Tutorial written by : PlastiKK_

This is a tutorial that I decided to write. It will tell you what you need to do to add LED lights to various parts of your controller. It is kind of one of those things to do when you are bored or have some free time. I just got bored and decided that it might look cool if my controller had lights in it.

Note: You may have problems with this if you try to install LED lights in a controller that has a reset switch installed in it.

Step #1: Taking Apart the Controller
Take apart your Xbox controller. There are 7 screws on the bottom of the controller. Take them out. Now take off the casing. The controller motherboard will still be attached to one side of the casing (front or back, depending on if you are using the official Xbox controller or MadCatz, ect.) If you have the official Xbox controller, there will be about 5-7 small screws attaching the controller motherboard to a side of the casing. All of the screws that you are supposed to remove are all labeled with a symbol in the shape of a screw. But before you just yank out the controller’s motherboard from the casing, you may want to disconnect the cables going from the motherboard to the motors (you can also just take out the motors). If you are using a MadCatz there are only 2 screws to remove. They are on the insides of the L and R triggers. You will have to take out the motors with the motherboard seeing as they are soldered not plugged in. Now take out the motherboard.

Step #2: Finding the Points to Solder
With the official controller, the cable (that actually connects the controller to the Xbox) will be attached to the controller on top of the motherboard. The points that you need to solder to will be located on the bottom of the controller’s motherboard. With a MadCatz, the cable connects to the motherboard on the bottom, so you will need to solder to points that are on top of the motherboard. The wires that are inside of the cable are attached in the following order: red, white, green, yellow, black, and a fat black one. The yellow one is the power cable and the fat black one is the ground connection. These are the only 2 that you will need. Now that you have located where the wires attach to the motherboard, turn the motherboard over and you will see the six solder points where the wires are attached.

It will look something like this:

The o’s represent soldering points. There are the lines around the soldering points too. The soldering point that is in the box on the left (the point that I have labeled 1) is the ground connection. This means that the point labeled #3 is the yellow wire.

Step #3: Deciding Where to Place the Lights and Soldering
Now you need LED lights. I prefer to use green, seeing as that is a color associated with Xbox, but any color will do. The first time I tried this I just went and stole some LED lights out of some of my little sister’s toys. She will never know. Depending on where you want to place your light(s), you may need to extend the wires on the LED. I just used 30 gauge insulated wire, the same as I used for my mod chip. You may want to, if you haven’t already, decide where you want to place your lights. You can create your own designs, but I have personally used the following methods:

1. With the MadCatz controller, I placed 7 LED’s all around on the inside of the controller. My MadCatz controller is a clear-milky white color, so when I turn it on it just glows all over. It looks especially cool in the dark. This is my favorite.
2. Placed an LED or two in a memory card slot. I never use the memory card slots so with my official Xbox controller I just placed 4 LED’s, 2 in each slot, in the memory card slots. So now when I turn on the Xbox the memory card slots have a mysterious green glowing color coming from them.
3. With an official controller, I just drilled 7 holes through the black plastikk and placed LED’s in the holes. So now the controller has glowing spots.

Now you are ready to begin the soldering. Solder one wire from the LED to the yellow power wire’s point (point #3). Solder the other LED wire to the fat black ground wire’s point (#1). Now place the LED where you want, secure it with some hot glue. You’re done!!!

Here are some pictures. I used a red LED for these pictures because green doesn’t show up at all with my sh*tty web cam (red barely shows up).