Soldering Controls and Gold Leaf Buttons

[wcndave]

I decided a while ago that the most "robust" design would be to solder all the wiring to the goldleaf buttons I had installed, as the crimp connectors often fell off.

I have now found, about 2 years later, that a few of my buttons don't work very well.  With a tester, I get inconsistent connection, and so I took them apart.

It looks like the heat from the soldering iron melted the plastic a little, so the buttons degraded under use quicker than normal...

I now have a normal switch button just to compare, and some new gold leaf ones, and also can get some crimp connectors of a more appropriate size.

So my question is:

1. any thoughts on soldering vs using crimp connectors? (I have a much better, hotter iron now, so probably won't melt the plastic as much)
2. any thoughts on gold leaf vs switch (Suzo-Happ) buttons, both for construction, and playing?

Thanks!

[paigeoliver]

Soldering the controls is what you do when you are too cheap to use crimp connectors. Most real games didn't solder the controls.

[Titchgamer]

^ What Paige said.

Do it once and do it right with the correct sized crimp.

If its a little loose just gently squeeze them with pliers.

[wcndave]

OK.  I was a bit worried that too loose means they fall off, and if too tight one damages the contacts when putting them on.  That's because the goldleaf contacts seem very fragile compared to the switches in the happ buttons.

Off to get started!