Button Mashing Gone Awry: Gamepad Repairs

Power A Pro Wireless Controller for the PS3 being repaired

We all love to play our videogames but we hate when parts of our game system get damaged and fail to operate correctly. One for the worst damages you can have with your game system would be that of the game controller or gaming pad. The items drive and control your games. You're dead without them well unless you have a motion gaming system like the Xbox 360 Kinect or the PlayStation Move systems. Unfortunately not every game uses those functions and not every game is meant to be played via a motion system.

Over the weekend one of my controllers fell victim at the hands of my brother by way of button mashing. Button mashing sucks because the buttons on a controller take a huge beating. Actually the button themselves don't take the brunt of the beating by a gamer's fingers. It the touch point padding underneath that take the major damage. When that happens your buttons on your game pad become dull and worn out. You'll notice that they don't have the same bounce to them like they did before. They sink down into the bedding of the controller and they won't rise up.

Button padding from Power A Pro Wireless PS3 controller

This padding sits underneath the game pads buttons and top of each designated button sensor on the circuit board. When you hit a button on the controller the padding, the black nodes you see, touch its designated button sensor which sends a message to your console which determines which button is pressed. The padding is completely made of rubber and is soft to the touch. The particular piece of padding you see came out of my Power A Pro Wireless controller for my PS3. The padding for the triangle button was damaged so I took it out to replace it.

Button padding for Pro A Wireless circuit board

The problem with this situation was that I didn't have padding that exactly fit my particular controller. In the picture you see there are only three black rubber nodes. I cut the fourth one out which was damaged. I then cut another piece of padding from an old Xbox 360 controller that I had to make it fit but the button pressure was off and in the end my triangle button on the PS3 got stuck. Then I used another controller in this picture here:

My old Interact Propad 8 controller

This is my old Interact Propad 8 controller. This was made before PCs started using controllers with dual analog sticks. I don't even remember when I got it. I think it was sometime around 2002. So I decided to take it apart to see what pieces I could use to repair my Power A Pro Wireless PS3 controller. This is what I found:

Propad 8 dissassembled

What you see on the left are individual rubber pads for the ProPad 8 digital controller. The padding for the right is for the controller's D-Pad. It looks similar to the padding that I had in my Power A Pro Wireless controller but it doesn't exactly fit. The green pads are the ones that I was hoping that I would find. These work great for my controller. I like these better because they fit individually into each button space and I don't have to worry about doing any resizing to make them fit. They also provide good balance and bounce for your controller. You'll get a much lighter  feel to the buttons but the controller will remain sturdy and not loose in side your controller. Here's another picture:

Top and bottom of green pads

So what I did was that I took the green padding and placed them in my button spaces for my Power A Pro Wireless controller.

Green pads placed inside Power A Pro Wireless casing

As you can see the pads fit with my Power A Wireless controller perfectly. They individually fit in each space allowing for perfect placement with the button sensors on the circuit board.

The finished product

And voila! Here's the final product. This was really an easy fix. I took the pictures while I was repairing it yesterday morning. This keeps me from having to go and spend another $40 on yet another controller. I've already been through so many. I'm always taking stuff apart trying to rebuild and fix them. I've been pretty good at it over the years too. I'm such a gear head. Now if you're thinking about fixing your own controllers you don't have to go fishing for an old controller to get those rubber pads. You can find them easily on Ebay. They're really cheap. Ok, now its time to get back to playing Madden! lol

My Hands of Doom Part 2

So a couple days ago I had blogged about my Dreamgear Shadow controller being done and kaput. Sunday I had tried to fix it and I came close to doing so. I changed out the analog thumb sticks because the ones that were originally attached were damaged beyond recognition. I even soldered the USB charge piece to the part where it originally laid on the controller's PCB board. Everything seemed to be fine, everything except for the buttons, when pressed, did not feel good at all. They felt mashed and flattened. When I tested it on my PlayStation 3 only the trianagle worked.

So being frustrated with my controller I decided to go to Gamestop to buy a new controller. I didn't want to waste time cracking open my Dreamgear Shadow to fix the buttons. I was too annoyed over that. So I get to Gamestop  and the first thing I do is check out the latest titles. I didn't really see nothing that I wanted so I proceeded to ask the lovely store clerk about their controllers that they had. There were 2 lovely store clerks by the way. Normally you get the nerdy game guy in there but I got lucky yesterday.

I asked the store clerk which controllers do they have that were pretty sturdy and wouldn't break in your hand. Of course she shows me the original PlayStation 3 controllers that were way over priced. They were $54 dollars and I wasn't about to spend that much on a controller. Just because they're name brand doesn't always mean that they're the best. I've had plenty of the original PlayStation 3 controllers fail on me and I have found that they are not the best to work with.

I asked her to show me something else. She then showed me this one:

I liked it a lot. It was very similar to my Dreamgear Shadow and it looked more studier that it too. It has the Xbox 360 controller style to it and its wrapped in tough black graphite rubber which I loved. It was $39.99 which was a little out of my price range but it was definitely cheaper than the original $54.99 PS3 controller. Luckily I got price lowered because I had $5 in a pre-order that I didn't get transferred towards the purchase of the controller. So I saved a few bucks. The controller is a generic brand made by PowerA.

It's called the Pro Elite Wireless. It comes with a wireless adapter and a USB cable. Connecting it to my PlayStation 3 was really simple and easy. Similar to my Dreamgear Shadow you just plug in the wireless adapter via the USB port then you push the button on the wireless adapter to connect it with the controller. The neat thing about it is that it glows in LED red lights.

I'm happy to say that this controller plays really nicely. I played NBA 2K11 last night in several online matches and it held up perfectly. I love the grips at the end of the controller. It keeps the controller from slipping out of your hands especially if your palms are sweaty. You get a good tight feel with the rubber based covering too. The buttons, directional pad, and analog sticks are very sturdy and allow for good precision. It's a little early to say but I think I made a good purchase here. Hopefully it will last longer than 3 months.

The Perfect Controller

I'm always on the search for the "Perfect Controller". I can't seem to find a good one. When I say a good one I mean one that can perform under greatest pressure like getting thrown to the wall or surviving extreme button mashing. My biggest pet peeve is having a controller just tear apart within a couple weeks of having it. Another thing I hate is gimmicky controllers made by third party companies. Check these out here.

Game Trailers - E3 2011