Did I screw it up already?

[Chris2]

Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place, it's been a long time.


I got one of those cheap knockoff Saturn usb controllers recently because I have and enjoy one from a few years back and wanted another. Apparently Sega forced the halting of official USB Saturn pads though, because this one was just a label-free knockoff with bad buttons.

That said, I decided I would open it up and look inside, and from that point got the idea to try and hack on some buttons and a joystick and make myself a little arcade stick, using some parts I have around.

Now I've never done the whole 'solder to a controller PCB' business before, but I remember from long ago reading that you should scrape off some extra area for the connection points, makes it easier to solder. So I did, but without thinking I did it rather haphazardly, and now I worry I might have screwed it up, possibly irreparably.

I will have pics up in a second, I tried earlier but I believe they were too large. Sorry for the multipost!

[Chris2]

Here's the whole board. I heard once that you can scrape out 'paths' to a lead when it's too cramped of a soldering job, so I attempted to do so here in a few places. The rest I just scratched away some more space to solder onto. All in all I probably went overboard, but I hope I can make something of this yet.

[Chris2]

And the other one, a close-up of my most-suspected 'mistake' area.

What say ye doctor, can it be saved?


EDIT: As these pictures demonstrate I am a master of MSPaint 

[BobA]

Looks like all your scrapings are on the common ground side.   To connect to the controller they have to be on the side that leads to the encapsulated chip.  Looks to be wrong but correctable.

[Chris2]

Looks like all your scrapings are on the common ground side.   To connect to the controller they have to be on the side that leads to the encapsulated chip.  Looks to be wrong but correctable.

Don't I still need a ground for every button? Or can I daisy-chain all the grounds and wire one of them to a ground on the PCB?

Also, how are you identifying points as common and not? I just sort of happened to do it to be honest.

[PL1]

Don't I still need a ground for every button? Or can I daisy-chain all the grounds and wire one of them to a ground on the PCB?

Also, how are you identifying points as common and not? I just sort of happened to do it to be honest.

If you look at the right half of S1-S6, you'll see that they all connect to the same wide ground plane trace that acts as the daisy chain ground -- you can connect your daisy-chain ground wire to any one of the places you've already scratched.

The left half of each of those contacts has a thin trace leading away where you'll connect the wire for the NO terminal of the microswitch.


Scott

[BobA]

To tell if you have a common ground all the areas where you have scrapped are electrically the same so therefore are a common ground.   If there is a ground that is not connected to all the other grounds this would have to be connected separately.  This occurs on some gamepads where there are several grounds that may not be connected together.  In this case the separate ground and the corresponding button would have to be used together.

[MTPPC]

Your scraping looks fine, but as others have said, you only need one connection to the ground plane. No harm, no foul. Proceed as intended.

[lilshawn]

this is where you want to solder (red) to all your NO tabs on your switches and the other ground tab all tied together to black.

 

[Jack Burton]

One thing I have always been curious about:

Could you drill a small hole through the pcb behind each connection point and insert the wires through it before soldering?

The idea is the connection will be stronger since any strain on the wiring will pull the solder towards the pcb instead of away from it. 

[BobA]

If you have enough room on the bit of pad a small drill bit in a dremel works well to add strain relief.

[lilshawn]

i'd be cautious with a board that has tracks on both sides. Single sided would be fine to drill through. double sided, not so much.

[BobA]

Lots of cheap game controllers are single sided to make them cheaply.  Contacts and chip in blob on same side.  Just flip over your board to check.