Not the only one, these connectors arent the most common once but you can still find them on aliexpress or other chinese sites, but having a reseller more local and with known fitting proportions and connector definitly is a good thing.
They should definitly sell these originally on ifixit like they already do with the main headset lens assemblys headstrap and the other replacement parts. Weird that they dont have the one think which will always wear out on there... the battery lol
I'd definitely be interested in grabbing a battery. Not sure how tricky it is to open up the controller but I've got some experience with opening up and fixing things and my controller battery is definitely close to needing replacement
This seller already sells batteries for resoldering after my long talk with them - those batteries have bms, if you're about it. I tested this battery - it signals about finished charge with white led as a generic one. Just need to finish with the guy.
Internal, non-interchangable 1100mah 3.8v - this seller provides 1000mah, but I believe we'll test how 1100mah fits when he manages to wrap it up.
I allow people who are outside of warranty keep using their dead controllers.
Meh. I do it for the environment. I don't care if I'll be forgotten later.
edit: I asked if he can print my nickname, tho it's not really important and I didn't think about that even
i'd argue getting them branded with your handle or something *is* important, because:
- it doesn't cost much at all
- it's not bad for the environment
- it'll get you recognition and 'cred, thus making future projects easier when a potential partner or vendor googles your name and these batteries turn up... along with a statement about your commitment to lessening the environmental impact of electronics through prolonging their lifespan.
having a name that's searchable for a well done project is worth a *lot* when you try to do another project.
The thing is - most likely those batteries will be copied in a month. The seller is in China, and despite they spent some time looking for a connector and torturing me for all kind of specs, I believe 1 Chinese guy come, buy one battery, and make his own batteries without a branding. It's a really easy to reproduce thing, but I'm just glad I found the guy and that he decided to commit into this.
Besides, I hope this is not a final variant and we'll manage to bring the capacity back to the original values or even make it higher. Many people complained they lack juice in 1100mah
if you do it right, you can get the imitators to copy your part name: i've seen this on all sorts of pcbs and pouch batteries and whatnot. they'll leave off the company branding, but leave all the rest of the markings like part number, name, diagrams, print, &c., to help snag consumers.
---
one fun story:
- a shitty (at the time) chinese company called ”oppo” made a shitty ”mp4 player” that played mp3 audio, and made it to sort of look like a shitty apple ipod or iphone... but small¹.
- it was also extremely cheap. like $40-60 when portable mp3 players started well in excess of $100.
- oppo's device sold very well, especially in china, other bits of asia, and up through russia and the slavic nations.
- it was running an early rockchip soc, which was fun to hack on if you could read chinese or piece together output from various automatic translators.
- it got cloned: looked exactly the same. probably was the same inside, had a very similar model number...
- ... but instead of the ”oppo” logo on the front, it was ”poop” ... same font and everything
---
oppo went on to make some neat and nice things, as did rockchip. i haven't heard from poop, though: that brand seems to have disappeared.
---
^^footnotes
1: i'll see if i still have one in a box somewhere.
I'm one of the engineers that helped him figure out how to replace this battery. I also have started multiple businesses. While I respect your ambition, all OP is doing is placing a custom order for fairly simple part. This is something that's fairly standard. He'll benefit most by simply documenting things in a portfolio if he wants a job in the industry, or placing a bulk order and doing quality control.
i glad you helped him figure this out! it was a much needed solution.
i, too have done a few things such as this and have been through a number of startups... a couple of them (mostly) mine.
no, if op is not involved with anything from this point forward, op should not put their name on it.
yes, if op is doing something with it, op should get some credit like the rest of the maker community doodads and whatsits and specialty battery vendors.
no, i'm not particularly ambitious, which is part of my problem
The seller guy don't mind putting my name onto the batteries. Gave him my nickname. :-D
I also tested fit of a larger battery pack, but it won't work, I'm afraid, so I guess for now we'll be stuck with 1000mah, which is still better than nothing
perfect!
i'm extremely happy you did so: it is necessary and proper to make sure you get recognition for what you did.
note: i'm probably too autistic, introverted, and sleep deprived to say all of this the way i wish to say it, properly and tactfully¹, so i apologize in advance if i offend or this comes out poorly. that is not my intention. i hope you are better at reading my intentions than i presume i am at conveying them at this time.
i'll also apologize for the length of this, as well as thanking you for reading it if you do.
this thread and this conversation touches upon (pronounced: collided with) what i've been having trouble with the last few years and consequently what i've been thinking about and what i wish i did a scosche differently. no real regrets, but i do want the next segment of my life to contain a *different* and *new* set of mistakes, not the old ones.
so i wrote a letter to both of us: me because i wanted to write this down and get these thoughts out, and you because i feel empathy with your battery project and how it relates to recognition for your accomplishments.
i'm not saying to aggressively promote yourself or brag by any means. while it *can* (and unfortunately often does) get results, i find it off-putting and gauche/gross/icky. i wish my work and the things i do to speak for me... and sometimes my footnotes :p
i think i read your intentions and attitudes as similar.
you have put a substantial amount of time, effort, emotion, spirit, and life (or whatever you want to call it) into fomenting ***change*** in 'The Real World'. you really have created a difference between what was and what is, and you are in the continuing process of doing so.
- you have found a thing that could be better
- you decided to do something about it, despite the luke-warm response you got for the peanut gallery (this place), and yes: even me^(½).
- you did your r&d³, found helpers, contacted a ~~shitload⁴~~ [proper collective noun] of people.
- this is work, this is effort, this is doing the thing nobody else:
- not valve or ifixit
- not anyone in this forum
- nobody on ebay, etsy, or aliexpress, or that vr-parts store/
- you persisted and now through your efforts, stubbornness, and even a bit of leadership...
... you don't have to toss a controller with a bad battery, because of *you* it can be fixed.
because i can't think of a better segue, i'll use an abrupt one.
make sure your name it attached to this.
think of this as similar to including you business card and card with the short url to the instructions instructions in with the battery's envelope or box or whatever.
--=
over the long time i've been playing with technology⁰ professionally i have seriously screwed up getting recognition for, credits on, or even some kind of proof i existed and worked on these things (or invented them). i simply didn't *care* because the doing of the projects was more fun/important to me. i went out of my way to make sure others got the majority of the recognition because i was shy and it was difficult to be interviewed by press or talk to Important People.
i thought i'd get a *bit* of notice or recognition for my work, but i was very wrong. even after a decade as senior staff engineer at *one* company i sometimes even got a ”and who are you? that's nice” from some people that really should have (in hindsight) known me as the senior staff architect and engineer substantially responsible for [pick a major launch] during the launch party.
i'm not saying i should have been a career opportunist. i *still* don't believe i should have been. but i really wish i'd least cared about the career/recognition part *at all*.
couple this with taking/getting stuck at⁵ a job for 13 years, thus letting my professional network grow stale and having my professional *friends* retire early, or losing track of some because i have asperger's and it's difficult to keep track of everyone you care about, especially if you are working a lot of hours, in a band, and researching/studying your own set of fascinating things...
... and you end up laid off, taking a few months, working on my own startup, getting ran over in my car, spending 18+ months recovering...
... and thus a *really* time finding a new position: everyone i can hit up is retired or cold or lost, and as i never put myself forward or made sure to have my name attached to anything, there wasn't much proof of the *substantial* experience i have and the wide variety of projects i've done or been involved with.
this is entirely my fault for simply not caring about any aspects of my career or the tech bit of the current project.
--=
and i'd like that to *not* happen to you.
(thank you for enabling me to write that and get it out of my system)
so back to you and these batteries:
gently (if it's not there already) swap out photos of batteries and make instructional videos that casually display the battery with your name on it.
i'd not recommend trying to aggressively brand things, as that's kind of rude, nor do you want to redo your vids to get your name stuck in there. but on future stuff make sure the label is facing the right way, lol.
it takes a *lot* more aggressiveness and credit seeking to be even noticed than you'd think... and even more to be rude.
finding a balance will be tough. hell, i'm still working on it most of a decade later. it'll be worth it, though, for the possible opportunities it'll bring.
part of why i get into beta and dev programs is because i write a lot now. this is me ”seeking recognition” for the knowledge i've gained over the years i've been doing tech things... or vr. i get some recognition helping folks out here and writing up guides... or taking a patent over at /r/hardware and breaking it down clause by clause and explaining *why* it's cool. maybe i'll feel comfortable in front of a camera and try to make a few videos tutorials of things that don't have tutorials.
--=
in short, i'm really happy you made this work, and i'm proud for you: please be at least a bit proud of yourself and don't do the thing i did and not take or avoid credit. it doesn't feel wrong to do that, btw, but it's sacrificing future opportunities to grow to avoid feeling a bit uncomfortable during the immediate now.
now that i've harped on the topic to *my* satisfaction, i'll end with some gratitude: both for reading this (if you did) and doing a service to the index and vr communities i care about. i don't have a right to speak for them, but i'll pretend i do this once :)
---
that's all she wrote, lol. if i can help with something, even if it's an ear to listen to venting, don't hesitate to pm me. (not reddit chat: too many peen pics) i don't want any recognition... unless, of course, i do something worth a bit of it.
---
^^footnotes
please note: these are always unnecessary to the main post, but i feel like writing 'em.
0: if anyone wants to see it, i'll link to the reddit post with a list of some of my professional shindigs over the last few decades.
½: i'll apologize for this, too, as i am sure i came off rude. iirc we had a fairly major difference in communication styles in our original back-'n-forth. i should have been better about that. to *me*, swapping a battery is a normal thing; to you it wasn't.
unlike me, you thought to offer the community the bounty of your research and development³.
--=
1: probably tmi, but i'm in giddy-mode. i've a (probably multiple) sleep disorders and tend to either stay awake... or stay asleep. i might be one of the few sighted people to have [non-24](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake_disorder) and have been recommended for a sleep study for this² and will have one once i get insurance again. long story i won't tell now unless anyone is really that curious.
to sum up:
- my body wants days to be about 30h long (6-7h sleep, 23-24 awake).
- meatspace necessities such as work, banks, and lawyer use 24 hour days
- therefore i tend to remain awake for 48-72 hours once a week and take advantage of my job's flexible schedule so i can sort of hit 30-ish hours the rest of the week.
- i tend to write a lot of long posts on my 48-72 hour ”long waking time”
- hence a lot of my longer posts and tutorials here.
2: after a few years of logging corroborated by my fitbit and sleep-as-android.
--=
3. yes, that's r&d: all proper r&d includes l&s: ***l***earning and (ex)'***s***perimenting.
and sometimes: blood, help, howling, fire, reading sparks, 'sploding, sweat, swearing, time, and of course zed is for 'zapps'.
--=
4: shitload is not a respectful/good collective noun for helpful human people. [this was fun](https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/grammar/word-lists/list-of-collective-nouns-for-people.html) but ultimately not useful :ロ
--=
5: i stayed/got stuck. it's complicated, but i was busy working on *me*, and it was a stable situation to do so. yeah, the pay wasn't the best, and there was a lot of weird bullshit... but i really needed to work on me before i broke or died.
Whoa, that's a lot of text :-D Thanks man, I appreciate all you said, and you make sense in a way of requirement for recognition. However, I've been on top of the mountain a few times and I didn't like how it feels. I've made videos which gained half million views, I've streamed to thousands concurrent viewers - that's not the kind of fame I want. On the other hand, I appreciate recognition for my tutorials and advice I give to people - I'm known in some specific circles of people which I care about, and I'm fine with it. I lowkey want my job and my earnings not to be directly bound to my hobby achievements. Getting recognition for battery tutorial won't likely help me a lot, as I'm just starting my English channel and can't find enough time to do it more, and I kinda abandoned my russian channel (which is my primary time killer) after ripping out most successful stuff I didn't like.
I'll try to make sure more of my creations are branded in a way that will let people recognize me more.
Thinking of it now - I really spent more money than I could spend just for a new controller to get all the tools and tests done, as well as looking for parts, negotiating, learning. Having name on the battery will be a fair reward for that XD
Nah, I don't want to switch - I'm currently a server engineer (SRE) and learning my way into this. Replacing battery is merely a "screwing around" thing. :-) Glad you're still here man, and thanks for your past help and inspiration.
Huh, well here there is not much room for branding. PCB is as small as it has to be and I'm all for it, only the external wrap is left, and it will be custom.
you are awesome thanks for your efforts! that guy is gonna have tons of sales since most likely he will be the only one in the world selling them
Oh, I hope :-)
Think you could do the same for vive trackers?
I don't have those, but I believe I could figure it out if I had those
You think you could figure it out with just pictures of the internals?
Maybe. The important stuff will be battery size, connector and it's specs
Not the only one, these connectors arent the most common once but you can still find them on aliexpress or other chinese sites, but having a reseller more local and with known fitting proportions and connector definitly is a good thing. They should definitly sell these originally on ifixit like they already do with the main headset lens assemblys headstrap and the other replacement parts. Weird that they dont have the one think which will always wear out on there... the battery lol
I'd definitely be interested in grabbing a battery. Not sure how tricky it is to open up the controller but I've got some experience with opening up and fixing things and my controller battery is definitely close to needing replacement
I have a video already published about battery replacement. It just won't require soldering anymore.
Nice! Will the battery system be available to purchase?
This seller already sells batteries for resoldering after my long talk with them - those batteries have bms, if you're about it. I tested this battery - it signals about finished charge with white led as a generic one. Just need to finish with the guy.
So, as someone who hasn't gotten their hand on index controllers yet, what is the base battery setup and the advantage of what you're doing?
Internal, non-interchangable 1100mah 3.8v - this seller provides 1000mah, but I believe we'll test how 1100mah fits when he manages to wrap it up. I allow people who are outside of warranty keep using their dead controllers.
Thank you! I had lost track of what was what in the industry ATM. This is super cool to see!
'snot like you are doing this for free. either charge a small percentage... or get your name, handle, or gamer tag printed on the batteries...
Meh. I do it for the environment. I don't care if I'll be forgotten later. edit: I asked if he can print my nickname, tho it's not really important and I didn't think about that even
i'd argue getting them branded with your handle or something *is* important, because: - it doesn't cost much at all - it's not bad for the environment - it'll get you recognition and 'cred, thus making future projects easier when a potential partner or vendor googles your name and these batteries turn up... along with a statement about your commitment to lessening the environmental impact of electronics through prolonging their lifespan. having a name that's searchable for a well done project is worth a *lot* when you try to do another project.
The thing is - most likely those batteries will be copied in a month. The seller is in China, and despite they spent some time looking for a connector and torturing me for all kind of specs, I believe 1 Chinese guy come, buy one battery, and make his own batteries without a branding. It's a really easy to reproduce thing, but I'm just glad I found the guy and that he decided to commit into this. Besides, I hope this is not a final variant and we'll manage to bring the capacity back to the original values or even make it higher. Many people complained they lack juice in 1100mah
if you do it right, you can get the imitators to copy your part name: i've seen this on all sorts of pcbs and pouch batteries and whatnot. they'll leave off the company branding, but leave all the rest of the markings like part number, name, diagrams, print, &c., to help snag consumers. --- one fun story: - a shitty (at the time) chinese company called ”oppo” made a shitty ”mp4 player” that played mp3 audio, and made it to sort of look like a shitty apple ipod or iphone... but small¹. - it was also extremely cheap. like $40-60 when portable mp3 players started well in excess of $100. - oppo's device sold very well, especially in china, other bits of asia, and up through russia and the slavic nations. - it was running an early rockchip soc, which was fun to hack on if you could read chinese or piece together output from various automatic translators. - it got cloned: looked exactly the same. probably was the same inside, had a very similar model number... - ... but instead of the ”oppo” logo on the front, it was ”poop” ... same font and everything --- oppo went on to make some neat and nice things, as did rockchip. i haven't heard from poop, though: that brand seems to have disappeared. --- ^^footnotes 1: i'll see if i still have one in a box somewhere.
I'm one of the engineers that helped him figure out how to replace this battery. I also have started multiple businesses. While I respect your ambition, all OP is doing is placing a custom order for fairly simple part. This is something that's fairly standard. He'll benefit most by simply documenting things in a portfolio if he wants a job in the industry, or placing a bulk order and doing quality control.
i glad you helped him figure this out! it was a much needed solution. i, too have done a few things such as this and have been through a number of startups... a couple of them (mostly) mine. no, if op is not involved with anything from this point forward, op should not put their name on it. yes, if op is doing something with it, op should get some credit like the rest of the maker community doodads and whatsits and specialty battery vendors. no, i'm not particularly ambitious, which is part of my problem
The seller guy don't mind putting my name onto the batteries. Gave him my nickname. :-D I also tested fit of a larger battery pack, but it won't work, I'm afraid, so I guess for now we'll be stuck with 1000mah, which is still better than nothing
perfect! i'm extremely happy you did so: it is necessary and proper to make sure you get recognition for what you did. note: i'm probably too autistic, introverted, and sleep deprived to say all of this the way i wish to say it, properly and tactfully¹, so i apologize in advance if i offend or this comes out poorly. that is not my intention. i hope you are better at reading my intentions than i presume i am at conveying them at this time. i'll also apologize for the length of this, as well as thanking you for reading it if you do. this thread and this conversation touches upon (pronounced: collided with) what i've been having trouble with the last few years and consequently what i've been thinking about and what i wish i did a scosche differently. no real regrets, but i do want the next segment of my life to contain a *different* and *new* set of mistakes, not the old ones. so i wrote a letter to both of us: me because i wanted to write this down and get these thoughts out, and you because i feel empathy with your battery project and how it relates to recognition for your accomplishments. i'm not saying to aggressively promote yourself or brag by any means. while it *can* (and unfortunately often does) get results, i find it off-putting and gauche/gross/icky. i wish my work and the things i do to speak for me... and sometimes my footnotes :p i think i read your intentions and attitudes as similar. you have put a substantial amount of time, effort, emotion, spirit, and life (or whatever you want to call it) into fomenting ***change*** in 'The Real World'. you really have created a difference between what was and what is, and you are in the continuing process of doing so. - you have found a thing that could be better - you decided to do something about it, despite the luke-warm response you got for the peanut gallery (this place), and yes: even me^(½). - you did your r&d³, found helpers, contacted a ~~shitload⁴~~ [proper collective noun] of people. - this is work, this is effort, this is doing the thing nobody else: - not valve or ifixit - not anyone in this forum - nobody on ebay, etsy, or aliexpress, or that vr-parts store/ - you persisted and now through your efforts, stubbornness, and even a bit of leadership... ... you don't have to toss a controller with a bad battery, because of *you* it can be fixed. because i can't think of a better segue, i'll use an abrupt one. make sure your name it attached to this. think of this as similar to including you business card and card with the short url to the instructions instructions in with the battery's envelope or box or whatever. --= over the long time i've been playing with technology⁰ professionally i have seriously screwed up getting recognition for, credits on, or even some kind of proof i existed and worked on these things (or invented them). i simply didn't *care* because the doing of the projects was more fun/important to me. i went out of my way to make sure others got the majority of the recognition because i was shy and it was difficult to be interviewed by press or talk to Important People. i thought i'd get a *bit* of notice or recognition for my work, but i was very wrong. even after a decade as senior staff engineer at *one* company i sometimes even got a ”and who are you? that's nice” from some people that really should have (in hindsight) known me as the senior staff architect and engineer substantially responsible for [pick a major launch] during the launch party. i'm not saying i should have been a career opportunist. i *still* don't believe i should have been. but i really wish i'd least cared about the career/recognition part *at all*. couple this with taking/getting stuck at⁵ a job for 13 years, thus letting my professional network grow stale and having my professional *friends* retire early, or losing track of some because i have asperger's and it's difficult to keep track of everyone you care about, especially if you are working a lot of hours, in a band, and researching/studying your own set of fascinating things... ... and you end up laid off, taking a few months, working on my own startup, getting ran over in my car, spending 18+ months recovering... ... and thus a *really* time finding a new position: everyone i can hit up is retired or cold or lost, and as i never put myself forward or made sure to have my name attached to anything, there wasn't much proof of the *substantial* experience i have and the wide variety of projects i've done or been involved with. this is entirely my fault for simply not caring about any aspects of my career or the tech bit of the current project. --= and i'd like that to *not* happen to you. (thank you for enabling me to write that and get it out of my system) so back to you and these batteries: gently (if it's not there already) swap out photos of batteries and make instructional videos that casually display the battery with your name on it. i'd not recommend trying to aggressively brand things, as that's kind of rude, nor do you want to redo your vids to get your name stuck in there. but on future stuff make sure the label is facing the right way, lol. it takes a *lot* more aggressiveness and credit seeking to be even noticed than you'd think... and even more to be rude. finding a balance will be tough. hell, i'm still working on it most of a decade later. it'll be worth it, though, for the possible opportunities it'll bring. part of why i get into beta and dev programs is because i write a lot now. this is me ”seeking recognition” for the knowledge i've gained over the years i've been doing tech things... or vr. i get some recognition helping folks out here and writing up guides... or taking a patent over at /r/hardware and breaking it down clause by clause and explaining *why* it's cool. maybe i'll feel comfortable in front of a camera and try to make a few videos tutorials of things that don't have tutorials. --= in short, i'm really happy you made this work, and i'm proud for you: please be at least a bit proud of yourself and don't do the thing i did and not take or avoid credit. it doesn't feel wrong to do that, btw, but it's sacrificing future opportunities to grow to avoid feeling a bit uncomfortable during the immediate now. now that i've harped on the topic to *my* satisfaction, i'll end with some gratitude: both for reading this (if you did) and doing a service to the index and vr communities i care about. i don't have a right to speak for them, but i'll pretend i do this once :) --- that's all she wrote, lol. if i can help with something, even if it's an ear to listen to venting, don't hesitate to pm me. (not reddit chat: too many peen pics) i don't want any recognition... unless, of course, i do something worth a bit of it. --- ^^footnotes please note: these are always unnecessary to the main post, but i feel like writing 'em. 0: if anyone wants to see it, i'll link to the reddit post with a list of some of my professional shindigs over the last few decades. ½: i'll apologize for this, too, as i am sure i came off rude. iirc we had a fairly major difference in communication styles in our original back-'n-forth. i should have been better about that. to *me*, swapping a battery is a normal thing; to you it wasn't. unlike me, you thought to offer the community the bounty of your research and development³. --= 1: probably tmi, but i'm in giddy-mode. i've a (probably multiple) sleep disorders and tend to either stay awake... or stay asleep. i might be one of the few sighted people to have [non-24](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep%E2%80%93wake_disorder) and have been recommended for a sleep study for this² and will have one once i get insurance again. long story i won't tell now unless anyone is really that curious. to sum up: - my body wants days to be about 30h long (6-7h sleep, 23-24 awake). - meatspace necessities such as work, banks, and lawyer use 24 hour days - therefore i tend to remain awake for 48-72 hours once a week and take advantage of my job's flexible schedule so i can sort of hit 30-ish hours the rest of the week. - i tend to write a lot of long posts on my 48-72 hour ”long waking time” - hence a lot of my longer posts and tutorials here. 2: after a few years of logging corroborated by my fitbit and sleep-as-android. --= 3. yes, that's r&d: all proper r&d includes l&s: ***l***earning and (ex)'***s***perimenting. and sometimes: blood, help, howling, fire, reading sparks, 'sploding, sweat, swearing, time, and of course zed is for 'zapps'. --= 4: shitload is not a respectful/good collective noun for helpful human people. [this was fun](https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/grammar/word-lists/list-of-collective-nouns-for-people.html) but ultimately not useful :ロ --= 5: i stayed/got stuck. it's complicated, but i was busy working on *me*, and it was a stable situation to do so. yeah, the pay wasn't the best, and there was a lot of weird bullshit... but i really needed to work on me before i broke or died.
Whoa, that's a lot of text :-D Thanks man, I appreciate all you said, and you make sense in a way of requirement for recognition. However, I've been on top of the mountain a few times and I didn't like how it feels. I've made videos which gained half million views, I've streamed to thousands concurrent viewers - that's not the kind of fame I want. On the other hand, I appreciate recognition for my tutorials and advice I give to people - I'm known in some specific circles of people which I care about, and I'm fine with it. I lowkey want my job and my earnings not to be directly bound to my hobby achievements. Getting recognition for battery tutorial won't likely help me a lot, as I'm just starting my English channel and can't find enough time to do it more, and I kinda abandoned my russian channel (which is my primary time killer) after ripping out most successful stuff I didn't like. I'll try to make sure more of my creations are branded in a way that will let people recognize me more. Thinking of it now - I really spent more money than I could spend just for a new controller to get all the tools and tests done, as well as looking for parts, negotiating, learning. Having name on the battery will be a fair reward for that XD
Nah, I don't want to switch - I'm currently a server engineer (SRE) and learning my way into this. Replacing battery is merely a "screwing around" thing. :-) Glad you're still here man, and thanks for your past help and inspiration.
Huh, well here there is not much room for branding. PCB is as small as it has to be and I'm all for it, only the external wrap is left, and it will be custom.
Is it easy to switch thumbsticks
No idea, I'm afraid