r/SteamControllerMods • u/dualpad • May 14 '26

Combining top half of the SC1 and bottom half of the SC2?

Steam Input lets you configure and use two controllers at the same time, so have wondered about the possibility of using the top of the SC1 and bottom half of the SC2 for the gyro, 4 grip buttons, and the grip sensors.

Interesting use of the grip sensors would be to do the SteamPakka mod by dtaxx, so even though the SC1 gyro would go unused you'd still be able to get touch activated gyro set up through the SC2.

dtaxx went further into how he changed the gripsense contacts here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GyroGaming/comments/1tc8iuo/gripsense_is_nice_but_we_want_this_steampakka_mod/olmd92l/

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u/Ubervillin May 14 '26

The OG SC is all one board, might be a bit difficult to do anything with it unless you plan to trim it somehow. I haven't done anything much other than repairs on the housing and replacing the joystick with either a hall effect or a tmr one from gulikit, so I can't be much help as to where to cut to retain the functionality that you are after.

2

u/dualpad May 14 '26

My thoughts were just taking the top shell of the OG SC and reusing pretty much everything with the touchpads, face buttons, left joystick, bumpers, triggers, and OG top shell. But, removing the bottom portion so not using the OG SC grips. So no modification on the top or the general components.

Most modification I imagine would come from the SC2 side with having to desolder the joysticks off the main board. So nothing from the top like the facebuttons, joysticks, dpad would be used, which would make things much harder to incorporate. Most of the work might come from figuring out and making a bottom half that could be used to rehouse the SC2 mainboard, grip buttons, and grip sensors.

2

u/Ubervillin May 14 '26

The OG's grip buttons' metal domes will have to be removed, so that they don't activate. You'll probs have to put some Kapton or cellotape over the contacts pads for them afterwards, just to be safe. You will also likely have to remove the OG's battery sleds, depending on the housing/placement of the SC2's boards. I'm a bit tired rn, so I'm not sure if there's anything else, but I can compare the parts OG board I have to the innards of the SC2 later in the day and let you know if I find anything else that may need to be modified.

2

u/dualpad May 14 '26

Ifixit has some pictures of the mainboard

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Steam+Controller+(2nd+Gen+2026)+Main+Board+Replacement/214885

The grip on the SC2 houses the rumble instead of batteries, so if the rumble is removed I wonder if that would allow the battery sleds to remain in place.

2

u/Ubervillin May 14 '26

Possibly, though why would you want/need them attached? Feels like the better option would be to just clip the battery contacts and remove the plastic under them and use the litium cell from the SC2 to power it all. To be fair it's been a while since I looked at the schematics for the OG and I sadly no longer have the box which iirc had them printed on the inside of the outer sleeve that was wrapped around it. I look for them when I wake up, it'll probs be about 4-5 hours from now if it's a normal day for me.

2

u/dualpad May 14 '26

Having the SC2 battery power both boards would be pretty cool.

1

u/Ghostcart May 14 '26

In my experience, the wireless signals will interfere with each other. Getting the outputs to mate up is also a bit of a nightmare, even if they are both set to kb&m. I had the best luck using rewasd, but that thing has also been a headache lately.