Disassembling and Customizing a Super Nintendo SNES Advantage Controller

A while back  I had the idea to give a custom paint job to Super Nintendo that I had bought off of eBay. I was then going to resell it as a one of a kind item. I also had a SNES Advantage controller lying around so I got the bright idea to customize that to match the Super Nintendo and sell it with Street Fighter 2. People love arcade sticks for fighting games. I had dreams of nice profits dancing around in my head until I finished my project to find many of the buttons on the controller don't work anymore! It seems that many of the switches and button although they look alike have very specific places that they can go. Also, the SNES Advantage is a very sensitive piece of equipment not designed to be opened up and tampered with that said this will be my second attempt to make it work.

This is the what the system looks like now:

Not too bad but like I said it doesn't work so I'm going walk you through my attempt to fix it. Some of the buttons and sliders do not respond I think the sliders have too much paint too slide effectively. So I'm taking them out and removing the paint and starting over.

Step #1

The first the we need to do is flip the controller over and pull off the rubber feet. Don't worry they should stick back on and if they don't you can always use a little glue to put them back on. Now that those are off use a Phillips head screw driver to unscrew the bottom metal plate. I like to use a zip lock bag to keep the screws in order.

Now it should look like this:

Step #2

Now we have the controller open we need to get it disassembled start first with arcade stick. The large ball at the top unscrews by hand so do that part first. Now unscrew the square plastic part on the inside now you can pull the spring and arcade stick out.

The controller can now lie flat making easier to do the rest of the job. Take of the plastic spacer off the bottom of the circuit board next. Next unscrew everything else and put the screws with the others. All the screws are the same so no need to worry about what screws go where. Pull the circuit board out by releasing the plastic hooks that hold it in place. It should look some thing like this:

Now is a good time to explain that if you plan on painting any of the buttons that each button has a specific place that it can fit in. Why did they do this? I have no idea. You would think it would not make any difference but apparently that's how they did it. So if your going to paint them plan in advance and maybe try to label them. Don't pull them all out thinking it won't make a difference. Also if your are going to paint them a color then you must first paint them white otherwise the colors will not match. I use Krylon Fusion Paint for Plastics seems to work well. Also they have used tiny metal connectors for the turbo sliders and some of the other controls. Do not lose these or bend and damage them in any way. Now I have  to repaint those buttons and put back together so look for part 2 to this blog. Anyway I thought I do a little schematic of all the button from the inside: