Tutorial written by : Cantona

OK guys.. Here is the first draft of the CONTROLLER PORT LED MOD you were asking for from my earlier pictures. Much of this will become clear to a lot of you mod peeps once you see this. I will also try to host this guide and perhaps get it on the tutorial page if it is worthy. Anyway, this I hope can be modified and improved but to give you an idea, I just sat there for an hour and worked out if it was possible.. and the did the mod in another hour which is why it is a little ‘rough’ and as many have said would look much better with BLUE LEDs to match the rest.. but please allow for the speed getting it together and I was only going to use what I have in.. hence the ‘orrible yellow LEDs

The mod is based on using the yellow wire within the controller itself. Now some people have said this is unused.. this is not true. This yellow wire is used within the XBOX for other input devices like lightguns etc. The wire is not used in a standard controller and so can be utilised as in a power on/off switch.

So below starts the guide to cover the mod to the controller itself (each controller will require this tiny mod.. and the main LED installation over the controller ports.

PRECAUTIONS:
If you intend to use a lightgun etc on your XBOX you will need to make some choices:

1. DON’T.. It won’t work
2. Fit a switch to turn to mod on and off.. but I am not covering this here although it is easy to do.
3. Do the mod and enjoy it and forget getting a gun.. saving you money

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
4 x LEDs of your choice ( I had 2.1volt/30mA yellows)
4 x Current Limiting Resistors (I used 470ohm)
Drill bit to fit LEDs
Connecting wire
Superglue
General purpose soldering iron
Solder
Small side cutters
Hot glue gun (used to insulate soldered points optional)

OPENING THE XBOX:
I won’t insult you guys telling you how to open up the beast but as always take your time and a little care will make re-assembly easier.
The front face-plate is held on by 3 clips inside the box and a larger clasp on either end. Unclip these and disconnect the yellow cable harness from the main board.

LED HOLE PREPARATION:
Depending on your chosen LED type you need to drill out the four holes in preparation for your LEDs. (NO PICTURE). This is really where, if at all, you need to spend the most time. If you drill the holes in the wrong place or slightly out.. you will have to look at this all the time and you can bet everyone else will notice as well ;)
If you notice on the back of the plate, the four locations for the numbers have nice little recesses. These recesses are great for guiding you though to get your drill hole exactly in the middle over the controller port. Drill out for the four LEDs and clean the holes for a nice finish.

LED INSTALLATION:
Get you four LEDs and superglue these into the holes as can be seen in the picture. Cut down the legs but remember which is which. The long leg is to have the current limiting resistor soldered to it on each LED.

LED WIRING:
O.K. now we can wire these back to the power on controller leads in the XBOX. I will get a wiring schematic together as well but not had chance as yet but is fairly straight forward to do.

The LEDs are wired in parallel for you purists.. easier to do but draws more current. It can be wired in series, I did have it this way but to keep all the LEDs a constant brightness I opted for this way.

LEFT HAND SIDE:
Solder a resistor to each long leg (positive) of the for LEDs.
Solder the two resistors together.
Solder a wire to the centre of the two resistors.
Solder a wire to each of the short legs (negative).
Bring the three wires under the eject swich board to the other side of the front plate.

RIGHT HAND SIDE:
Solder a resistor to the two remaining LED long legs (positive)
Solder the two resistors together.
Solder a wire to the centre of the two resistors.
Solder a wire to each of the short legs (negative).

You now need to get the wire from the left hand side array that went between the two resistors and solder this to the centre of the two resistors on the right hand side. Now solder a wire to this point which will go into the XBOX power supply.

You should have FIVE wires now.. FOUR from the negative side of each LED and ONE positive from the resistors.

If you are confident with your work and wiring you can clip the front back on but before you do.. I suggest a small blob of hot melt glue on your joints to prevent any short circuits. Insulation tape will do just as well.

PORT SIGNAL WIRING:
Here we will cut into the yellow wire that comes back from the controller handset.

Behind each controller port you will see the cable assembly that carries the signals from the controller port to the main board. The yellow wire is the one we want and only ONE SIDE of the yellow.

Snip the yellow wire as shown and strip a little wire back and tin the wire with solder.

Remember the FOUR wires we brought through the case earlier.. well depending on which controller port wire we cut depends which LED wire to join here. Lets assume we are on controller port 1 in the picture. Find the wire going to LED 1 on the face plate. Strip the back a little and solder it to the stripped yellow wire as below.

Carry out this process for each of the four controller ports. Either hot melt or insulation tape the joint.

POWER PICKUP POINT:
Now I have my preferred method here being an engineer and some use other methods.. mine tend to be short cuts and I know there are leads you can get to give you an extra points but hey.. they cost money and time getting them so stuff that

Above you see the HD power leads going out from the power supply. Rather than cut any wires I cut a ‘V’ section out of the insulation and solder my wires to that. I complete the job by running some hot melt glue over the joint for safety.

You need to connect your remaining wire from the resistor connections to the RED power lead. This is 5 volts DC and is my preferred place.

You will see 2 wires connected in the picture.. the other one is my supply for my HD activity LED.. but that’s another story.

That my friends are all the connections made within the XBOX. If you have not done so already, clip your front back on and don’t forget the main board connection plug.

CONTROLLER HANDSET MODIFICATION:
Below you can see the small mod required to enable this all to work. I left this to the end because it’s the easiest bit and you deserve a rest.

The mod needed here is to connect the yellow wire point to negative. This is done simply by soldering a small link wire between the points shown on a genuine XBOX supplied controller. Re-assemble the controller.

If you have done everything as above then when you insert your controller into ANY port the LED will illuminate. How bright depends on the resistor used. If you want to dumb it down because it’s bugging you just raise the resistor value. (working voltages of LEDs vary as well so please take this into consideration).

I know this may not be everybody’s idea of a mod but I just had to give it a go when people were asking for this type of mod. I couldn’t see the use of micro switches being practical for the most of us so thought this was an alternative.

I will be changing my own LEDs to blue when I get chance so the resistor values will no doubt change.. at least it’s something to through back into the pot.

P.S. Guys.. please use the forum to ask questions rather than personal emails.. that way we all learn