My custom painted 360 controller

RaYYaN · 09-10-2010, 08:15 PM

Posting here since you guys appreciate cool mods and stuff.

I use a 360 controller for my pc gaming, and since I was bored I wanted to mod it somehow. First, I thought about replacing the leds in the center with red ones that are always on so my controller had a Red Ring Of Death (geddit

)

However, I never soldered before and couldn't find the LEDs so I scrapped that. But while reading up on that I came across spray painted controllers. I thought they looked awesome, and decided to do it even though I never sprayed anything before

.

Most guides said to start with something solid and simple but I wanted tiger stripes

. I went looking for a massk but I wasn't able to find any

. I decide to make my own, I cut out some stripes I drew by looking online, resizing them to the controllers size. This was what I ended up with.

To make a mask of this I got an A5 sized piece of wax paper, stuck pieces of masking tape on it. Then I put the stripes on this and cut them out. I had mask.

The next step was to take apart the controller. Lots of great guides on this online. Most say you need Torx 8 security, but the screws on mine were #0 screws. I got everything apart from the D-pad. I figured I'd take it to an electronics shop and get it opened so I decided to sand everything, since I had no primer

Anyway, the dude in the store ended up stripping a screw so I had to improvise. I centered the d-pad with tape on the back and stuck a rolled up tissue strip all around to prevent paint getting in.

I wanted to have a black controller with red stripes, so I first hit it with a base coat of red. I sprayed on coat and realized I only had enough for one more, so I threw down a 2nd heavy coat

After letting the paint dry for ~18 hrs, I masked off the stripes by putting the main pieces together and cutting the stripes where they went onto other pieces.
Masked and ready for black coats

After 3 coats of black it looked like this.

Then I just took off all the tape, and hit it with a few coats of clear coat.
I was too impatient, so instead of waiting 72 hrs, I started messing with it after less than 24

As a result there are a lot of smudges, and I might recoat later on

I decided to paint start/select, the bumpers and triggers red. I wanted black analog sticks, but since they are attached firmly to the circuit board I simply sharpied em

Final product, really happy with how it turned out considering I had subpar paints and it was my first time

Plugged in and running

Thanks for reading guys
Let me know what you think

Next vacation I will tackle the LEDs and try to add LEDs to the ABXY buttons

joshthor · 09-10-2010, 10:58 PM

i like it

but you should try to paint the seams. particularly the one around the d-pad,but i dont know how much that would effect it.

Mr.Mischief · 09-11-2010, 12:11 AM

Wow cool I wish I had 360 so I could paint my controller!

RaYYaN · 09-11-2010, 06:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by joshthor

i like it

but you should try to paint the seams. particularly the one around the d-pad,but i dont know how much that would effect it.

Yeah, I still need to do that. I couldn't get the d-pad out, so put some tissue around it. I might get a brush and paint that part black too so it blends.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tHE j0KER

Wow cool I wish I had 360 so I could paint my controller!

I actually don't have 360, just use this as my pc gamepad

Glad you like it