The Hori EX2 for the 360 is a nice and cheap arcade joystick and comes with a pretty good micro switched stick however the buttons are bloody awful and very unresponsive. So, since I live in Japan and Sanwa arcade parts are very cheap I decided to mod my stick. Here's my following guide. Note that I'm no master modder and have really poor soldering skills yet I completed this mod in about an hour.
OK, first up you'll need the following stuff.
Quality wire (I used the same stuff used in arcade cabinets)
Craft knife
Soldering Iron (30 watt would be best)
File or pliers
Phillips Screwdriver
Sanwa arcade buttons - size 30
OK, the first thing you need to do is unsolder the buttons from the main and daughter PCB. This isn't so hard but before un-soldering you'll need to push the holder clips of each button in so that you can pull them out when un-soldering. I just heated up the solder on the PCB and pulled out the buttons once the solder became liquefied. Below you can see the daughter PCB without the buttons.
Next you'll need to deal with the guide tabs on the actual joystick casing. You can either file these away or do as I did and just bend them back.
You must deal with these because the Sanwa buttons don't have any groove in them unlike the stock buttons that came with the stick. If these tabs are not removed then the new Sanwa buttons won't fit.
OK, the joystick case is ready. Now to deal with the buttons. The Sanwa buttons have some little bumps near the top of them. These must be cut away with a sharp craft knife. They're really easy to cut away but do be very careful. Again, these need to be removed otherwise the buttons won't fit the joystick's holes.
See, easy to cut away.
Now that all of your buttons are in the case it's time to start the really annoying job of wiring them up. Well, it was annoying for me. First you need to bend back the pins on each button. The Sanwa buttons are taller than the stock ones so you need to bend the pins to avoid them touching the PCB and to actually make them fit in the case.
For the wiring, try and keep the wire as short as possible to make fitting easier. I used about 5cm strips apart from the buttons under the main PCB. I had a hard time feeding the wire through the bottom of this PCB so I just soldered them on to the top. Looks a little more ghetto but gets the job done. You also might want to put some masking tape on top of each button contact to avoid and short circuits in case they touch the PCB.
Now I can finally play 360 arcade games with responsive buttons. No more missed moves on Virtua Fighter 2. And best of all, I can use this stick on Mame for the PC
I kept to the original button colour coding to avoid confusion but you can change the colours to anything you'd like.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
OK, first up you'll need the following stuff.
Quality wire (I used the same stuff used in arcade cabinets)
Craft knife
Soldering Iron (30 watt would be best)
File or pliers
Phillips Screwdriver
Sanwa arcade buttons - size 30
OK, the first thing you need to do is unsolder the buttons from the main and daughter PCB. This isn't so hard but before un-soldering you'll need to push the holder clips of each button in so that you can pull them out when un-soldering. I just heated up the solder on the PCB and pulled out the buttons once the solder became liquefied. Below you can see the daughter PCB without the buttons.
Next you'll need to deal with the guide tabs on the actual joystick casing. You can either file these away or do as I did and just bend them back.
You must deal with these because the Sanwa buttons don't have any groove in them unlike the stock buttons that came with the stick. If these tabs are not removed then the new Sanwa buttons won't fit.
OK, the joystick case is ready. Now to deal with the buttons. The Sanwa buttons have some little bumps near the top of them. These must be cut away with a sharp craft knife. They're really easy to cut away but do be very careful. Again, these need to be removed otherwise the buttons won't fit the joystick's holes.
See, easy to cut away.
Now that all of your buttons are in the case it's time to start the really annoying job of wiring them up. Well, it was annoying for me. First you need to bend back the pins on each button. The Sanwa buttons are taller than the stock ones so you need to bend the pins to avoid them touching the PCB and to actually make them fit in the case.
For the wiring, try and keep the wire as short as possible to make fitting easier. I used about 5cm strips apart from the buttons under the main PCB. I had a hard time feeding the wire through the bottom of this PCB so I just soldered them on to the top. Looks a little more ghetto but gets the job done. You also might want to put some masking tape on top of each button contact to avoid and short circuits in case they touch the PCB.
Now I can finally play 360 arcade games with responsive buttons. No more missed moves on Virtua Fighter 2. And best of all, I can use this stick on Mame for the PC
I kept to the original button colour coding to avoid confusion but you can change the colours to anything you'd like.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
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