So you just bought a controller mod, or you’re thinking of buying one, and now you can’t figure out how to dis-assemble the thing. In addition to buying a mod, other reasons why you would want to take apart your gamepad are that you are installing new thumbsticks, cleaning out the inside from years of dirt and grime from your hands, putting in new led lights, or you just like to tinker.

Well, we at Hardcore Mods realized this is a problem and the other guides on how to take apart your controller suck. So here’s how to take apart, and put together again, an Xbox 360 wireless controller.

Overview

Basically, we are going to:

• Remove the screws from the back of the controller with a special wrench
• Take off the back piece
• Gently remove the circuit board of the controller from the shell
• Put it all back together again

Step 1

So let’s take a look at the back of the controller. Flip it over with the buttons facing down. You will clearly notice that there are 6 exposed screws on the back of the controller. At first glance, you would think that was it, but Microsoft doesn’t want you to take apart your controller, so they sneakily hid the 7th screw underneath the serial code sticker.

So what you need to do is: peel that sucker back with a fingernail or razor blade.

By the way, you void your controller’s warranty by taking that sticker off.

Step 2

Now you’re ready to take those screws off. MS really wanted to screw us by putting these “security” screws to fasten their controller together. Luckily, we sell the special tool to take those pesky screws off here. As you can see from the picture, it’s not your average screwdriver. It has a hole in the middle.

Other people have suggested using using small-size screwdrivers, but that is a sure fire way to strip the screws. That is definitely NOT what you want to do.

Step 3

So now you’ve taken all the screws out. Your first instinct is to just pull the front and back cover of your controller apart, but that will lead to you picking up all of your controllers buttons off the floor and then guessing where to put them back to.

Here’s a better way:
With the controller faced down, slowly pry the back piece of the controller off with the tips of your fingers. To do this you will want to use both hands. Your thumbs should be holding down the triggers while your fingers are pulling the back shell off.

You will see some progress when you start to see the back coming off and you get a look at the circuit board inside of the controller. You will want to make sure that the front of your controller is facing down on the table to make sure that the buttons don’t go flying everywhere when you take the back plate off.

Pull slowly and straight out.

Step 4

So with any luck, you got the back shell of the controller off. Now what you’re going to do is take the controller board out of the front shell.
Using the same idea of keeping the controller face down as described before, grip the edges of the circuit board with the tips of your fingers and pull it straight up. Flip the board over onto the table and you will see this:

You’ve taken apart your controller into its main components, the front shell, the back shell, and the controller board. Now you can change out those beaten up thumbsticks, install a rapid fire mod, change the color of your led lights, or whatever you want to do. It’s a good feeling, isn’t it?

Now that you’ve got it taken apart, you’re going to want to put it back together again. For instructions on how to do that, check out the next part.

Do you have any comments or suggestions? Please share them with us so that everyone can benefit. Tags: disassemble 360 controller, installing mod in controller, modding your xbox 360 controller, take apart 360 controller

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 at 2:13 pm and is filed under Modded Controllers, Xbox 360 Mod Kits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.