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Pop'n Controller Problem

Posted: Mon May 16, 2005 10:48 pm
by Secef
Tragedy has struck. My Ransai Pop'n Music controller has broken... to a certain extent.

I played earlier today no problem, but this evening when I tried to play, I noticed in the first song that my left blue button was giving me Boos where I knew I was dead on. So, after that song ended, I flipped it over, unscrewed its back, and checked the blue button for damage. What did I find?

A dangling wire, not connected to anything. *gasp*

Now, I'm no electronics wizard, but I could gather that this was not good. Upon further inspection, I found that the dangling wire was supposed to be connected to the metal point on the microswitch. I figured this since there appeared to be a broken wire sticking out of the solder. Also, I played around with pushing the blue button and touching the dangling wire to the metal point, and lo' and behold, it worked when there was contact and didn't when there wasn't.

So, that's the problem. A wire has become unsoldered, a seemingly simple problem, and I realize what needs to be done to fix this. However, I can't fix this myself. I know nothing about soldering, nor have the tools available to do so even if I did. So... suggestions? How can I go about getting this fixed? I'm not sure how I can accomplish this.

Posted: Mon May 16, 2005 11:16 pm
by djfooboo
My recommendation is to sell me the controller for 2$
























Or just have one of your friends who is handy with a solder fix it. It would be real easy. You could even have them teach you some basics of soldering so you can fix it anytime.

Posted: Tue May 17, 2005 8:08 am
by MonMotha
If you bring it by some time while I'm in town at a get-together, I can fix it up for you in about 5 minutes (4.5 to warm up the iron, 0.5 to fix it). There's a possibility of this Thurs. evening. I'll get back with you. That's in Indianapolis, of course. Or you can come up to Terre Haute during the week.

Posted: Tue May 17, 2005 4:35 pm
by Secef
MonMotha wrote:If you bring it by some time while I'm in town at a get-together, I can fix it up for you in about 5 minutes (4.5 to warm up the iron, 0.5 to fix it). There's a possibility of this Thurs. evening. I'll get back with you. That's in Indianapolis, of course. Or you can come up to Terre Haute during the week.
Ah, really? I'd be quite grateful. I could make a trip to Indy on Thursday evening no problem, just let me know when and where.

Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 8:27 am
by Spazz
Do it ghetto style. Go and buy some solder, then grab a big lighter and screwdriver. Heat up screwdriver until it's hot enough to melt the solder and then QUICKLY solder the wire. Fixed.

Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 8:59 am
by MonMotha
If you're going to go buy solder, you might as well pick up the darn soldering iron too and save your screwdriver. It's not easy to get the solder off the screwdriver should some flux and molten solder get on it without solder wick, and cheap soldering irons are just that: cheap (around $8). They're a lot easier to use for this purpose too.

You don't need a fancy temp controlled iron for simple stuff like this (though boy are they nice to have! I wish I had one).