DIY PS4 Scuf Controller Mod

First if you don’t know what a Scuf controller is, check out their site:  ScufGaming.com  Basically they mod a controller by moving some buttons to the back.  This essentially allows you to press X, O, Triangle or Square without the need to remove your thumb from the aim stick.   Greatly speeding things up in games like Call of Duty, where there is lots of jumping, or if you use O for your knife button, not having to take your thumb off the stick to knife someone.

So, why would you make your own?

Well, I bought a scuf controller, and for me it sucks.  I know a lot of guys swear by them but I cannot, for the life of me invoke the buttons they put on the back, they are too stiff, even with the paddles.   Also the darn thing costs $225, or at least it cost me and that was the cheapest way to get all the options.   One thing it does have is remappable buttons, something that this mod doesn’t have.   A basic scuff which is what this mod gives you is $123.90 and a 7-11 day wait.

Of course they can also install options like taller sticks.  You want a taller stick on the right for more aiming range of motion.  That’s how I ordered mine and the fine folks at Scuf installed them backwards.  (Meaning my left one was taller).  They did offer to fix it but that would have been ~2 weeks to get fixed with round trip slow shipping so they can bite me.

Enter KontrolFreaks…   I simply put one on the right stick to fix my problem.

Update While the KontrolFreaks did sort of solve my problem, I eventually ended up opening up the controller and putting a stock stick on the left.  Tall on the left and super-tall on the right just didn’t work for me.   Also, those knuckle heads put a tamper proof screw in your PS4 when they mod it.  They don’t want you to take it apart, so you’ll need to hit that screw with a dremmel and make it a flat screw so you can remove it.   If you’re like me and savaging parts from other broken controllers you’ll have a replacement screw.

So if you already have a $60 PS4 controller for roughly $10 for KontrolFreaks (shop around), and $4 for a couple switches, about an hour of your time, you can have a scuf too.

Get ready, here we go.

First, watch a youtube video on how to take your controller apart, I’m not going to explain that here.   4 Screws (don’t lose them) and a plastic spudge thing and you’re in like flynn.   Separate the two halves, disconnect the charging connector (allowing you to take the back off the top).  Take the battery out and you’ll be set.

While you’re on Youtube watch a couple vids on doing this mod.  You better know how to solder, this is not the time or place to learn.  The solder points on this board are fickin small.  I’m good at it and it still caused me issues.

Get your stuff in order, these are the buttons I used from Radio Shack:

They are only $99 online at Radio Shack right now. Here: http://www.radioshack.com/spst-0-5-amp-momentary-switch-2-pack/2751571.html#

Second, locate the pads you need to scrub off the material to solder too.  I had this motherboard and used this picture from somewhere on the web.:

In my world, I’m adding buttons for X and O, so the orange and blue dots are the one’s I’ll scrape the green circuit board cover off and solder too.

I’ll drill holes in the bottom and put the switches in (removing the rumble packs).

I drilled the holes in the bottom shell, using my best guess at location.  I’d actually like them higher and will try that on the next mod.   I used a drill bit just a tad smaller than the switches and actually screwed the switches into the plastic.  Then hot glued them so they’d be reinforced.

Then carefully scraped my pads and soldered wires to the board in the right spots.  I had some leads from arduino projects so I used color coded wires.    You’ll pick up the grounds from the bottom.

Then before putting soldering the leads to the switches I temp installed it and plugged it in to my PC to test it.

Windows 7, type ‘usb con’ and choose ‘Set up a USB game Controller’, plug it into your PC and you can check the bottons.

Button Two lighting up is ‘X’.

My first shot had O shorted out so I had to remove it and resolder it and re-test.  It is a small PITA.

Once tested I soldered the wires to the switches, and reassembled it.

Re-tested and was good to go.

Here’s the finished product:

O Button:

Controller Front and Back:

This controller has a butt load of hours on it and is actually quite sloppy around the sticks.  I did the mod on this controller first as a test and it works like a champ.   I will soon be that drop-shot SOB’s that everyone hates because I can Drop w/o taking my hands off the controller, and don’t have to use tactical layout either so R3 is still melee.

Success.

Update

So after modding this one successfully I thought I’d do another one.  FAIL.  I bricked a $60 controller.  I still might be able to save it but right now X button doesn’t work at all.  These solder points are so small, it’s really hard to do.  I have found and ordered a couple of these from ebay: Remap Boards. If the link is bad, search for ‘PS4 Remap board’.  This is a nifty ribon cable like board that goes between the main board and daughter board, and hijacks the connections giving you a reasonable pad to solder too.   Also, most of my newer controllers have a JDM-020 main board and there’s no published pin out for those and it sure isn’t obvious.   So this is required.   YMMV…