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With the 360 coming soon we here at Llamma are quite excited and so far we have only a 360 controller, but we are making the most of it. After a 360 controller mod, and a general disassembly tutorial, we have gotten pretty familiar with this new controller. Now we are taking an in-depth look at the internals and comparing them with the original s-type side by side. Differences: Size- its a little smaller
Weight- a little lighter White and Black buttons gone Left and Right Buttons added, above each of the normal left and right triggers (labeled LT and RT) there are two new buttons labeled LB and RB, notice they are conveniently labeled so when you cannot remember right from left you can simply rotate the face of the controller toward yourself and they are "right side up"! So for those of us challenged Llamma's out there it will be a bit easier to er remember. Also of note the the LB and RB buttons are on/off micro switches where the previous B/W were graduated buttons, the graduated function was never used in those buttons in any game to my knowledge.
ABXY Buttons- The overall button design is unchanged different shape and size for the new controller but still include the 3-D effect ABXY under the clear tinted plastic. Button Performance has changed as we can see here in the windows software A is now button 1 which is on/off, the old controllers had ABXY buttons that were graduated, light press registered as a light press and hard as hard. Important for hoping to a ledge as apposed to leaping a gap. This is a fundamental change that will affect game play. Think gas pedal, graduated the harder pressed the faster you go the new buttons are no, or full throttle.
This change can further be confirmed by comparing the circuit boards. The circle split in the middle has been used on the S-type and large controllers for all on off buttons like the D-pad. Strangely the D-pad now has the same sensor layout as a variable button. D-pads have always been on/off (this can also be confirmed in the software) so it makes you wonder if it was a "woops, we put them in the wrong spot" and we will see an updated version coming or this was all part of the master plan. Also notice the white leg coming off the thumbstick pickups on the 360, both are orientated the same. The S-Type the thumbsticks are 180 degrees off of each other. This means doing a southpaw mod on the 360 controller will be much easier only 6 traces to cut and 6 wires to run as compared to the original Xbox controller southpaw mod with 18 traces and wires. I will be doing a southpaw mod on the 360 controller soon since that's all the 360 material we can get our hands on for now.
Triggers - as expected the 360 trigger is a bit smaller. And sports a new cantilever design with different spring placement same variable resistor for sensing. The trigger pull seems a bit lighter on the 360 controller than on the s-type. I think the extra pivot was required to bring the trigger past the edge of the circuit board so it could be reasonably positioned next to the new LB and RB buttons while allowing the variable resistor to be placed some distance from the edge of the circuit board.. It seems that there are more moving parts and that is usually a bad thing for reliability. Time will tell, Microsoft has always had superb design in all their input devices I expect the 360 controller is no exception
Similarities: Thumb sticks, identical part for the pickups (the sliver boxes in this photo). The sticks themselves are the same but shorter. This means we can use old school black ones if we are up for a little sanding. I used some 220 grit sandpaper on a flat surface and it came out nice.
D-pad almost identical, same part but an addition of an extra key tab. This means you can still use an old black one from an S-type in the 360 controller if you wanted to.
Rumble motors It looks like for the 360 Microsoft did away with the smaller motor for the smaller weight and just went with two of the larger size motors for the 360. Both motors from the 360 and the large one from the s-type are identical. -Llamma
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