I like Xbox controllers better than the PS3 controllers. They are bigger (more comfortable for my hands), and the analog stick caps have cups instead of domes (so, your fingers don’t slip off).
I’ve tried using wired Xbox controllers with a $15 adapter for PS3, but the stick mapping doesn’t translate well. I play mostly First Person Shooters, so the analog stick accuracy is really important. There is a guy who puts all of the guts from the PS3 controller into an Xbox housing, but the mod is way too much work (mostly due the custom flex circuit and custom plastic support inside the controller). I’ve also used the FPS Freak add-ons, which I really like.
I came across a site, mmmonkey, that just took the analog stick caps from the xbox controller and put them on the PS3 controller. I have no idea if he was the first, so I don’t know who gets credit. Either way, this is a great idea. I assumed the analog stick stem was too different, so I never thought of just swapping them out. It turns out they are -almost- identical.
A couple of important details before you start (if you start)…
1. If you are not used to pulling things apart and putting them back together, don’t mess with this mod. There are a lot of small parts in PS3 controllers. I know guys (smart guys, but not familiar with doing tear downs) who have tried to open their controllers and couldn’t put them back together. No joke. You really gotta understand how the parts attach and what they do while you are taking apart, or you’re gonna get lost.
2. If you still wanna try, but are not super tear down savy, only try it on the dualshock 3 controller. I did a dualshock 3 yesterday that took about 20 minutes total. This is if you don’t make a mess. I also modded my favorite controller (the original sixaxis without rumble), which took about an hour. It was brutal getting that older version back together. Don’t even try unless you got your ish together.
3. Don’t take apart an Xbox controller to get the analog sticks. You are going to waste a bunch of time getting them out, and you are going to destroy a controller. Even if it’s already broken, it’s not worth the time. Order new Xbox analog sticks online. I got two pairs of red Xbox analog sticks from Suntekstore.com for about $4.50 (a little over $2 for each set), including shipping. It took about 2 weeks for shipping. They have a bunch of colors, too, so you get to be creative with your mod.
OK, enough crap, here’s what I did for dualshock 3:
1. Remove the 5 screws on the back of the controller. Use a small philips screwdriver. Easy stuff.
2. Pop the back of the case off. Not so easy. When opening the controller, always keep the front of the controller down. You don’t want the directional pads and shoulder buttons falling out. If they don’t fall out, it will save you a ton of time and grief.
There is a tab at the top and bottom of the controller, centered above and below the analog sticks. The clip on the bottom one is larger, so that’s the one to focus on (see pic below).
I gripped the controller with my fingers centered around the seam at the top/center of the controller, and my thumbs centered around the seam at the bottom center of the controller (just below the analog sticks, and around the internal clip). Squeeze hard with your thumbs. You will notice that one side of the seam mushes in more than the other. Focus on pushing the softer side in (the back piece of the housing), and the harder side out. It’s tough, but it will separate. A better way to do this is to use a small, flat, plastic chisel to pop the tab open. I left my chisel at work, so I had to use brute force.
Here’s what it looks like with the back off (remember to always keep the face down):
3. Disconnect the battery. Super easy. The connector only fits one way, so don’t stress about it.
4. Remove 1 screw from the PCB. Ya, there is only one screw holding it to the housing. It’s near the bottom of the PCB. All 6 screws in the controller are the same, so you don’t have to worry about mixing this screw with the other screws.
5. Flip the top side of the PCB out. I didn’t remove the rumble motors. The wires to the motors were just long enough to flip the board out without having to remove the motors. This will save you time. The PCB will be blocked by the shoulder buttons housing. That’s OK, just wiggle them a bit and the PCB will find a way out.
This is how the controller looks with the top of the PCB flipped out, motors still attached (the analog caps are already removed in this pic):
6. Remove the old analog caps and put the new ones on. They are just knob caps, so they just slip off. No big deal. Note that the new caps fit on this controller without any mods to the cap. I had two sets of red caps, so I tried all four caps, and picked the two caps that went on the deepest. You don’t want the dome part of the cap binding up on the controller housing, so push them on as far as they will go.
7. Reassemble the PCB and battery. Slip the PCB back into place. You will have to wiggle the analog sticks around so they get into the housing holes. No big deal. Wiggle the PCB around and make sure it sits nice.
The controller with the battery reattached looks like this (just in case you forgot):
8. Wiggle the analog sticks. Before assembling the back of the controller, make sure the analog sticks move freely by moving them around like you are playing. If they stick, you gotta push the caps on more. This may require making the hole in the cap deeper. I didn’t need to do this for the dualshock 3.
9. Reassemble the back of the housing. Before you put the back on, make sure everything is in place. Connecting the shoulder button side of the housing before the rest made it easy for me to reassemble the back.
For the sixaxis controller without rumble:
Don’t try it. It’s a mess. There are a ton more parts in this controller. The shoulder button assembly is really messy on this version. I ended up having to disassemble the whole thing, figure out what everything was doing, and putting it back together.
Also, and more importantly, the caps didn’t fit in this controller. The dome was too high on the Xbox sticks and they hit the housing of the PS3 controller. I drilled out the hole to make it deeper, but it didn’t help. The caps wouldn’t sit low enough to stop the dome from hitting the housing when the sticks are moving.
So, since this is my favorite controller (i hate the rumble crap), I still modded it. I ended up cutting the domes off of the Xbox caps. I just used wire cutters and trimmed them off. Easy to do. This keeps the sticks really loose, which is what I was trying for. It looks cool, too, cause you can see the analog stick guts from the top of the controller. Dust will get in there, but whatever. I’ll probably break the controller long before I have to worry about dust.
There is the guts of the non-rumble sixaxis controller:
The back it tough to put on (without the shoulder buttons coming misaligned). If you attempted this mod, then you are probably good enough to figure out all the crap that needs to be done to put this thing back together, so I’m not going to show details. Just make sure the shoulder buttons are fully assembled and pressed deep inside the housing before you put the back on. Otherwise, L1 and L2 won’t function.
Here is the sixaxis controller with the analog stick cap domes removed:
