Disassemble
Start by removing the five Phillips head screws on the rear of the controller.
Carefully remove the PCB from the shell and disconnect the cable.
Your circuit board may have one or two chips, but both variants will have the same five output pins on the cable connector.
Clean (optional)
With these controllers being over three decades old and likely never been cleaned, this is a good opportunity to clean it up.
The rubber pads and plastic parts can all be cleaned with a simple mixture of dish soap, water, and a bit of gentle scrubbing.
Solder USB Cable
Next we will need to prepare and solder a USB-A cable directly to the KB2040 microcontroller board. Any old spare USB-A cable will work for this project.
Start by cutting off the unused end of the cable opposite of the USB-A connector. Then trim back the outer insulation to reveal the 4 USB wires. (Power, Ground, D+ and D-)
The wire colors are common but may not always match. Verify with a volt meter.
- Black: Ground
- Green: D+
- White: D-
- Red: Power
Following the diagram below, solder the four wires to the KB2040. (and the shielding wire to ground if present)
Solder Wires to Controller
Cut 5 jumper wires about 4 inches long (10cm). Then strip a small bit of insulation off of the wire tips.
Keeping track of the pin number wire order, carefully flip over the board and place it within the front half of the controller shell.
Mount KB2040
Using a healthy dab of hot glue, the KB2040 can be mounted directly to the controller PCB.
Solder Wires to KB2040
The SNES controller shift registers are capable of operating at 3.3V, the safe operating range of the KB2040's GPIO. So we'll connect the SNES power to the KB2040's 3.3V pin.
Solder the remaining wires to the KB2040. Ground to ground. Then clock, latch, and data pins to D5, D6, and D7.
SNES → KB2040
1: Ground → GND
2: Data → D7
3: Latch → D6
4: Clock → D5
5: Power → 3.3V
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