NES PAD LED's

Intro: NES PAD LED's

So I've noticed that there's "alot" of people, talking about how they would add LED's to their NES pads, that lights when a button is pressed. Sadly noone seems to do anything about it, but one guy who just added LED's that was on constantly...

So I desided to something about it :-P

Attached: Small video of me demonstarting that it works...

STEP 1: Disassembly

Unsrew the casing, and take out the curcuit board.

STEP 2: Drilling

Deside where you want your LED's, and drill your holes. Use a drill bit that is just as wide as the LED's, so you can just press the LED's in the holes...

STEP 3: Fire Up Your Soldering Iron

1 - Solder a 100 ohm resistor, to the positive pin of the LED.

2 - Solder wires to the LED (pic 1)

3 - Add some hot shrink tubing, and shrink it.. (pic 2)

4 - Make as many as you need.

5 - Add the LED's to your pre-drilled holes, and bend down the pins. (pic 3)

6 - I've done a little "pin out" for for all the buttons. (pic 4)

7 - Solder the nedgative wire of the LED to wichever button you want. (pic 5)

8 - Now solder all the positive wires to the white wire (5V+) on the other side of the curcuit board, and bend them away, so you can close the NES PAD. (pic 6)


Notes:

Allthough the LED only will be lit for a short second, you need atleast an 100 ohm resistor. If you do not use a resistor the LED will draw too much current, and the NES PAD will not be able to send signals to the NES, thus your buttons will not work.

You can add LED's individually to all the buttons, but if you press more than 3 buttons at a time, they might use to much current, for the NES PAD to work properly..

STEP 4: And Now My Love, Your Finished

Hook that NES up, and game on :-P

Comments

[Stegopop]

First off I want to thank you for making an instructable that actually has a step by step process. You're the first I've seen on LEDs in Nes controllers that hasn't been lazy about that.

Next I have a question.

If I wanted to put an LED in my Nes controller so that it would light up when you turned the console on, would I need a resistor then as well?

I've pulled a LED out of an broken PS2 controller and thought I'd stick it in my Nes controller but I've never worked with a resistor.

Would it even be necessary in this case?

Thanks a bunch :)

[samuraiclinton]

LEDs to indicate momentary activation? Is that really necessary?

[Oi23]

No,but in my opinion,it's pretty cool.

[mrbob1000]

to make it so you can press more buttons and it will still work is if you use a stronger resistor so less current is used by the leds (or you could use a diffrent color so that it would use less current)

[denilsonsa]

Maybe if all LEDs share a common resistor, then they won't be able to draw too much current? I'm not very sure about this, can someone please confirm this? Of course, this has a side-effect of LEDs becoming dimmer when more buttons are pressed at same time.

[blackcorvo]

the problem with sharing one resistor to more than one LED is that not all LEDs are "perfect twins". they may not have the exact same intenal resistance.

that means they maybe would not light up with the same brightness if they shared the same resistor...

but you can try it, if you want. this kind of conficuration won't fry your LEDs or anything, and if you google a bit you'll find LED resistor calculators with single LED, parallel LEDs and even series LEDs options. you'll just need to put the source voltage, the voltage you want across the LED and the current going through it.

[Hedgerow]

you could mount a watch battery inside the controller for the leds. a decent battery should last quite a while and not be too impractical. there is plenty of room inside an nes controller to leave one in there.

[zmandudesk8]

motherboard, but same thing : ] this is way better than some other mods

[Brian Henderson]

The perfect project for an electronic hobbyist on a rainy day - I like it!

[Silas]

Well, for a whole day ? Naah, it only takes a couple of minutes.. :-P

[NetReaper]

no, i can take this project and take the entire day to finish

[trsuco]

What is the voltage on the resistor. It restricts 100 ohms and ??? volts.

[nevermind1534]

FIVE VOLTS. emember that it connects to the +5V connection on the board.

[Neodudeman]

Nice

[Silas]

Thanks guys.. As always if you like a project you see, please press the green plus button.. :-P

[zachninme]

It's now gray...

[TheCheese9921]

yes finaly, someone got of there butt and did it

[The3rror]

Its so simple but I love it