Downing's Basement

Hey Guys! This was a small mod I started a few weeks ago and just finished off this morning. It’s basically just a case mod as I took the guts from a SNES first party controller and put it into an XBox controller casing. Took about 10 hours or so to get it functional and as you can tell, no time was really put into making it look nice. I just wanted to see if I could get it working and I have!

The D-pad, ABXY, Start, Select, L and R are the only buttons that work really, but the next mod will allow for me to use the control sticks as both directional and ABXY additions.

Had to chop the SNES PCB down quite a bit but fortunately the the traces were quite easy to follow and the processing chip is in the open so soldering directly too it was quite easy. I’ll try and get more pics up but for know here is a short video of it in action.

Though I sold this to a friend and trusted them with it, it was not long before “The Nimbus 64” ended up in the bottom of a closet, covered in sheet rock dust and every button inside the casing itself. It appeared that shortly after it was sold, the buyer let their little cousin use it and well…it wasn’t kid proof. What a mess and I wish I had a picture for it. But the cart slot was loose, the c-buttons were gone, the power switch was bent and the LED was pushed through the case.

The first thing I did was to remount all the buttons. This time using superglue on the tacts themselves and mounting the spacers more securely. This stopped the need for the mounting holes to keep the buttons from rotating. Once remounted, the buttons felt great and sturdy.

The second thing I did was to replace the delicate slide switch with a much more rugged SPDT Rocker switch. It was a bit bigger though on the inside so I had to move the controller back a bit, but to do that I had to cut the hole where the memory card port comes out. Not a biggie, I just patched it up quickly so the electronics didn’t show as much.

After rewiring the buttons, screen, batteries and control stick, I took out the old screws and tapped a 6-32 hold in the sides and into the inner lip of the casing. This allowed me to use the case itself to hold it together and it held much much tighter and felt more secure.

Small improvements but made the system playable again. Buyer should be happy to have it back after nearly a year of no use!