I broke the circuit traces of the left joystick of my controller during soldering. It still can move up and down, but not left and right.
I tried to follow the traces of the board so I can find the open points to solder to it and fix the connection, but it was too small and I couldn’t see it.
Does any one know the where on the circuit board are the traces for left-right motion of the left joystick?
If I need to remove the green protective coating to fix it, can you tell me how to do that?
The sticker on the back of my controller was worn off so I can’t tell the model number of my controller
So I am trying to fix the connection of the joystick traces so the left joystick would work.
As far as I know, the joystick uses variable resister so the amount of tilting can be measured. I don’t think soldering the joystick points to the dpad will work because dpad uses switches instead of variable resisters.
Also, since this is a PS3 pad, I am not just using it for fighting games but for playing games on PS3 in general. I kind of need the stick to work as a stick because dpad often have different usage from the stick.
But if a particular game calls for dpad inputs and analog stick inputs then what? Unless you have 4 dedicated extra inouts for dpad. Or a single pole quad throw switch to go from analog input to dpad input when you need it. They have dp/ls/rs options for mcz and hori sticks if you just want something that works out the box.
Well if you really want the tilt/analog features of the analog stick from the six axis pcb you wont get that functionality by just soldering to the signal lines, your joystick is csrdinals are still either on/off. The vR voltage is determined by the mechanical movement of the analog stick, idk what input you would get with stick in neutral and you attach a joystick to the inputs, my guess is max tilt or none at all.
But connect the pad to the ps3 to try and identify the original analog up/dn/lft/rt and take a jumper cable while in USF4 Ver. 1.05 training mode or any fighting game training mode that displays your inputs to find your analog signal lines.
I marked here items that concern me, and marked which pot does what directions.
I feel the points I circled are badly done. If the pad is not damage or missing, you could try to clean up the solder joints.
Get a solder pump or desoldering braid and clean up the solder and re do the soldering.
Your soldering joints should look as much like the analog stick you did not touch yet as much as possible.
The 2 legs you circled for left right stick seem to be dead, solder doesn’t stick to the board because the surface traces were gone. That’s why I am looking for alternative places to solder those 2 legs.
The up down stick seem to work fine for now, so I will just leave them be.
At this point, I didn’t want to say it but I was trying to suggest it
The soldering required to fix this board is harder than the soldering that been goofed.
You really need some soldering chops to solder to a thinner trace.
That white stuff isn’t film. It is paint, probability acrylic paint silk screened epoxy ink (I had to look it up).
Use Paint thinner on that board and you could ruin the whole thing (zero chance of repair).
You could use a small knife like a very small pocket knife or a hobby knife (IE exacto knife), a fiber glass pen, or something to scrape it away
But from what I see from your soldering right now, this might be a lost cause.
Finally fixed it. By using xacto knife to scratch the paint off, the working traces are revealed beside the broken ones. I used a little bit of solder to connect the traces and the stick works now. I don’t have small wires to secure the connection, but I think solder should do the job as long as nothing is grinds against the solder.
I did some repairing on broken traces inside a few mouses, using some traces from an old and pretty damaged Mainboard. I tried to use just solder to connect the broken traces at first… but the connection was too fragile.
Instead of hot glue i did use some 2-part epoxy adhesive to secure the the soldered traces since it sticks better to the epoxy based pcb than hot glue.
