I’ve been using a brass dish scrubby for a few months now and it’s made a WORLD of difference.
That’s the same thing I use. I was tossing out too many tips before.
Actually this year I got a nicer setup (Weller WE51), and wish I’d gotten one years ago. I picked up a couple of those really long pointy conical tips because I was working on some tiny 8-pin mini-DIN connectors, and those contacts are so close together. The body of the tip is long, but really only the very tip of it needs to take solder. I found just by using the tiny end of this type of tip I could get pretty much all the work done and keep it clean a lot easier (wet sponge), plus less solder is wasted.
Hmm, yeah I need to take a bit of steel wool to my tip. It’s still pretty darn clean, even after near a year of use but a little bit of harsh cleaning won’t hurt. The top half is a bit oxidized, but 2/3 of the tip is still nice and shiny.
I keep mine hella clean with a sponge, I have a tinning OCD problem XD. Just in case though, I ordered 1 spare, and 1 new style of tip for bigger surface area requirements (desoldering and whatnot). I use the radio shack digital station, and the tips are a little bit more difficult to acquire unless you figure out which model # to search on ebay (900M if you’re wondering)… ended up picking up new tips for like 1.50 each from a chinese distributor 
Oh, and a trick I picked up from work is this: cut a small square in the center of your sponge, that way when you wipe off your iron, you get an edge to wipe on, and the excess solder falls into the center hole, instead of staying on top of the sponge.
I have 2 sponges stacked, one base one and one cut one resting on top, that way I get a nice height, but also the benefit of the square hole.
Dude, no joke. I was doing the same exact thing not too long ago for a Genesis 2 RGB cable. All I had was a huge blade tip. Sure could have used one of those pointy tips for my Magic V mod on my PS2. Holy cow, some of those PS2 chip pins are tiny.
-ud
holy crap, that’s a lot of holes in 1 sponge.
this is more what we have at work and how I’ve fashioned mine, except I cut mine square.
http://www.newark.com/productimages/nio/standard/4627731.jpg
I’ve got to try that steel wool trick. I’ve got some 0000 grade from polishing my past case I could use…
I need a dongleless Rock Band guitar in my life. I hate those freaking dongles. I wonder if a DS3 and a leo can be hacked into it…
Did I mention I hate dongles?
Ah, so THAT’s how I’m supposed to keep my tip alive!
This thread just saved me throwing out a dirty tip.
I also heard I should tin it after I’m finished – this correct?
Absolutely.
You can’t ever tin too much. Solder is cheap, good iron tips tend not to be. Also, having a clean tip will allow you to get the job done faster and cleaner, a dirty iron tip is your worst enemy when working on electronics. Take care of your iron tip and it will return the favor (so to speak). :tup:
I tin when I start the iron, during whatever I’m doing… every few minutes, then right before I’m finished I tin it, wipe it off with a sponge, then turn the iron off. It’s always nice and silvery shiny when I take it out of the holder.
The only time I ever tin more often than every few minutes is when I have my iron turned up to near maximum, my tip is super tiny, so a lot of heat will burn it out fast if I don’t stay on top of it.
My local game store has 3 Wii Fighting Sticks for $20 each. I would pick them up to sell if I thought there was any money to be made. With my luck I would somehow end up losing money. :lol:
New Mayflash
Spotted this while browsing on PlayAsia:
http://image4.play-asia.com/640/9w/pa.178235.1.jpg
New style!
That stick looks like it has potential.
2 years too late Mayflash.
Hrmm… Might have to look into getting the new Mayflash. It looks decent.
If I saw them I would of bought them. I don’t like using the wii classic controller pcb in triple wireless mods 
i wonder where did that thread go in the trading outlet. Some guy was selling his norris case for 100 and thread disappeared.
Today I open one of the stock buttons from mayflash, and voilá, LS-33 spring inside the button. now I dont need to buy the springs to make the JLF mod spring,
And the microswitch are omron like JLF.
Anyone willing to take the risk to order that and see how it is?
My parts finally came from Akihabarashop.jp. One of the items I bought was the Seimitsu PS-14-KNs. I know I wrote some bad reviews on it but that was when I thought they were the same as the Seimitsu PS-14-GN/C.
So apparently, Seimitsu-PS-14-KNs feels completely different from Seimitsu-PS-14-GN/C despite having the same attributes as listed at slagcoin.com. The KNs aren’t as soft as the Sanwa OBSF/Ns or the Seimitsu PS-14-G but its definitely easier to press than the PS-14-GN/C.
About Hori:
Their wiring and soldering is garbage. I was replacing the buttons on my HRAP SE and when I put everything together, the directions weren’t working despite the fact I haven’t even touched the wiring on the LS-32. Using a multimeter, I found out that the ground wiring on the LS-32 were weak and barely registered for continuity. After rewiring all the ground wire, the directions work again. This reminds me the time when I first bought the Tekken 5 bundle, one of the directions weren’t working the majority of the time which made go back to gamestop for an exchange. I bet one of the wiring became weak and possibly broke off like what happened at first.
However, despite their shoddy wiring and soldering job, I think the stock hori joystick is great. Since its the same one used in the Namco stick, its certainly durable and its really easy to put in a Sanwa octagonal gate. However, their stock buttons are garbage and dies out quick (sans namco buttons)
Any requests you want me to put into the PiiWee? Boards should be here in a week.