Monday, May 4, 2009

Dual speed/Single speed Rapid Fire for Xbox 360 controllers using a LM3909, 1-2 capacitors, and 1-2 switches.


This mod has worked on my and my wired cl controller, and since I first hooked the circuit to my wireless matrix controller and saw that it rapid fired, it probably works with most if not all models. I discovered this mod all on my own, and I've googled many times to see if I could do it but nobody else ever did. Back in school, I made an electronics project which consisted of a D battery, a LED, A 220uf capacitor, and a LM3909 IC chip, and it was sitting on my shelf for 4 years blinking at me, and when I saw a mod online using a LM555 timer and a lot more components then this, I was interested if this could work as good or better, and after doing this mod, its much better because rapid fire on the trigger is possible. This was free for me to make, and since I discovered this, I feel its my duty to the modding community to release this method to the world! :) It's saved me lots of money, but not the time and effort of figuring out how.

Although production has stopped of this chip, if you can find one somewhere like ebay they will most likely be between 10 and 15 dollars, which is quite expensive but still worth it when you see how much a modded controller can cost, or other techniques for mods that I will link to later. If you have a LM3909 and you want to mod your controller, you will be very happy at the results. If you dont have this chi All you will need to find is a capacitor and a switch to turn it on and off.

Materials and tools used:
  • LM3909 IC
  • 10uf 16v capacitor(the lower uf value the better, but this one worked the best for me. I found this in a circuit board I took out of something I had laying around, capacitors state the value on the side.)
  • 47uf 16v capacitor(optional, I added a switch to switch between my 10uf and this one for slower auto, works great for m14 in cod4, and it shoots about as fast as I can when I'm pulling the trigger, but without all the effort.)
  • Thin Wire, most people reccomend 30AWG but I just took mine from a scrap USB cable or old controller cable
  • On off button, slider switch or toggle switch (toactivate and deactivate the rapid fire. I got two small switches out of a cordless phone.
  • OPTIONAL Second Small slider switch or Toggle switch with 3 prongs (for dual mode)
  • OPTIONAL small Rumble motor from original xbox controller s (to maintain rumble while saving space for the mod to go, if not you can be more creative where you put your components.
  • Soldering iron
  • Solder
  • OPTIONAL Desoldering bulb/pump (I used mine to take capacitors and switches for this out of scrapped circuit boards)
  • Hot glue gun (or whatever kind of glue you can use to attach a switch and components inside the controller, as well as putting on top of solder points you've already tested to save them from damage)
  • Screwdrivers to open your controller, wired controllers are small phillips screws. Wireless controllers use screws intended for a torx 8 security screwdriver, but if you get a small flathead and jam it in the screw the post will either break off allowing you to use a torx 8 strandard screwdriver, or it will just open up with the flat head.
  • Power drill, needlenose plyers, dremel, or anything to cut holes for the switches and remove plastic from the shell if needed, if you dont have anything like this go outside with your soldering iron and melt the plastic after you've evdone erything else but dont breathe it in, then carefully use a knife or a file to clean up the edges!
  1. Plug in your soldering iron and your hot glue gun if you have it.
  2. Open up your controller, theres a screw under the sticker in the middle, have the face buttons facing down so they dont spill out
  3. Take out the board of the controller
  4. Find the right trigger pins and solder a wire from the middle pin, solder the other end of it to pin 4 of the LM3909.
  5. From pin 8 of the LM3909, solder a wire to an outside pin of one of your switches
  6. From the switch solder the middle pin to the power positive pin near the headset shown below
  7. Connect a wire between pin 1 and pin 5 of the LM3909
  8. Solder another wire coming off of pin 1, and solder the other end to the positive lead of your capacitor indicated by a white line on the casing, if you're using two capacitors for dual mode, then connect both of thier positive leads together with the wire you just soldered to pin 1.
  9. If you're not making a dual mode switch, solder the negative lead of the capacitor to pin 2. For dual mode,the negative leads on the capacitors can be wired to the outside pins of your other switch and then pin 2 of your IC is connected to the middle pin of the switch, creating a dual mode switch
  10. Decide if you want to keep both of the rumble motors or not, some people get rid of the smaller one, or hot glue the IC to the board, but my solution to the space problem was to take a smal rumble motor from an original xbox controller s, because of its taller and skinnier size. The wiring for it has the same connector, but you have to switch the two wires over because they are opposite of what the 36o controller has. I took some needle nose plyers and removed as much plastic as I could to fit it straight up in the controller shell, and removed a little from the bottom shell for it to move.
  11. Test your switches and your on off switch in a game, and if they work hot glue all the connections for strength, then put your components in a place they can fit, leaving the switches for last.
  12. For the switches I drilled holes about 1 inch in from the end of each side of the small grey bottom part of the shell near the second circle from the end, and then removed enough plastic for them to fit there, but my switches were pretty small, you could put them between the D-pad and the right stick, or just hot glued to the outside somewhere if you really cant figure it out.
  13. Thats it, put your controller together and make sure both the rumble motors work if you left both in there, have fun being an elite turbo modder!
The wire with the X on it isn't neccisary, and in the picture above theres no switches attached yet and having the mod always on isnt neccisary, but below there is after I put switches in and my rumble motor from the controller s.

Links, inspiration, and other tutorials for the lights.

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=677389 All the other kinds of rapid fire I've seen, and they are either a 555 timer, and a button for turbo, or a picaxe chip that you have to build a programmer for, program it, and install for quite a bit more money.

http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/mods/xbox%20360%20Controller%20LED%20Mod.htm
This is how I wired up my guide button, except I took the positive power from the same lead as the mod so it turns red when it's in rapid fire mode and grounded it under the guide button as shown on that site.