Cheap And Easy Controller ON OFF Switch

Discussion about Modding the XBOX, including hardware and software hacks.
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xman
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Cheap And Easy Controller ON OFF Switch

Post by xman »

I've known of this mod for so long but just never really got around to it until now. After the family saw it they all lined up there Xboxes to have it done. If tried to make it as easy and practical as possible but still look good. The pictures are using my after market controllers I use but genuine MS controllers are exactly the same so don't be put off doing this very practical mod on your machines. The pictures also feature a HDMI modded machine so ignore the wires on the board that are not yellow. Only the yellow wire is regarding this mod.


Solder a wire to the underside of the front button power switch connector. It is pin 2. If you are uncertain of the solder point, look at any modchip install diagram and see where they run the BT wire to. It is this same point. Run it across the underside of the front of the board and feed it up the hole in the board as shown.

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Pull the yellow wire leading from the controller port 1 out of the port connector plug. It has a little plastic tab that holds each wire in place in the connector. Bend just the tab holding the port 1 yellow wire and you can withdraw the yellow wire with the connector pin out of the connector. Join it to the wire you ran under the board that is sticking up the hole, through the board. A small single wire connector is best so you can disconnect at this point should you need to work on the machine in the future but that is up to you. Ok, that is the mod required in the Xbox itself.


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Now the controller. Make a piece of plastic like the one shown that will fit snugly in the lower accessory port hole in the controller. I cut it roughly to size and file it to the exact size. Drill a hole and mount a small momentary switch in the plastic, again as per the picture. Solder on about 2" of wire to the switch terminals. I used a yellow and a black wires so the wire colours matched those of the controller.


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Push the wires through the holes in the back of the port hole. Not the big hole, the smaller ones on the side of the port hole.

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Cut the yellow wire from the connector that joins the controller harness to the controller board close to the connector. These pins do not come out so no need trying to recover them. Now solder or join the yellow wires. The one you just cut and the one from your switch. Now solder the black wire from the switch to the last pin of the accessories port as shown in the picture.


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Put the lower controller cover back on the controller and your done.

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Plug the controller into the Xbox and push the new button you just installed on your controller. Your Xbox will now turn ON. Push the button again and your Xbox will turn OFF. Now you can sit back and enjoy your work. The good thing about this mod is it ALWAYS works. Doesn't matter if your Xbox is locked up. Because it doesn't rely on software, it will always work. That yellow wire was only ever used for "The House Of The Dead Light Gun" but is still there in all Xbox controllers. If you are one that actually has a need for that yellow wire's original purpose, IE, you actually have a house of the dead light gun simply use any other controller port and not your modded port 1 to use the light gun. Also to hold the wires in place on the board, I use Supa Glue however, I only use the glue on parts of the board that are not over traces, IE, big green sections of the board or else I use the top face of chips making sure the glue doesn't touch any pins of the chip. A very small dot of glue is all that is required and it stops the wires from coming off should you need to work on the board. Not real sure of all Supa glue but mine does not effect the board. maybe some brands do so bear this in mind.
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Re: Cheap And Easy Controller ON OFF Switch

Post by Wally12 »

Very cool! Thanks for posting! This might be easier for me than trying to do a wireless power switch mod. I may have to try this once I get my HDD issue settled. Since you seem to be quite knowledgeable and one of the few people active on here, do you think you could take a look at this thread http://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/forum/viewt ... =13&t=4533 and see if you can help me out? I'd really appreciate it!
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Re: Cheap And Easy Controller ON OFF Switch

Post by xman »

Don't really know what you want help with. When I do 1 and 2Tb upgrades I'm using chipped Xboxes and I have never used Chimp myself. Every machine is a custom content machine and I use Slayers to build the HDD and then FTP the content across to it I have on my PC. What are you having issues with?.
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Re: Cheap And Easy Controller ON OFF Switch

Post by asbo »

Cracking mod as always xman :)
Slightly related question, do wireless controllers have that yellow wire? Not that this mod would work with them.
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Re: Cheap And Easy Controller ON OFF Switch

Post by nidge »

asbo wrote:Cracking mod as always xman :)
Slightly related question, do wireless controllers have that yellow wire? Not that this mod would work with them.
I was thinking the same thing ;)
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Re: Cheap And Easy Controller ON OFF Switch

Post by xman »

asbo wrote:Cracking mod as always xman :)
Slightly related question, do wireless controllers have that yellow wire? Not that this mod would work with them.
Thanks for the compliment Asbo. Encouragement like that keeps me interested in putting my mods in this modding section. :D
As for your question, and Nidge's as well if I read his comment correctly, there is no yellow wire in a wireless controller and there are no accessory ports in a wireless controller either however there are ports and the yellow wire in the wireless controller receiver that plugs into the normal Xbox game ports. You can easierly get really small 3vDC transmitters that will fit inside a wireless controller like a LogiTech controller and can be powered off the controller's AA batteries. You would need to wire a switch in the wireless controller and hook that to the transmitter's button. That will have the LogiTech or wireless controller sending out a wireless signal. Using the receiver for the transmitter, you could power that off the Xbox game port, red is +5vDC and black is ground. The switch on the receiver that switches when you push the transmitter's button, you would connect to the Xbox port's yellow wire and the other side of the receiver's switch can go to any ground on the Xbox including the metal shield. This whole mod works by simply grounding the Xboxes power on switch exactly what is done when you push the Xboxes On Off button. That yellow wire in my mod is connected to the start switch. It goes to a switch in the controller using the yellow wire. The other side of the controller's switch is connected to the controller's ground which is actually the mesh that runs around the controller's wires under the plastic covering and is connected to the Xbox game port and is also the ground of the whole Xbox. Any black wire in the Xbox is also connected to this by the way. I hope this is the answer you were after. If not let me know and I will correct it. :)

In the last pictures I posted you saw the wife's 1.6 machine. I did my son's 1.4 Halo machine last night and noticed a few different things so here are some pictures of a 1.4 machine being modded. I just put up the pictures showing note worth differences.

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On the 1.4 I decided to run the wire on top of the board rather than under it because the only through hole for the wire was at the side of the board as seen in the 1.6 machine pictures. I also soldered the wire to the upper board point. To see exactly where the wire goes, refer to any Aladdin or DouX modchip install diagrams and use the point they solder there wire called BT too. It is the same point I used here. On DuoX diagrams they often use the point directly on the front panel board. That will work as well however not for me. I always swap the small power on off button for the larger DVD button on all my machines. In the picture you can see, I glued the yellow board wire to the controller port connector's plastic housing. Gotta stick those wires somehow. :lol:

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And here, all connected up ready to close up the machine.
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Re: Cheap And Easy Controller ON OFF Switch

Post by asbo »

I don't actually have any wireless controllers but I was curious all the same, thanks for the info xman :)
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Re: Cheap And Easy Controller ON OFF Switch

Post by dan.h »

This looks like a great mod, never seen this before. Cheers for sharing!
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Re: Cheap And Easy Controller ON OFF Switch

Post by Rocky5 »

I took my Logitech wireless controller apart & had a look, the receiver has the yellow wire, but we would need to supply a constant 5v to the receiver for it to function when the system is off.
(may work off of 3.3v)

But trying to test points on the controller, while holding batteries to power it was a pain & I gave up, may try again at some point.

I don't even know if the yellow wire signal is sent to the receiver, so it may end up being just a big waste of time.
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Re: Cheap And Easy Controller ON OFF Switch

Post by Rocky5 »

I took my Logitech wireless controller apart & had a look, the receiver has the yellow wire, but we would need to supply a constant 5v to the receiver for it to function when the system is off.
(may work off of 3.3v)

But trying to test points on the controller, while holding batteries to power it was a pain & I gave up, may try again at some point.

I don't even know if the yellow wire signal is sent to the receiver, so it may end up being just a big waste of time.

Personally I just use the Xerc 2 XE & the official remote.
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Re: Cheap And Easy Controller ON OFF Switch

Post by xman »

@ Rocky, yer I looked at doing a remote on off for the LogiTechs but what it came down to was you need a new separate transmitter and receiver to do it so the only parts the LogiTech controller was good for in the project was it's battery holder where you could use the batteries to power the separate transmitter. It also has no convenient place to put the switch other than drilling a hole in the case for it but that isn't really an issue.
The next problem is the Xbox itself. As you would know when the machine is off, so is the game ports and not only the port's power but also the decoder that is used to decode the button pushes so while you could possibly power the port especially on a 1.6 machine as it has 5vDC on all it's orange power wires even in standby, I would suspect that power would possibly try to power the whole machine and that isn't going to be healthy for it. Consequently my only solution was to use a totally separate receiver and power that of the Xboxes standby power and have it's relay output to drive the on off circuit of the Xbox.

Something like this would be ideal I think. Both the transmitter and receiver can both run on 3vDC although at that voltage I wouldn't expect the 500 meter range as quoted.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/315Mhz-Wireless ... 5681a62c3d

Relatively easy to hook up. I can do a wire diagram if you wish.
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