Thrustmaster T300/TX USB cable replacement

Is your USB cable on your thrustmaster T300 or TX steering wheel broken, or is it starting to break? This thing is just for you.

This mod gives you the option to use a standard USB-A to B cable for connecting your steering wheel to your PC and it also looks great. Unlike some other kinds of this mod, where you have glue everywhere.

Now this mod isnt exactly easy, but it isnt that hard, you just need to have some patience and know how to solder.

What you will need:

• Soldering iron
• solder wire and resin
• Thin phillips head screwdriver
• USB-B 2.0 female connector (like the one in picture no.2, it needs to have pins straight out the back. I put a link at the end)
• Soldering helper/hand or something that will hold the wires while you solder
• 3mm heatshrink tube (I recommend getting some with 3:1 shrink ratio, the standard 2:1 are a pain to use)
• knife or something that you can use to skin the wire
• lighter
• electrical tape
• the included 3D model printed (I printed in PLA, I dont think it really matters what material you use)
• like 4 hours??, maybe less maybe more

Opening the wheel base

Start off by opening the wheel base. There is a lot of tutorials on youtube how to do that, but basicly its like 12 screws, 13 if you count the one on the quick release. Unscrew the 4 screws holding the ring around the steering axis, then remove 3 screws that were hidden behind this ring, after that remove 5 screws around the perimeter of the base that you'll find when looking at it from below. When you've removed them, pull on the top cover up and toward “the steering wheel”, there are 2 clips that will unclip themselves. 

Now that youve removed the top cover, there are 2 screws holding a bracket for the power cable connector and the USB cable. Go ahead and remove those, then take off the holder.

Preparation for soldering

Now that youve done that, take a rest, reavaluate if you really want to cut the cable. Maybe drink a beer or two, lot of work is ahead. 

If you've decided that you want to cut it off, cut it off. As close to the plastic thingy as you can, you want as much cable length as you can get.

Strip the cable of the isolation. You will see 6 cables there, the USB-B connector only has 4 pins, but dont worry, 2 of those cables are for some ground. These 2 cables are the ones that are wrapped around the isolation. Unwrap them and put them to the side.

Here I separated them for the picture using a piece of plastic string. The bottom wires are the USB, the wires above the string are ground wires for something else, we will solder them later.

Take the 4 wires that were inside the isolation, these are the USB cables. They even follow the USB color code so we will solder them using the USB wiring diagram.

Now strip these 4 wires like 5 mm from the end. Put some heatshrink on each one of them. If you want, you can also put some bigger heatshrink on them together, or you can later use electrical tape. Your choice. I would reccommend the heatshrink, I did it with electrical tape and it doesnt look pretty. 

Put the USB connector into the USB connector holder BEFORE you start soldering, if you dont, you will have to unsolder the wires and do it again. 

Soldering

Now we can start soldering. Solder the wires according to the USB wiring diagram shown above. Take your time, you dont want to rush it and ruin it.

That took some time, right? Good thing we are almost done now. 

Shrink the heatshrink. Put some heatshrink on the remaining 2 ground wires, solder them to the USB connector tabs and shrink their heatshrink. 

Make sure no wires are touching each other, and that you didnt solder some pins together, that would be bad. 

Final assembly

Now we just need to assemble the base back together. Put the USB connector holder onto bracket, the hole on the holder should line up with the hole on the bracket, so you dont need an additional screw. Use the stock screws, they are long enough.

You may need to trim the USB connector holder a little bit because of some looser tolerances in the thrustmaster base, or due to a slightly different print compared to what I printed on my printer. but it shouldnt be much, if at all. I tried to make it in such a way so that it is a snug fit, but it gives space where needed. You will see. Ideally try the fitment before soldering.

Put the rest of the base together, connect it to your PC to make sure you did everything right. 

Now you can rest, it wasnt easy, so you deserve it. Have a beer or two, or three or how much you want.

Links for USB connector:

I am from CZ, so I bought my USB-B connector here , but digikey sells a lot of them, so you can order from there.