Revisiting some of my earlier soldering

You don't realize just how far you come when it comes to repairs. 

I got this controller back in Scotland around 2009 or 2010. I wasn't soldering regularly other than my own little projects. Wasn't adding extra flux. Wasn't cleaning up flux residue from the solder I was using either. Was using a rubbish iron set too high, and lifted lots of pads. 

Went back and cleaned this up. Added some solder mask. I'll update the post later with the finished controller (and it's friend that I need to do. Should I pop pink or white lights into it?)

Another Christmas emergency

Trevor's kid really wanted to bring his switch to the last day of school tomorrow, but both his (rather awesomely coloured) joycons were drifting like mental. 

Quick 20 minutes later and they were like new again. 

I clean them up nicely as well as fixing them. 

Wii U Gamepad with faulty R shoulder bumper.

Didn't have the best time with this. The part I ordered was missing necessary holes around the exact part of it I was trying to fix. Had to punch some through with the help of a pilot hole maker. All buttons thankfully work now. 

another AGS-101. some torn pads...

Did this one for Cole. He had a GBA SP AGS-101, and it's power switch had an attempted repair that had torn off some pads. 

A quick reroute of said pads to a nearby via and to the side of a resistor, and his new switch worked perfectly. 

Adventures in Switch repairs (and mods)

A Nintendo Switch that doesn't dock, charge or display correctly can be a pain. 

Luckily, there's method to apply to this madness. I fix these rather often. 

I have spare usb-c ports, fuses, M92 chips, BQ24 chips, and Pi3 chips handy for these instances, along with plenty of random capacitors and resistors for when people mess up mods. 

GBA SP AGS-101 backlit pickup.

One thing I do is replace cartridge batteries for gameboy, GBC and GBA games with a CR1616 battery holder. I needed a gameboy to test, as I only could test GBA via my wife's old DS lite. 

A visit to stock xchangers in Nanaimo turned up a lovely backlit model that'll allow me to test everything I need, so I had to reshell it. 

PAL Super Nintendo for the win, btw.  

Wii U Gamepad issues

This was an entire mess, with a lot of gunk that needed cleaning off the board with isopropyl. 

I had to replace the button membrane on the right side of the controller, as the R bumper just wasn't doing anything. No continuity from the button to the ribbons end. Couldn't see any obvious points where it was broken though.