7/21/15 update
Purchased a soldering kit (this will be my second time

ever holding a hot soldering iron so... w00t w00t) 4 buttons, 2 feet of

8(?) strand copper wire and a Gamestop "authorized" Xbox 360 controller.

My intention for today is to solder the wires to the new buttons. I will

open the controller, bottom up, and stabilize it,then plug it into comp

in place of current troller.

Once done with that I'll press the

wires from new buttons to the circruit board and attempt to utilize the

new button, one at a time, to mimic the actual controller buttons

WITHOUT SOLDERING TO THE MOTHERBOARD <--

Since I'm a complete noob to soldering it would be the height of stupidity or arrogance to

assume I could solder to a working motherboard first time out. Soldering

to the buttons is no sweat as it's two separate pins of metal far

enough apart I can work and flub up as much as I need to learn finer

soldering points. Also, by just finger pressing the wire to the circuit

board I'm not damaging the board in anyway so if I decide I don't like

these buttons, or need to change this, that or the other thing, I can.

If this works I've already found some old 1950's tech pieces to complete

the look of the switches and dials on the Pipboy's face, but

transforming those into rocker switch input should be difficult enough.

I'll chk back for replies before I begin soldering later on, maybe 2 hours or so. If you've got soldering tips, do it now :)