Vince's Repair Thread - (Console Repairs & Mods)

Timber said:
Thank you that's really useful guidance.

So basically it's convenience vs cost; a heat gun is just going to be much easier than the chopping apart method, but also more expensive. I need to decide if it's worth it.

I have found a few sellers with '60/40/Tin/Lead', or similar. One has a skull branding with '63/37'. Is this OK, or do I need to keep looking?

EDIT: after botching up the 2 DS4's boards I then tried my attention on a 3 year old Dualsense with stick drift and again struggled with removing the solder. Tried to capture the stick I did remove but it looks like the middle of the 3-pins for the left sensor now has a burnt pad (for want of better term) and so is this board a lost concern?

yjuKtBM.jpg
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Im going to do a ps5 pad after this xbox im working on so ill do a quick vid :)
 
Wasnt happy with how beaten up the shell was on this gears special:









It's not perfect but this is pre paint at the back so ill touch it up to look a bit better, rebuilt it using plasto :cry:

Its another one of those cool specials that makes a custom noise when you turn it on and off or eject a disc :D
 
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Timber said:
Thank you & much appreciated. I will definitely watch it.

I've managed to pick up a cheap, used Dualshock 4 so now have two V4's en-route (one new, one used), my original 2014 V1 will battery issues, a Dualsense with the above board, another 3 year old Dualsense which is already getting loose on the right stick (blame Division 2 for this) and an old drifting Xbox One controller. So lots to work with as I never threw away old Playstation's controllers. I also have the case/shell and internals for the two V4 Dualshocks I mucked up. So real potential if I can learn this.



Nice repair.

That was my second Xbox One X after my first one died 18-months in. Microsoft back then did make some wonderful special edition consoles. I also had the Halo Reach 360 with the two custom noises for start-up and shutdown. Also that Gears 5 Xbox One X had one of the nicest, if not the nicest special edition controllers too - which if I remember they sold separately too.
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Also just finished a project Scorpio this morning and am now working on a PS5 with no display!

 
Right PS5 sorted. Just needed a new port...





Time to record a ps5 pad.... im just going to do an unedited overhead.
 
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Timber said:
Yea, understood.

There's also a simple combined soldering gun & sucker Yihua sell for £35 but I'm not sure that's going to work as well. I still haven't been able to find that knack for using a solder sucker and breaking those first two Dualshock 4 boards has made me evaluate options. I know I've got to spend something to upgrade my soldering iron and I suppose the budget heat guns and solder irons are cheap enough that you could run them in tandem with this unit as a desoldering gun only, but again might be getting even sillier for my usecase.

I found one channel on Youtube (Retro Computing Reboot) who did a review of the unit 6-months in, working on old 8-bit computers. Claimed to have used it for 3-4 hours a week, but cruicially mentions that it does the one job it's meant to do very well of removing the solder. Although technically his review is on the non-I version without the soldering gun.

I did notice there's a sale tomorrow, so will see if anything comes down in price and make a decision then. Again thank you for the guidance.

EDIT: Just found Yihua sell the 948 desoldering gun for £115 atm. This is the non-2-in-1 version. So I would just need a competent soldering iron to go with it.
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My iron is like £30 :)
 
New toy!!!



My coffee was getting cold so used it to confirm... yep cold coffee!



and im also still alive so thats good!

 
Timber said:
Yep I saw it linked earlier in the thread.

So I'm leaning towards your soldering iron plus the Yihua 948 (non-all-in-one) for £115. Total just over £140. Not sure the soldering iron will get discounted for the spring sale but I can wait for a few hours.

I've ordered a small amount (50g) of 60/40 solder from eBay too. So I might be getting to the point of competent tools. Whether me as the operator can get to that level is another thing..
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You got this, the thread believes!! yes we do!!!

Go a link to the solder? Ive tried a lot of ebay solder and most arent 60/40 at all... or anything like it. I know good solder and im yet to find it on ebay. Which is why I now have this £50 roll of weller lol
 
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Haha so today I issued a bounty to my discord.. make me an app that allows me to calibrate Xbox one / elite 1 and Xbox 360 pads. I set the initial bounty at a new 3ds and £100 cash. The bounty is now a 3ds, £100 cash and $100 cash with further community commitments coming in. Knew this discord would be useful for something :cry:

Let's see if they can make it happen.
 
Timber said:
I've probably gone wrong but I went with this because I recognised the brand as the Duratool PCB holder I recently purchased is actually quite well made and packaged. And wasn't as cheap as some of the others. I did find that Weller roll like yours at £27 but it's way too much for me.
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So not shocking but not "good"... Should do you ok.



I actually compared cross sections under my scope of my old 30 year old roll that I was dreading finishing and a load of others... Nothing compares or comes close to that 30 year old reel... You seemingly can't buy stuff that good anymore

I have kept about a meter of the old stuff, that stuff is bloody awesome. Not even the Weller stuff compares.
 
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Timber said:
Good to hear I didn't go totally wrong. Beyond using solder before de-soldering I've still actually got to get to the bit where I can actually solder in new components.

I did find some examples where the labeling looked old; like this and this too. So it sounds like age is potentially a good thing if buying 60/40 solder, but I didn't know if incorrect storage might be an issue.
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Unlikely mine was stored wherever and was given to me as almost a complete roll some 25 years ago... Stuff was next level.

Look at the price on that oouf...

When it comes to solder old stuff is good stuff.
 
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Timber said:
Good to know. Yep very expensive, but large amounts.
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Indeed but thick isn't always good either. Mind you I used thick stuff for ages. It's just a quality thing. It's actually hard to find really good solder. I should do a vid on just how good that old stuff I have is vs basically everything else.. Weller included.
 
Armadillo said:
+1 for old stuff still seems to work fine. My dad has an old reel of 60/40, no idea who made it, labels are long gone, probably at least 20 years old, works fine.

I use "newer" stuff, either a reel of 60/40 kester (can't remember exactly what flux is in that, would have to look) that is older (at least 10 years), still fine or a 63/37 kester 44 core, that's a couple of years old and still good.

Way too much solder for me, it will probably out last me, but I was fed up scratching around with whatever random solder you could find sellers selling in smaller amounts.
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If you look at my very first post you can see my big reel of really old stuff. Back then it weighed about a 1.5kg now its an empty reel with a slither on it :cry:

Also looking back things have come along a lot since those posts... Still enjoying it mostly though but i still have too much "stuff" laying around which I wish was a bit clearer.
 
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