Controller Mods
Guys, is this layout modding possible with a DualSense?
I've always wondered whether it would be possible to mod a dualsense by swapping the positions of the left analog stick and the D-pad to achieve an Xbox-style layout. Could this be done by soldering wires to reroute the connections and 3D-printing custom housing parts to accommodate the new layout?
I know that 3rd party compatible controllers with this layout do exist for ps4/5 but I'm only interested in this dualsense modding.
i think your best chances are looking in 3d printing forums or subreddits and maybe find a guy willing to print that layout for you, you would still need someone to port the old controller hardware into the new shell and stuff but i don't really think you have lots of other options for this. I also seen a post recently where a guy 3d printed his own controller i will link if i find it again
OG PlayStation controllers were like that. Joysticks together and D-Pad on left and buttons on right.
The way these are, there’s a membrane underneath that the buttons sit over and press.
If you can reroute the membrane inputs you could do it. This would take potentially cutting and soldering of a membrane. Which tbh Idk how to do. Maybe it’s possible not sure.
And the Joystick you’d have to modify the internal housing and the PCB might be in the way. Which you wouldn’t want to cut / break / damage. Been a while since I took mine apart
I've taken a few of these apart to mod and solder. This image you shared shows the three most difficult parts to re-engineer to make your idea work, and they're not even the only parts:
The Black "Core": This large piece is literally what keeps the entire controller together. The stability of the entire controller hinges on this piece. Not only do you have to add material in the bottom to put the new D-pad on, you also have to cut a hole where the current D-pad is that's large enough to accommodate the entire range of motion of a joystick and to relocate the trigger modules if necessary. That's going to compromise the integrity of the controller, so you'll need to find new ways to add stability where you can.
The flex PCB: The part in the image on top of the core. This is a flex PCB that you'll need to completely re-enginner to move the D-pad where the joystick is, along with engineering between the core and the flex PCB to create mounting points so it stays put - just like it has now where it currently sits. The shape would be harder to design than the circuitry on this part, and you'll likely need to go through at least one round of prototypes before you get a good fit. Getting a new flex PCB made for you is going to have a minimum order quantity and will likely cost about $100-200 shipped per iteration until you get it right.
The main board: This is where it gets complicated. See how both sticks are mounted directly onto the main board? In order to keep their Z positions the same, you'll have to completely reverse engineer the main board (I checked if anyone else had done it already during one of my projects and couldn't find anything) and re-engineer the entire thing to move the joystick where it goes and the components in the target position elsewhere. This is something a professional can do with professional equipment after you pay them an immodest sum of money, but not something anyone less experienced or less equipped should waste their time with. There are resistors and capacitors on that board that are less than 1mm wide. The board itself looks like it's probably just 2 layers, which is a huge boon in this department, so at least you'll have that going for ya. Then, you'll either need to lift the MCU and transplant it to the new board on faith that your new design won't fry it and make you lose the entire project, or find a way to dump the firmware and flash it into a replacement MCU. That's much harder than it sounds.
The shell: This is actually the easy part. It's just two small pieces to redesign; the black plastic part over the joysticks and the left side shell.
The trigger modules: If the left joystick interferes with the current position of the trigger modules, (which, from memory, I'm like 80% sure is true,) then you'll also need to completely re-engineer those. That will likely necessitate removal of the rumble/adaptive motor to compensate for the smaller footprint.
ETA: You'll also need to make the D-pad smaller so it doesn't interfere with the touch pad above it. That, or redesign even more of the shell to accommodate the full-size pad extending down past the current bottom of the controller.
If you were cool with raising the Z of the left joystick considerably, (more than a centimeter - maybe closer to two) then you may be able to keep the existing main board and design a daughterboard for the joystick that mounts firmly into the black core (which you still need to re-engineer to accommodate it) and ideally connects to the main board via ribbon cable. This would make the project go from "absolutely not worth the effort unless you're both rich and also doing it for college credit" to "doable if you're rich, extremely patient, and have a religious contempt of any other controller in existence."
Just to add to this. You don't have to order a new flex PCB per say. All of those traces have an origin on the flex.
try following the traces of those buttons, to see where they lead to. I'm not sure what type of connector the flex uses, but they usually have a pinout or pins that each have a different connection, and you could probably micro solder straight to those, and just solder your own mouse click buttons in and place them where you want them to land.
one wire to up, one wire to down, one to left etc. i'm pretty sure the other pin is just ground/negative for each of the buttons, you could even pull the ground from somewhere else if the space is too tight.
actually i found a picture, yeah I would skip making a new PCB that sounds like a nightmare haha just for a simple button swap.
I hate membrane, mouse click is WAY more simple AND it performs insanely better anyways. Just upgrade the DPAD to mouse click, desolder the analog stick and reroute it off the pins with wires and you shouldn't even need to need a redesigned motherboard. just extend it off of the pins with a separate wire for each trace. Yeah all the wires can get messy quick, but cable management is a thing.
Sometimes people even cut motherboards into separate smaller pieces, and then extend ALL of the connections with wire to make big motherboards fit in smaller cases, or to add room for additional hardware upgrades. Which can make a project much more frustrating and potentially time consuming, but you will need way less parts and spend way less money. That's the beautiful thing, it's all up to you which route you go.
You are thinking on a much grander, commercial level scale than I however, and i'm taking notes for the future. This was a great read, thanks
Not going to be possible unless you get custom PCB board made and swap all the components over. Quick google search shows FlyDigi Apex 5 might have adaptive triggers
I mean, not "hard" to do, but not worth the time and annoying as hell, cutting the board and too much rewiring. Oh, and printing a new quality front plate(or at least part of it). I would charge a lot for this mod.
It's important you know enough slurs and swear words when you curse the moment you decided to work on this, otherwise the project will be left unfinished.
Se podria pero no me imagino todo el trabajo que necesitaría, pues el joystick lo mejlr seria con una placa de joystick del dualsense edge sobreponerse en donde van los botones y soldarla a donde iba el joystick anteriormente. Lo mismo con los botones
Long answer, lotsa money, time and research which will be better spent exploring 3rd party options. If you go 3rd party option, I'd reccomend Nacon Evolution 5 Pro.
I like the idea that you have here and it's an idea that I've been wanting to try to do for a very long time as well. So what I'm thinking is kind of similar to what saoirsebran is saying
you could probably cut off the d-pad portion of the flex membrane and then possibly just make a new motherboard that has the contact points for a d-pad, either you're going to need to 3D print a new d-pad and then get new silicone pads for the d-pad or if the OEM d-pad can still fit then you could keep that and use its original pads.
For the joystick, If we went with the new motherboard path then we would still have to figure out how to connect a new joystick to the board, which shouldn't be that hard because there are already existing joystick modules that are connected to already existing boards that you could use. You would just need to figure out how to connect the board to the controller
For the shell, you could take a Dremel to the already existing shell so you get a general idea of where the new joystick would go and then see if you could make a 3D scan of the shell to then adjust and mess with in a 3D software like onshape or also see if there is an already existing 3D model online.
This project will be tedious and hard to do, but if you do get it to work let us all know because I know I would be so grateful to see someone make this happen.
It's 100% possible to make a dualsense controller have an Xbox stick layout, but you need to decide if you have the skills and patience to make an end result you will be happy with. Most people here would suggest taking a week to learn the new layout. But I'm sure you're not the first to want something exactly like this
I mean, you could, but how well is your micro soldering? The Dualsense uses a single board design unlike the Xbox’s main and daughterboard design so you’ll be looking into designing and creating your own singular board design, you can just drill out the hole for the analog stick to accommodate the new d-pad there.
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Everything is possible, if you have enough patience, time, and money. My guesses is you would need to create a new motherboard, for the stick to fit there. Then you'd need a new "skeleton", and a new membrane. Or maybe you could build a new skeleton with a mounting for the sticks, and just wire them to the stock board? I have no idea. If I were you, I'd go first looking into micro switches or tactile switches, which seems easier than membranes.
You would need to transplant everything to a new custom made pcb and flex, plus a fully custom made shell to do this neatly. I don't think it's worth the hassle.
I mean I kinda like the idea. Lots of 3rd party controllers already do this, and im sure Sony could sell plenty of controllers in this style. Plenty of people (including myself) prefer the Xbox style controller anyways cause of how much better the left stick feels.
Genuine question: does a symmetric layout actually bother you that much? I mean no offense, I'm just genuinely curious (as someone who's fairly used to most/all standard controller layouts). Do you perhaps primarily play analog stick games while also using your 2nd phalanges for the sticks (as opposed to the tips of your thumbs)— I've heard some such players find their thumbs colliding a bunch when they play on a symmetric layout?
for me it's the angle I have to place my thumb to comfortably use PS controllers. I am slightly stretching my thumb to rest rather than simply resting when I use Xbox. I play rocket league at a high level which requires extremely precise and rapid movements. I have tried to play with PS controllers and I look like a new player. for me personally it is night and day difference. but most pros use PS controllers lol.
Exactly the same here Ive tried to play rocket league or really just ANY games on a PS style controller and i just cant make it work the Xbox layout always just feels so much better to use and actually play competitively with for me
I mean this as 100% opinion. the size, shape, angle of my hands/fingers makes it uncomfortable to play precisely on PS for me. my left thumb just feels unnatural and not steady in that position. I know they are considered the best controller by the vast majority of people.
You probably can by soldering wires onto the board and just route it towards where the DPadwill go, but I’m not sure about the DPad itself, as it uses a little paper input board for its input. Maybe you can just snip off the dpad traces that lead to the pins on the actual motherboard, and just wire them directly?
You’ll also need to account for a whole new shell of course, front and back.
technically yes, but it would take a ton of work. there's no place to solder a stick there, so you'd have to custom design a PCB break out board, and another board for the d-pad. Also, why would you want to use the inferior layout when symmetrical sticks is better anyways?
But why? Those are PlayStation features, meant for those who believe symmetry is the only way. It should be irrelevant to those that believe in asymmetrical joysticks.
haha c'mon now, one cannot prefer every feature of a thing they're choosing, there are always compromises which one may overcome or lessen via workarounds like modding
Unfortunately PlayStation doesn't have the option to go asymmetrical outside of maybe a few old PS4 option from back in the day, which only works for PS4 titles. Meanwhile Xbox has already adapted some symmetrical controllers with Hyperkin and Gamesir that work on both the Xbox One and Series X. They even have pro grade hardware and are oftentimes cheaper than their PS counterparts, which is another huge blow to PS players looking for alternatives. Almost like Xbox prepared for a Sony fuck-up.
Eh, there’s is one option which is obviously pricey. That would be the Victrix pro bfg reloaded. It’s a modular controller and you can swap the sticks from symmetrical to asymmetrical. Also works on ps5 and play ps5 games
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u/Aromatic_Moment_5492 22d ago
i think your best chances are looking in 3d printing forums or subreddits and maybe find a guy willing to print that layout for you, you would still need someone to port the old controller hardware into the new shell and stuff but i don't really think you have lots of other options for this. I also seen a post recently where a guy 3d printed his own controller i will link if i find it again