Where to solder on a Playstation digital gamepad

[AlanS17]

Am I gonna be forced to solder from the copper or can I solder directly from those carbon-looking parts? They have a much larger surface area, and seem like they'd be pretty easy. The copper isn't so much harder, but I just wanna know ahead of time.

Also, since it looks like the board is only one layer I wanna drill out some lil pilot holes to make the soldering easier, but can someone point me to a place where I can get a teeeeny tiny drill bit? (1/16 would probably do, but something smaller would be better) Used some back in high school, but haven't gone looking for my own. Can I get them anywhere?

[gnateye]

yes you need to solder to the copper parts, yes do use a drill bit for pilot holes and insert the wires fro mthe back, get a 'wire dril lbit" from ace or some hardware store 1/16th is prolly too big.

check pics of mine for help

http://www.cosmicbreaks.com/images/arcade_stick/

[AlanS17]

Okie doke. Looks like it shouldn't be too hard. I'd rather use a dremel to drill than an actual power drill. Is this a good idea?

Also, what kind of wire is that? Did you pull it from Cat5 cabling? (I mention it because I noticed the stripes.)

Also, would you recommend solid or braided wire? For an enclosed project like this with shorter leads and small guages I'd rather use solid wire. What do you recommend, though?

[gnateye]

i used a flex shaft which is like a dremel, much easier to control on small spots.

it is cat5, i have 10k feet so i use it for all my projects, its solid, but i have heard many people recomend braided, i use what i have and have had no problems with it so far and i have hacked amany many pad s


good luck! it isnt hard, after the 1st one you can whip them out

gnat

[armad1ll0]

I like to go to the copper when the board has it exposed. It's easier than using the dremmel to expose the copper and sometimes you expose too much, wearing away at even the copper. It's tricky.

You can zip tie the wires before you solder to the small contact points (copper) which keeps them from moving around and breaking off of the solder points. No need to drill holes, it's a waste of time doing that.

Digital series H have exposed copper contact points.

A little back I bought a large length of 15 wire cable which is perfect for this stuff. Just enough wires and they are about 26 gauge and copper stranded.

[KeithD]

Here's a link to the my PS controller hack console:

http://users.rcn.com/chevello/console/console.html

And a shot of my lousy soldering job...