Add Wireless Charging to PlayStation 3 Controller

This hack involves opening up your dualshock 3 and buying a part from Walmart for ~$30. Well, I warned you about the bad part, now – to business.

Step 1: Buying Supplies

You need to buy a wireless charging station by i-CON. I bought one for PS4 and Xbox one: it has two "adapters" included - one for ps4 and one for xbox one. Funny thing: I could not find the name of this charging station on Walmart website or anywhere else on the internet. So I took a picture for you. It costs about $30.

Secondly, you will need a soldering iron, some small screwdrivers, some colored wires, and white sticky tape!

Step 2: Opening Everything Up

So if you got the charging station from the previous step - there should be two adapters: one for ps4 and one for xbox one. In this example I gonna tear apart the xbox adapter since nobody loves xbox anyways (kidding, mkay).
Use flat screwdriver to pry the plastic shell apart. It is glued together. But be careful not to pinch the lithium battery inside. Those little things tend to catch fire if damaged, so be gentle.

Inside you will find three thingies: the coil, the charging board and a small battery. We will not use the battery so save it for the later experiments.

Oh, if you are going to store it - tape the positive wire to the battery so there will be no way it can touch negative wire, short circuit, catch fire, burn down your house and kill you. Safety first!

Solder battery and coil apart from the motherboard. In the middle of the coil there is a tiny magnet. Save it, we gonna use it later.

Important: do not bend or twist the coil. It should be round and look neat. If you damage it's shape - it will greatly affect the charging performance.

Step 3: Prepare the Controller

Attach the coil to the center of the back part of your dualshoch 3. Stick the magnet to the center of it so it will position on the charging station like a boss.

Next, you will need a sharp knife to pull away some plastic stuff from inside the controller. I know it sounds terrifying, but trust me, I'm a doctor! Well, if I could do it - everyone can! I disn't measure the thing wile cutting, but you can get the idea from the pictures. The reason for this procedure is to fit the charging board between the front plastic parts of the controller and the controller board. It will be sitting at the left since there is a contact array on the right. You'll understand what I mean when you open up the controller, allright?

The last picture in this step shows the result: charging board is sitting in its place. Make sure you face it components down. You know, those black little buildings and roads in nano-town - they should be facing down abd not touch anything on controller board.

Step 4: Solder Everything Up

TL,DR: Just solder the controller battery to where the small battery was hanging on the charging board, solder the charding board output terminals to the battery jack on the controller, solder the coil to the charging board. It's simple as it is.

I added neat little panels to ba able to disassemble the whole thing later. You can do the same if you have panels. If not - it still going to work just like mine, not a big deal.

Here I populated the panel with all the terminals from the charge board and put in into the left plastic "ring". Looks neat there!

I also soldered a wire to the battery connector on the controller board, so the whole charging board will be acting like a battery for the controller.

Then, I added 4 contact "beard" connector and soldered the coil to it. It is nessesary fir it to have 4 connectors since you are not going to plug the battery to the controller again, but to this beardy contacts. Look at the picture.

And yes, i had to tear the plastic cover away from the controller battery since it adds whole 2.5 mm to the thickness of battery, and since the battery feels fine without it - I threw it away. Maybe it is not necessary, I just wanted to be sure everything fits inside. In fact, after this whole manipulation there is some room left. Maybe for other mods, who knows?

POLARITY. Keep in mind that if you connect something in reversed polarity - it gonna catch up fire, explode, tear your head off and burn your neighbourhood. You don't want that so please please please take pictures of what you doing to know the polarity. These devices aren't designed to be opened by kiddos like you and me so there is no protection against reversed polarity in em. You flip the wires - it explodes. You use uncolored wires - it explodes! Well, probably it won't explode, but be carefull there, allrighty?

Step 5: Put It Together

Now, the easy part. You need to put everything together. I hope you didn't lose any screws.

You connect the battery to the beardy contact array, you stick the charging board in its place between the plastic cover and controller board, you place the panel connector in the plastic circle on the left and you connect the beardy connector and the panel together. Then, make sure everything is in its place, position the battery (maybe add some sticky tape or something), make sure that if you close the controller nothing is going to pierce the battery or tear the wires.

And - gently close the plastic covers. Screw everyting together. Shake it - if you hear rattling sound - open it up again and add some adhesive tape.

Switch the conteoller on. It should act normally and report it's battery status as usual. Then, place it on the charging station. It should report charging and station should turn red, telling you that there is a controller upon it that needs charging.

It's normal for coil to get a little bit hot - we're transferring energy wirelessly after all.
If it does not sit perfectly aligned on the station - you forgot that tiny magnet from step 2.

Let me know if you have any questions in comments.

Also, since my setup leaves some spare space (about 2.5 cm x 1.5 cm x 0.5 cm) I am accepting suggestions. What mod should I put there anyways? Comments!