This is really cool, this would be great to do to a steam deck with a broken motherboard
edit: got to the price part, oof
It's using a whole bunch of Steam Deck spare parts bought from iFixit, and a few after market upgrades like hall effect sticks and an extremerate shell replacement. Buying a single trigger (just the plastic R2/L2 trigger, mind you) for $20 to fix a broken $500 Deck isn't too bad, but trying to build an entire controller from spares is really not economically sensible.
But if you did indeed have those parts already for some reason, the rest is all rather cheap, common components. Cannibalize a Deck, and the extra cost would probably be well under $50.
...plus the $500 to buy a replacement Deck, so don't actually do it.
Yeah it seems strange to be sourcing parts from a 'spares' retailer like ifixit, instead of finding the part on normal electronics distributors. Great way to make the price skyrocket.
nobody could explain to me yet, whats the point of it splitting?
More options. It can be quite comfortable to use split controllers wirh your arms in a relaxed position.
hmm interesting... it's completely opposite of how I use a controller - often one hand grips tighter, so the other can get more lose and do precise or timed controls. That configuration often switches so i end up kind of kneading my controller. Thats where I feel a magnetic connection between the halves might pop in some cases. And two seperate halves can't accomodate that at all.
The split config is definitely more geared to casual gaming rather than super precise or timing based input, but I think unless you are really abusing your controller the magnetic joint should hold fine
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