Replacing one button on a Hori EX2

I recently got one of these sticks off a friend for cheap, but the ‘fierce punch’ or yellow Y button is, well, busted. Otherwise the stick works great for things like Ikaruga and I like it a lot, hell I wouldn’t have a problem with that button being busted if SFIV wasn’t right around the corner.

The problem specifically is that, say I went under ‘game controllers’ in Windows and held down the button, the input would flicker on and off. In actual gameplay it seems to work about 50% of the time. I haven’t done tons of research but this doesn’t sound like a problem with the PCB but rather the button itself.

I’d like to fix it but I am incredibly cheap (read: poor college student) and am pretty awful with a soldering iron so I want to keep the whole modding thing to a minimum. I see guides recommending Sanwa OBSF-30 buttons, but I’ve been told that Seimitsu PS-15 30mm buttons fit better. I’m assuming that I’d be using wires to connect it back to the PCB so I guess the length doesn’t matter?

Also, I read one post from someone with a similar problem saying that simply desoldering/resoldering the button could fix the issue. I’m not really sure how or why this would work but it’s worth a try, I guess.

replace all of them. otherwise it will feel fucked up.

I see. Well I suppose I could give it a shot and it shouldn’t run me more than 20 bucks.

Either way playing SF4 for the first week or so with only 5 buttons is gonna be…interesting

to figure out weather it’s the stick or the buttons, take the bottom plate off the stick so you can see the guts. next, take a piece of copper wire and touch one bare end to each solder point for that particular button. see how windows reads this. since you are directly closing the path without using the button at all, it should show a solid button press. if it still shows the button as flickering then it’s the pcb.

Wow thanks, that worked. I had to sand the soldered points down a little because they were covered with glue or something, but completing the circuit with a piece of wire doesn’t cause flickering.

Unfortunately my soldering iron is way too huge for this job. I’ll have to go get a smaller one.

i have the same problem with mine, does that meant the pcb is probably not bad?