I’m going to be starting off with about $80 to spend. I’m hoping I can get a norrisarcadesticks.com case for $60 and get a little bit more cash and buy a board aswell.
I think I can get the wiring and button placement, ect. down decently. But can somebody link me to a solder-less 360 board please?
They don’t exist. You’ll have to stick with a proper 360 controller and solder wires to it. The Madcatz one’s are the easiest to work with.
What buttons will you be looking to get? Getting quality buttons and joystick in the remaining $20 is not possible.
If you cannot solder, there are people offering presoldered boards. Also check the trading outlet.
Very tight budget, especially considering the cost of buttons and joystick if you need to purchase them. NAS’s case’s are of top quality, and as of late there is a huge demand for them. They’re latest restock ran out within a few seconds, and they arent making any commitments for another one due to complaints and negativity from people unable to snatch one. So maybe you should get a backup plan on the case (I’ll be trying again next re-stock though just incase).
Solder-less 360 boards dont exist as stated and Im sure somebody else will be able to clear this up in a bit more depth, but Microsoft are really touchy about 3rd party devices and as such I cant see one ever existing, if not for a while. Your best bet is to buy a cheap pad and just solder to it. I bought a official wired controller and just finished soldering to it there, works great and the buttons are really easy to solder to once you have scratched away all the gray covering, but the D-pad I had a few problems so if you buy one of those I suggest soldering to the back of the PCB for the D-Pad. I was only using a 10 soldering iron though.
Soldering is really easier than it looks. And if you mess up, it’s reversable.
Yah I’ve never soldered before, but it doesn’t really look that scary. Not like you’re messing with electricity or anything.
Or incredible heat.
For your budget I would go the SE stick route. Even if you do get a NAS case (very unlikely) you still have to pay for primer/stain/paint/clear coat. As for a solderless 360 control board, the only way to go is to buy a hacked controller from someone like nareg (www.gamingnow.net). Soldering is pretty easy, just look up a youtube video on how to solder and you’ll be soldering like a pro in no time. You could buy a soldering iron+solder+desoldering braid+a controller for the price of a prehacked controller. With the SE stick just glue down the washer and it is playable, and you have the option to upgrade to a sanwa parts once you get more money.
Yeah, at $80, I think the only way you can get a full stick with full Sanwa parts would be a Tupperware or shoebox mod. Either that, or you get really lucky and find an old stick for cheap that you can mod. (like an Agetec stick, old Hori’s, etc.).
Buying an SE and upgrading it later seems to be the best option, though. You stick to your $80 budget, and when you get more money, you can easily upgrade to Sanwa/Seimitsu parts.
Since I think you’re in the US, you have quite a lot of options. Us Canadians haven’t even seen a glimpse of the SE sticks.
For a $80 budget, you don’t much room to work with. You might be able to get a joystick from Korea or China for that price. Check out this thread:
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=181454
I’m not sure you can find one for the xbox360 that is available, but maybe someone who can read chinese can help you out.
$80 isn’t bad at all, you just have to carefully select your parts and hunt around a bit. Just keep in mind that about $40 is already needed for the stick and buttons, and to get that price you’ll need to wait until the demand settles down.
Find a dirt cheap xbox pad used, and buy an older arcade stick on ebay, craigslist or amazon for the shell.
To meet your budget you’re going to have to learn to do a few things yourself since you can’t afford labor.
I’m thinking a used xbox360 pad + materials to hack it + shell will already get you to $70+. Getting Sanwa parts (if that’s your priority) seems to be pretty much out of the question.
I think that’s why some full made joysticks are starting at $150+… the parts really aren’t that cheap if you want the arcade quality parts, unfortunately. These are imported parts from Japan, so there’s a premium for imported goods.
Now if HAPP USA or another company got on board to make Japanese quality/style sticks in the US, that would change everything.
Well, theres been an update to my budget.
Instead of the original $80, my friend is throwing me $100 on top of that and I might be able to get some cash from various jobs around the house.
This puts me up to $180 for my custom…You guys think its do-able?
Much more realistic. Good luck with it, you hopefully shouldnt need that much but just remember 9 times out of 10 you get what you pay for, and if you want the best you’ll have to fork out 
Alright, thanks for the encouragement…hopefully after a few sticks or so I can start selling customs.
Your budget may not be realistic.
However, if you want a board but do NOT want to solder, you cannot spend your money any better than to hire zombie qpt to hack a board for you.
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=136501
Pics of the job he did for me:
http://forums.shoryuken.com/showpost.php?p=6320754&postcount=65
For that much you can buy a TE stick. They’ve been spotted in the wild.
Wow, comparing that to the soldering job I just finished on my pad I may as well have went at mine with a axe. I really need to get myself some decent tools instead of the crap I have now. Will be referring anybody who doesnt want to do soldering to Zombie after seeing those.
If you need a cheap case I’m selling a Hori Ex2 case with stock Hori joystick for only $30.00 shipped.
Thank you for reffering me to him
I will most likely be tlaking to zombie about the PCB and talking to a friend of mines dad about any wood he has lying around, for all i know he would also be willing to cut it for me aswell.