OK!!! Big Hurray!!! I finished my arcade stick and it rocks…
The below link is by far the most helpful link I found.
http://omgbbq.com/tfight360.htm
I would suggest testing each button yourself to make sure you know where the ground is. I bought a 2008 Game Stop/Madcatz wired gamepad and it differed from the schematic everyone was showing by a couple of buttons.
Regarding taking advantage of the common ground used in most 360 pads, your daisy chain can start with any arcade button and ends connecting to any of the ground nodes on the pcb.
Finally, I am not sure why more hasn’t been made of the l/r bumper buttons as they are a bit of a pain to solder and figure out. Leave the small black button attached and wire to these buttons from the bottom side of the pcb. It is alright that they don’t look like the other solder nodes on the pcb.
Don’t feel like you need to spend a lot of time or money on the box your sticks will be mounted in. I bought a nice wooden box($1.99) at a thrift store and drilled it out with 1’3/8"($13.50) bit. It’s lovely!
I was able to find local joystick parts on craigslist.
I want to say thanks to everybody who helped me with this. I also would like to encourage others to go ahead and make a stick rather than spending mad cash on something off of ebay or waiting months for retail to become available. I knew nothing about joysticks, electronics or solder Wednesday night when I decided to embark on this project.
Sincerely,
Titanic :lovin: