If you are like me you get really excited when you find two Nintendo controllers at the Salvation Army. One was priced at $1.00 and the other at $.37 (i didn’t fight the pricing). Of course, they get home and meanwhile occupy a part of my brain that is like a broken stove. There is this back burner that is constantly on. Ideas get on there and just simmer away. So the idea for one of the controllers was to make it a card reader that i can plug my sd or compact flash cards into to transfer files. Sunday morning i came up with my idea for the second one… make it a mouse.
What you’ll need for this project:
A Nintendo controller
A optical mouse
A Dremel tool
Small screwdrivers
Super glue
A hot glue gun
Wire cutters
A soldering gun and solder for electronics
Two (if you do it right) replacement buttons
Four or five hours
First open the donor and recipient up and dremel out some space for the guts (the mouse i used was perfect. I just had to leave out the scroll wheel.) Clean up the mystery child’s coagulated sweat with a powerful cleaning product.
Aw heck, i don’t have the patience for a complete tutorial - i just spent the better part of the day working on it. Here’s the narrative… Hack and cut. make the guts fit. Open a hole for the sensor to shine through on the bottom. Glue the sensor’s clear plastic reflector thing down in place. Remove the buttons from the mouse circuit board carefully. Solder spare wire (i used telephone wire but you could use the wire from the Nintendo controller) onto the board so that you can use the A button as your left click and the B button as your right. Solder carefully. Attach the replacement buttons. Mine were from a dead stereo. Yes, i keep dead stereo electronics around. You should see the collections of crap i have. I had to bend some sort of barrel thing on the circuit board in order for the case to fit. One of the contacts pulled out of the board (as i had expected) and i soldered an extension for it. I cut a piece of the nintendo controller off to fit behind the 4 way rocker so it would feel like it iriginally did. The start and select buttons didn’t have enough space behind them to allow that. I hot glued the hollow part of the A and B buttons so they would contact the buttons i had put behind them. I hot glued the mouse board and the replacement buttons in place once that was all calculated out. I wrapped the cord for the mouse around the posts that prevent the cord from being pulled out. I reassembled and tested and had to take it apart and carve out some hot glue because the A or “left” button wouldn’t click. Here are some pictures…
On the top side the only apparent difference is that the cord is grey and it has a usb plug at the end. The bottom side had the opening for the sensor. The only thing i would do differently is to cover the inside a little better - there are a few points that red light penetrates the sticker on the top of the controller because the plastic case has holes drilled in it. I considered putting the scroll wheel in because i really prefer my mice with them. It could be done fairly easily but i wanted to keep the form factor. The wheel would have come out right between the red buttons and the “Nintendo” logo. Using the controller you put your palm over the 4 way control and your index finger on the A button. I have been using the novelty mouse ever since finishing it six hours ago.
This page has been featured on the below sites - please don’t resubmit it.
Also featured in The Crafter Culture Handbook by AmySpencer.
Related Posts
- A Ryan McFarland update
- My first .edu incoming link
- I’s dotted
- Chasing down the links you deserve
- Solder and adhesives
Tiffany on 
Cena on 
cece on 
zieak on 
August 8th, 2005 at 2:49 pm
you make the awesomest crafts ever. seriously… this is so cool.
August 9th, 2005 at 2:01 am
Nice Idea!! I’m so going to make one!
August 9th, 2005 at 3:44 pm
It would have been pretty cool if you setup the down and up buttons on the d-pad to act as the left and right mouse buttons respectively. That way you could rig up the scroll wheel to the left and right buttons.
August 9th, 2005 at 5:50 pm
I love it. You should try marketing these on eBay. You could make some nice money.
August 9th, 2005 at 5:52 pm
Omg nice… Probs 2 u!
August 9th, 2005 at 7:41 pm
Oh, I am so making one of these.
August 10th, 2005 at 2:57 am
Could you give directions for the other one
August 10th, 2005 at 3:53 am
I was thinking about making it tonight…
August 10th, 2005 at 7:13 am
awesome idea!
August 10th, 2005 at 7:17 pm
Very funny, I want the same !
August 10th, 2005 at 9:54 pm
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Select, Start. NESMouse ftw. You win 30 internets!!1
August 10th, 2005 at 10:05 pm
contra!
August 10th, 2005 at 10:44 pm
didn’t that tear someone’s spine out in Mortal Kombat?
August 10th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
now, if you could make the d-pad function for up/down left/right scrolling… and also use it as a game controller… wow, i need one of those.
August 12th, 2005 at 2:38 pm
awwwww man i wish i still had my nes
cause the nes broke and i could use the controllers
August 15th, 2005 at 12:01 am
Why not use the 4-way controller instead? left and right for left and right button, up and down for scrolling. I have no idea how easy it’s to fix thought
August 15th, 2005 at 3:57 am
all hail you, the modding king!
August 16th, 2005 at 12:44 am
Why? Not very ergonomic either. Now if you turn it into a keyboard that will let me type A and B, then it might be useful.
August 16th, 2005 at 5:50 pm
I’m not sure why everyone thinks this is so awesome. Creative, yes. Useful, no.
August 16th, 2005 at 6:36 pm
1. not everyone thinks it is awesome. 2. it is every bit as useful as any two button mouse. 3. pickles should be cradled - not slung.
August 16th, 2005 at 6:49 pm
I have a bunch of old controllers and assorted other parts for old video games. anybody want them? free, you pay shipping. let me know. email me and i will tell you what i have.
August 26th, 2005 at 8:34 pm
I tried to make my own, it looks stupid but heres a couple pictures of the outside. I messed up the soldering so both A and B buttons are left click, but I use a mac anyway so ctrl click is no bother, anyway THANK YOU for the helpful tips on building it. I love the super hero wreath. Keep up the amazing work!
August 27th, 2005 at 3:14 pm
“Using the controller you put your palm over the 4 way control and your index finger on the A button. ” you must be left handed?
August 27th, 2005 at 8:16 pm
Nope - the controller sits sort of diagonal in your hand. It isn’t the most intuitive layout but it was the best i could think of given the button placement.
September 3rd, 2005 at 2:01 pm
Woah. This is great. I’m gonna go check out the other stuff =P
September 5th, 2005 at 10:01 pm
Very cool, but… *RSIed to death*
September 9th, 2005 at 1:51 am
not verry “usefull” , but really funny
September 13th, 2005 at 1:13 am
Very cool indeed. Not sure about the ergonomics but we’ll pass this one on to our readers. Thanks for being creative and making the world a cooler place!
October 18th, 2005 at 8:34 pm
Oooooooo cool idea!
October 20th, 2005 at 4:16 am
Your crafts a freakin sweet. keep them comming
January 21st, 2006 at 1:48 am
Hehe, sweet idea. I never realized you could do so many things with NES controllers
April 4th, 2006 at 11:13 am
Here’s a nifty idea, somehow put a touchpad on the back so you can hold it right.
April 20th, 2006 at 11:21 pm
Instead of using a scroll wheel, would it have been possible to map the wheel to the dpad
April 21st, 2006 at 10:30 pm
Just spent the afternoon making one, and it’s sweet! Please post instructions for a card reader thing, I still have two controllers left. I’m blogging this. Click my link.
January 24th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
[…] 2. Mouse It’s a little wide, but it does the job. Whoever thought of this idea is a genius. It’s nice to take advantage of the two NES buttons. […]
March 20th, 2007 at 6:44 am
[…] do you use? + Some fun links: turn your NES controller into a USB Joystick, Remote Control, Optical Mouse, Mp3 Player or […]
April 21st, 2007 at 5:26 pm
What do you scroll with? or better yet what did you do witht he scroller
April 21st, 2007 at 9:39 pm
I actually just cut the scroll pieces out if i remember correctly.
May 26th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Ummm, how do you connect the circuit boards so that a is left click and b is right click?
May 26th, 2007 at 9:12 am
In this picture you can see the buttons that i soldered into place under where the A and B buttons fall… http://www.imagereward.com/images2/public/2007/77/21//nintendo-mouse03.jpg
May 26th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, now i get it. Thanks, im gonna build one tonight.
But i had an idea, could you solder a wire onto the snes circuit board (the part where all the button stuff goes to) to the mouse circuit board instead?
June 4th, 2007 at 9:10 am
you should keep making those and sell them on ebay or something. people would pay alot for one of those. i’m really interested.
July 22nd, 2007 at 4:16 am
[…] Seems that the original Nintendo controllers have no shortage of usages. Zieak has created a mouse that uses the controller as a case. […]
July 22nd, 2007 at 3:42 pm
[…] Informações e fotos disponíveis no blog do Zieak. […]
July 22nd, 2007 at 5:53 pm
nes controller mouse mod…
It seems like just about once a week, I come across somebody who’s comes up with a clever new use for a classic Nintendo Entertainment System gamepad.
This time, an industrious hacker has taken the guts of an optical mouse and slapped them insid…
July 24th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
[…] to keep your hand on all day, but come on! It's an NES controller! How can you resist? [Product Page via Technabob] Read the complete post at […]
July 24th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
[…] [Product Page via Technabob] […]
July 24th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
[…] http://www.zieak.com/2005/08/08/nintendo-mouse/ […]
July 24th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
[…] See more pictures and the whole story here. […]
July 25th, 2007 at 6:16 am
[…] modificações são realmente coisas incríveis! Este cidadão, por exemplo, modificou seu controle de NES para servir de mouse óptico. E o resultado ficou […]
July 25th, 2007 at 6:34 am
[…] who are technically challenged as the product looks nice, but building it is actually simple. Click here to see the […]
July 26th, 2007 at 3:16 am
[…] [source] […]
July 26th, 2007 at 3:29 am
That’s bloody brilliant ! =P now if only you could add a scroll button. But that would ruin the retro look
July 27th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
[…] Learn how now! […]
July 27th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
[…] to keep your hand on all day, but come on! It’s an NES controller! How can you resist? [Product Page via […]
July 31st, 2007 at 9:07 pm
[…] maybe I could build a new NES-inspired computer, complete with an NES controller mouse and card reader, and maybe even a cartridge hard […]
August 1st, 2007 at 10:09 am
[…] maybe I could build a new NES-inspired computer, complete with an NES controller mouse and card reader, and maybe even a cartridge hard […]
August 6th, 2007 at 8:09 am
[…] Comando NES, transformado em rato óptico Quem tiver uma Nintendo NES parada em casa, com um comando a mais, pode fazer algo realmente Geek. Transformar o vosso comando num rato óptico. Manual aqui. […]
August 10th, 2007 at 9:42 am
wow!!!! i like the idea
!!!!!!!!!!!
August 10th, 2007 at 10:00 am
[…] Product Page via Geekologie […]
August 10th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
[…] Product Page via Geekologie […]
August 15th, 2007 at 5:53 am
I dont get the thing with replacement button? Why do you need them?
August 21st, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Im going to do that but probably use a wireless mouse to create a wireless but this will go perfect with my computer because my computer is entirely super mario bros. Lol but i think it would be better or if i could make a computer remote cuz i am constantly watching movies on my computer
August 27th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
i wanna hack QUAKE 3 online, a bathroom mirror, lcd screen, an electric tooth brush, and a mini web cam to make the worlds first in-mouth first person shooter, imagine 50 kids in russia high scoring your teeth into blinding whiteness.
September 7th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
[…] 7th, 2007 Can we give this guy the Nobel Peace Price? He took apart an optical laser mouse and reinstalled it inside a NES controller. If you could see […]
September 10th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
dude im a runescape person i could use to pk it would be so much easier
October 8th, 2007 at 8:33 am
i just made mine from a SNES. pretty sweet. I used the now empty mouse and an old flash drive and I now have a SNES mouse and a mouse flash drive.
Thanks for the inspiration
December 28th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
[…] there anything the awesome NES controller can’t do? This awesome little hack project can be done with a cheap old mouse and an old NES controller. I wonder what else you could stuff in […]
May 3rd, 2008 at 5:30 pm
You rock!!!(I want to make one for myself^^)