Fan And Vent Holes Prevent Sweaty Gaming Hands

[Happy Dragon] grew tired of wiping moist palms on his pants during intense gaming sessions. To combat the issue he tried adding a fan to an Xbox 360 controller that he had sitting around. He pulled a small PC fan from a Nyko Airflow and glued it over a hole he cut into the battery compartment of the controller. This forces air into the body of the unit, which exits through holes he’s drilled in the wings. He added an external battery pack to power the controller since the original batteries were removed before the fan was glues in place. The fan itself isn’t powered from this external pack, but requires a USB connection that he attaches using the disconnect from a wired Xbox controller.

After some testing, [Happy Dragon] seems… happy… with the results. He tells us that his hands are not sweaty, and that he finds he’s not gripping the controller quite as tightly as he used to so as not to block the vent holes. We can see a couple of issues with this design, like the holes filling up with crud, or the fan blowing dust and dirt into the controller (we’re thinking about the analog sticks). But perhaps a future design could create dedicated ducts inside that keep the electronics isolated from the cooling. Or maybe the exhaust from portable console builds could be used in a similar way?

You’ll notice that there’s no direct link for this hack. [Happy Dragon] didn’t write a post about this, he just sent us a half-dozen images and his description of the project. Check out the rest of the pictures after the break.

32 thoughts on “Fan And Vent Holes Prevent Sweaty Gaming Hands

  1. what a hack job. They do make controllers with built in fans so you don’t need to make such an ugly mess. And really, a smaller fan would have been as good and probably could have been made to fit inside the controller.

  2. Used to have a xbox 1 controller by nyko that had this a while back. Also had a gaming mouse with the same feature. The mouse fan stopped spinning after about 3 months and I regularly had to oil it after that. I agree with another comment. Either put a grill on that or enclose it in something.

  3. @MrX

    Who are you to judge how someone spends their free time? If he enjoys playing video games 12 hours a day I say let him. Then again, some people get sweaty palms really quickly while playing games.

  4. Yes, there is a controller that has this feature built in (Nyko Airflow).

    I believe that the intent of doing this and not just using that is to use the newer 360 controller, and to have wireless capabilities.

  5. I think its a good idea. of course like all ideas it can be improved but I like this. I think im gonna try and do something similar with some mods. maybe add a battery for the fan and of course a much smaller fan. great idea though!

  6. OK so i just looked at a controller and some fans…I decided I dont play enough to get my hands that sweaty. However I know of some people who hade “hand sweating issues” I dont so no need for it. I could see however how a fan could be attachment and no need for holes. all you would need is to let up on the controller a bit and the air from the fan would base under the controller between it and your hands. just a though good luck. with an on/off switch would be good to go

  7. Haters gonna hate

    Yeah it’s not the best build in the world, but it does the job so why so much negativity?

    For the record, some people just sweat more then others, maybe he really gets in to his gaming

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