It’s the trace going towards the mode button, so I’m pretty sure resistance won’t exactly be critical over a ~3mm gap, as long as it recognizes when the plunger button is pressed down.
It’s the trace going towards the mode button, so I’m pretty sure resistance won’t exactly be critical over a ~3mm gap, as long as it recognizes when the plunger button is pressed down.
It’s 100% what professionals do to repair traces. Please don’t spread misinformation.
Yup the wire is going to be more tolerant of flexing than the glue or a solder joint.
The crack is right next to the left analog stick, in a spot that will receive random pressure and mild board flexing while in use. Sure the plastic shell is still intact and all the supports are still there, but this particular spot is still a bit of a sensitive spot.
I’m all about the idea of a little piece of patch wire, but I want to actually adhere the patch wire to the trace with a conductive paint. I don’t want to just tape a piece of wire on it, only to have the wire micro-sliding back and forth and just wearing more carbon off the board over time.
And soldering is completely out of the question, you can’t solder to a carbon trace.
I’d fix the mechanical with epoxy and then use a small conducive screw tapped into the exoxy as a bridge.
While that idea sounds good on paper, the crack runs right by the edge of the button plunger, so the fix is gonna have to be about as flat as possible, and well adhered with conductive paint.
At least it didn’t crack directly under the button traces themselves, but it’s right next to it…
Standard pcb board is about .15mm .2mm flush mount screws are fairly common.
To be honest you are most likely better getting a new device.
Nah, no need for a new device, all the actual game controls actually work after I glued the crack and soldered bridge wires over all the broke copper traces.
The only button that doesn’t work is the Mode button, which swaps the D-Pad and left analog. Its default mode is the normal mode you’d expect anyways, so fixing the Mode button is totally optional.
It’s just a bit tempting to get the controller back 100% functional, but it’s not terribly important.
I was kind of curious to dabble around and learn ways to make conductive paint at home, and use the controller as a first test try.
crush up some graphite really finely in a mortar (from a good source, like the carbon rods in zinc-carbon batteries, which can be usually found as those chonky D batteries if you dont need the large rods the video shows, or soft pencil leads, as the hard ones contain clay, and also be prepared to spend a lot if you go the pencil lead route), mix with glue, play with ratios (the more graphite the better, but it might start cracking with too much graphite) and type of glue (elmers, superglue, epoxy, try to aim for something slightly flexible as tou mentioned it’s gonna be under stress)
but i’ll warn you that it’s gonna work kinda bad compared to finding where the carbon trace originates and soldering a wire there (there’s gotta be metal somewhere)
Those all sound like a good set of options indeed. I’m kinda hoping to be able to use silicone glue, but any which way, I’ll be testing on sample cards first before applying anything to the board.
Unfortunately, even if I find the metal trace it connects to, the very end of the carbon trace is a dead end, it functions as one side of the rubber plunger button contact pad. So the fix has to be carbon trace friendly, soldering simply isn’t an option here.
Thanks for the thoughts and advice 👍
With all the proper tools and materials, I am a professional, capable of soldering traces about as thin as a human hair.
https://lemmy.world/post/9917691
And when it comes to carbon traces, we absolutely did use conductive paint to fix damaged traces. But now I’m more into automotive repair and just don’t happen to have any conductive paint in my home electronics repair materials.
All I was wanting was a good homebrew solution to properly patch a ~3mm damaged section of carbon trace, not some hack solution that’ll just end up wearing loose and having a bad connection within a few months of gameplay.
So I do not find your answer helpful nor professional.