LED timing, I disassembled the controller by removing the seven T8 security screws from the back and lifting off the shell.

After disconnecting the two rumble motors, I removed the circuit board from the top shell and reinstalled it in the back shell.

This exposes the LEDs on the top and allows me to use the built-in battery pack. For ground reference and power, I attached hook grabbers to the spring leads for the battery pack and ran them to a breadboard. Holding the measuring leads in my hand, I placed them carefully on LED pads 1 and 2, then used the auto-triggering function of the Saleae software to capture 30 seconds of LED data.

From the captured data I then measured the animation timing intervals. Note that the LEDs are also pulse-width modulated for brightness using a 3. The searching animation plays whenever you turn on the controller, before it successfully connects to a wireless receiver. It consists of a slow blink that is occasionally interrupted by a fast blink. Both animations blink all four LEDs in tandem. The slow blink animation has a period of 1 second, with all four LEDs on for ms and off for ms.

Remove the Motors The rumble motors will just get in the way of this install, and are not necessary for the controller to function. Grip the insert on the sides and wiggle it out. Be gentle, these wires are prone to breaking and you should only pull on the insert itself.

If you break a wire, just solder it back together and wrap your splice in electrical tape. Time to put your own colored SMDs onto the mainboard. If the LED is backwards, it simply won't turn on. If it is correctly connected it will light up when you power on the controller. Microsoft seems to like changing the markings for every controller mainboard. The marking used always identifies the negative terminal.

Worst come to worst, there are only two directions to install the LED, one of them will light up. In general Player 2, 3, and 4 the negatives are on the clockwise end, while Player 1 has the negative on the counter-clockwise end. Every controller seems to be different. I have attached a picture below showing the three markings used.

Applying too much heat to the LED can toast the wire inside, causing it to light up very brightly and become a dud. Use short exposure times Under 2 seconds. An oddity with this mod is some tweezers can build up a static charge that fries the LEDs, before picking them up, just tap your tweezers to a block of metal only needs to be done once to remove the initial charge. To install your SMD to the mainboard, apply a small dab of solder to your iron, while using the tweezers to position your LED over the terminals, solder one of the terminals correctly usually the negative to the negative.

One bond will hold it in place, making it easy to connect the other. You can now reassemble the controller except for the motors and screws , reinsert the battery pack, and hit the power on button. Normally all four LEDs blink when you turn on a controller, hopefully it will turn on. If it doesn't, either the LED is not soldered to both terminals, is soldered backwards, or the controller isn't put back together properly the power button can't reach the board. After each LED has been soldered, wipe off the excess solder on your iron with a wet sponge or towel.

When it lights up, repeat the process for all four terminals. If your controller has all four lights working, skip this step. Some users are going to accidentally destroy a terminal, it just happens.

The primary way this occurs is touching the iron to the terminal for too long, causing the glue holding it to the mainboard to melt and the terminal to flake off. The other occurance is when tapping between the terminals to float off the LED, a modder tried to push the LED off instead of letting it float away and ripped out the entire LED with terminals still attached. Here is how you fix it. Traces The wires on PCBs Printed Circuit Boards are called traces, very angled gold wires that are printed onto the board, and covered with a hard but thin plastic layer to prevent any short circuits.

Whenever you see a hole punched through a board or a terminal, that trace has come through the plastic layer to make a connection. The trace is what is transmitting the electricity, and the terminal is simply an oversized and convenient location to access that power.

We can tap into the trace, but the terminal cannot be reattached. Removing the Protection We need to remove the 0. You can identify the correct trace by visually following the line that goes to the now-missing terminal.

It's better to use many light scrapes than a few medium scrapes. Apply a blob of solder to your iron, and move it up and down the trace until you see some stick the line has changed from gold-colored to silver. The first, and my favorite, is to create a solder bridge. Solder does not heat evenly, and you can effectively drag a large amount of solder into a very-messy, but durable, wire. When solder reaches about C, it becomes molten, and is very viscous.

We need to take advantage of this, and by applying a very large amount of solder to your LED leg, you're going to semi-rapidly drag it in the direction of the trace. Drag it in little, short bursts, near the end of how far your bridge has come. An excess of solder on the iron is necessary, to provide the extra material that will form the wire. It's ok if it is on top of the board, since that plastic layer protects all the other traces.

Once you have dragged the solder bridge over to the trace, it should stick and the LED should turn on. It's annoying, and tedious, but it works. The second method I only use if a trace has become truly destroyed. That the distance from where I can scrape off some of the trace and connect it to the LED leg is too large over 1".

This is where I use a very tiny wire, anywhere from AWG thickness. It's the same process as before, you're going to be soldering the ends of the wire to the trace and LED leg. The wire is fragile, and it's connections are fragile. Since the wire can bend and is semi-stiff, it can apply flexion and tear off the trace if you bump into it too hard.

Once you get an end of your wire to stick, apply a very thin slice of electrical tape over the wire, this just keeps it from wiggling around, and helps a lot to prevent it from ever tearing off the trace. I hope that you can get any broken LED terminals to be repaired and enjoy your lights.

In almost all cases a missing terminal can be worked around with the solder bridge, I've never seen a case where the very thin wire could not tap into a power source, further down the trace if need be. Hopefully your controller has all four player indicators able to turn on, just reassemble your controller so that everything fits together properly.

The parts are rather tight fitting, and you don't want any large gaps between the front and rear shells, the most common reason for gaps is the bumper pads and base plate gray curve for the bottom are misaligned. I hope you've enjoyed this instructable and learned a lot, enjoy many nights of gaming! Question 1 year ago on Step 5. Hi, i did this mod with white LEDs, and when i turn the controller on, they flash bright for a sec before flashing quite dim.

Can you help? Answer 1 year ago. From what you are describing, sounds like mismatched voltage? For example, if you have a 5v strip, and are using a 12v power supply, they will light up brightly, then burn out.

If the strip is indeed burned out, you would need to buy another strip, and use a power supply with the right voltage. Thats a exetremely impressive tutorial - Well done. Quote from: Ben. Awesome bro. Just what i needed. I only have one doubt.

Why do you conect another led in 4 player? Whats the difference placing only one? Quote from: rafaliyo86 on December 23, , AM. Quote from: spurgurgle on December 09, , PM. Quote from: spurgurgle on December 23, , PM. Quote from: modded matt on December 25, , AM. I am wanting to do this, would i be able to use these led's for the abxy.

Quote from: stunnedjack on January 16, , PM. How did you cut your breadboard chunk. That is some thick plastic or is that a pcb? I'm really interested in doing this mod but I've never worked with breadboard before.

Is there different kinds? Does it matter? Amazing spurg. I would really be interested in seeing a piece of that breadboard before there is anything solder to it. I have a solderless breadboard and there is not way this is the same kind. Thanks, Jerry. Quote from: spurgurgle on July 09, , AM.

Quote from: Blazinkaos on July 31, , AM. SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk.