I taught myself how to solder today!! It was really easy but I’m proud as heck of myself. 
Thanks a ton to everyone here for the tips and advice.
What kind of glue are you guys using over top of the soldered points?
None. A good solder point is stronger that any glue except maybe some epoxies. Glue over a bad solder point just means trying to fix it will be smelly and very difficult.
If you can pull on the soldered wire (gently!) and lift up with PCB by the wire you soldered, its good enough. Glue would just be a waste.
So hot glue does not help then?
IMO, there are better places to add structural integrity than the solder point, given a proper solder job. Hot glue just makes things smellier if work needs to be done in the future.
The knots you guys put in the cord is a much better solution, I think.
In my opinion, no. Some people believe it does help; the ‘belt and suspenders’ philosophy: it doesn’t hurt if its not needed, and it may just help if it is needed. I don’t subscribe to this philosophy in regards to soldering because it makes doing any proper repair, such as reheating the solder, difficult on my tools; melted hot glue on an iron REEKS like crazy and coats my iron in crap I don’t need. It makes the problem difficult to fix, and had it actually helped at all, I never would have known there was a problem to begin with. If a proper solder joint is strong enough that pulling the wire (HARD) will cause a trace will lift off of the pad, what exactly will a squishy substance like hot glue do?
But as always, just an opinion. But damn do I hate the idea of reworking with hot glue in the way.
Here is a tip to remove hot glue: heat it with a hair dryer for a moment and then it comes off in one solid chunk. Pick it off with your finger nail and/or a little flat head screwdriver. It is clean and harmless. :wgrin:
Many more people won’t need this tip now as I will no longer be using the hot glue.
The first pad I did for Xbox 360 was the only one that gave me a small problem after I hot glued it. One contact was not secure, so I used an exacto knife to slowly cut out the dried glue and cleanly cleared the area without a problem.
I always triple check my connections on the pcb’s, since I mail em to folks that are not to savvy on soldering stuff I always secure them. I guess everyone has their own preference.
I am still waiting to get a stick from TMO 
Just to see how he solders.
i think hot glue is only good when using a solderless hack or maybe just mounting the pcb to a panel so it doesnt move
Thanks a lot for the answers, everyone. I just checked my handiwork and was surprised at how strong the hold actually is! All this time I just assumed it would be fragile.
I just wanted to make sure it would stay together in case… I dunno, I had to use the PCB as a grappling hook or something.
I use hot glue on the wire itself to the pcb, not really on the solder joint. Just incase a wire is tugged, it won’t rip the pad from the PCB.
hi all, i have a question. i have a ps1 ds h series pad, witch was my homies he was messin with it and he cut the part with the analog sticks off of the board where u solder the buttons.
it was connectd by a ribbon . can i still use it for my stick? the cord that gos to the console is still connectd to the board where the buttons are. tnks
Sorry but you need to keep the analog board attached.
IIRC, you can try (although its very hard) to strip the ribbon cable and solder it back onto the main board. All you should need is an x-acto knife, dexterous hands, and lots of patience.
i kinda understand how to daisy chain the buttons a dc pad. but how do you do it to a happ stick ?
a diagram would be nice.
Look at the soldering guide in the essential joystick thread.
Question…
I recently opened a Sony Brand Analog stick I had and noticed that above where you are supposed to scrape and solder onto the board there are little gold points. Are these okay to solder to or do I need to scrape the place where the buttons were and solder onto that?
I can provide pictures if the post is confusing.
Regarding the use of hot glue: I put some on the component side of the PCB, so that helps with securing the cables to the PCB but doesn’t prevent me from doing some more work on the solder side. Of course, this works best with single-side PCBs
So, I have a question for any and all. Can anyone confirm that the hori Wii pcb is not common ground?
Has anyone mapped this pcb yet?
The only reason I put hot glue over my solder joints is so that the exposed wire in between the solder point and the insulation won’t budge and eventually break. However, I make sure it’s working first and test thoroughtly before I do it, because it is a huge pain getting the glue off once it’s cooled off.
PS1 DS Question
I have recently started prepping a DS pcb for a stick. I looked at the first post to see what I needed to scrape off in order to solder onto the button and ground. I think the PCB i’m using is different. Before I go any farther I want to make sure that I have the proper parts scraped to solder onto.
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a324/X_EGO_BRAIN_X/Picture540.jpg
Any help would greatly be appreciated