Ever felt that your gamepad is kinda boring, or you had a great idea for a game controller?
Nowadays there're tons of cool gamepads, joysticks and others like the drums or guitar type controllers, but if you want something unique, someting that you made, than this Instructable might be of some help to you!

Step 1: Stuff You'll Need

Well, for this basic project you'll need a:

-cheap USB gamepad (any kind will do)
-soldering iron
-some wire
-a connector that has at least n+1 contacts/pins, where "n" is the number of buttons on your gamepad (male or female, depending on your choice)
-some skill in soldering SMT

Step 2: Get to It!

Take the controller apart, and look for the button contacts, and trace their path to the IC.
Find the common path, that connects all the buttons to each other, as you'll need this first!

My Genius MaxFire G-08XU is a 2-axis 8-button gamepad, wich after the make-over will give me the same configuration, or 12 freely usable buttons!

Step 3: Making the Soldering Points

Now to make the solder points you have to find a place for them somewhere along the path of the buttons' contacts.
After you have the place for it, use something to scrape off the green soldering mask from the copper film, but be careful not to scrape it off the other paths, or else you'll find yourself shorting them.

I didn't have to make a solder point for the common path, because there was already an unused original common point on the PCB, and the same goes for the shoulder buttons! (5-8)

Step 4: Soldering

Now, here's the fun part. Solder the wires to the points you made so they won't be in the way of the rubber of the buttons.

I used IDE wires, because I have a tonne of them, they're easy to use, and they're sturdier than they look!

Step 5: The Connector

We're almost done with our little adapter addon.
Here I drilled a hole on the housing of the gamepad, run the wires throughit, and soldered them to my connector, paying attention to the one that connects to the common path, which I soldered to the connectors #1 pin!

I used a 25 pin d-sub male connector (I used the top line's 13 pin (n+1, 12 button + common), only because I havel a buncha females, to conbnect it to, after I made my own controllers!

After finishing, and closing up the controller, I tested the connections, by hooking it up tho my PC, and shorting all the pins one by one to the #1 pin!

(And yes, the controller still works with the original buttons as well)

Step 6: That Is All...for Now

All you need now is to make a controller, and plug it in your newly made adapter.
You might add fancy stuff, like a switch to the common wire to turn the adapter on/off, placing the connector inside the housing etc...

This is my first Instructable, so go easy on me please, and comment! Comment if you have a question, comment if you find a mistake, and comment if you just feel like it!

Have fun building!