Any gamepad schematics anywhere?

[eyeliner]

Hello, my friends!

Everybody should be aware by know that I have the slight tendency to find problems, or create them on occasion.

But this one is not from my own doing, promise!

I have a gamepad that doesn't register the start button.
I've found that this piece, C80, seems blown and the via comes from SW6, which is where the start button is.

Can anyone help me finding what part this is? I assume a capacitor, but can't find the specs...

Much love to you, my friends.

 

[emcintosh]

Hello, my friends!

Everybody should be aware by know that I have the slight tendency to find problems, or create them on occasion.

But this one is not from my own doing, promise!

I have a gamepad that doesn't register the start button.
I've found that this piece, C80, seems blown and the via comes from SW6, which is where the start button is.
View attachment 417116
Can anyone help me finding what part this is? I assume a capacitor, but can't find the specs...

Much love to you, my friends.

AcidMods seems to be the place to go for this sort of thing: https://acidmods.com/forum/index.php/board,357.0.html

 

[Flame]

Hello, my friends!

Everybody should be aware by know that I have the slight tendency to find problems, or create them on occasion.

But this one is not from my own doing, promise!

I have a gamepad that doesn't register the start button.
I've found that this piece, C80, seems blown and the via comes from SW6, which is where the start button is.
View attachment 417116
Can anyone help me finding what part this is? I assume a capacitor, but can't find the specs...

Much love to you, my friends.

can't you just replace the tantalum capacitor with another one? you would need to use a solder, tho.

@Foxi4 any ideas?

 

[eyeliner]

can't you just replace the tantalum capacitor with another one? you would need to use a solder, tho.

@Foxi4 any ideas?

Indeed I could, but I have no idea of its values.

Oh, and no need to worry about soldering. I'm quite the adept at it, as you can confirm in my other topic.

I just soldered F2 fuse on my DS today, so... I can handle this one.

 

[Foxi4]

can't you just replace the tantalum capacitor with another one? you would need to use a solder, tho.

@Foxi4 any ideas?

The general approach here is “find another known good board, take values and replace”, but I don’t have a board like that on hand right now.

@eyeliner A quick Google search shows that C80 has been a problem part before, but nobody’s listing a value. If you don’t have a second known good board, investigate the area for similar components in a similar arrangement, test those and try to match - what are the odds that different buttons would use different values? Failing that, throw a 22u at it and see what happens.

 

[eyeliner]

The general approach here is “find another known good board, take values and replace”, but I don’t have a board like that on hand right now.

@eyeliner A quick Google search shows that C80 has been a problem part before, but nobody’s listing a value. If you don’t have a second known good board, investigate the area for similar components in a similar arrangement, test those and try to match - what are the odds that different buttons would use different values? Failing that, throw a 22u at it and see what happens.

OK, I'll try that. Will post results, obviously.

@Foxi4
Might it be that that black/burnt part is preventing the cap from being grounded? Would that prevent the via to loose continuity until the hole a little up and right?

Edit: Scratch that. There's continuity until the top shield.

Edit 2:
Fix'd. I removed the cap, and as expected, the pads came with it (It WAS burnt, so I was expecting it).
After confirming that the button would still be usable without the cap, I bridged the via and it works.

Let this be a lesson for yours truly:
When buying used, all sellers are liars.

 

[Foxi4]

OK, I'll try that. Will post results, obviously.

@Foxi4
Might it be that that black/burnt part is preventing the cap from being grounded? Would that prevent the via to loose continuity until the hole a little up and right?

Edit: Scratch that. There's continuity until the top shield.

Edit 2:
Fix'd. I removed the cap, and as expected, the pads came with it (It WAS burnt, so I was expecting it).
After confirming that the button would still be usable without the cap, I bridged the via and it works.
View attachment 417541
View attachment 417542

Let this be a lesson for yours truly:
When buying used, all sellers are liars.

Yeah, it’s a button, not a rocket. Not exactly a sensitive component, just about anything would probably work so long as there’s continuity. I do advise against testing continuity when capacitors are involved because, well, they’re capacitors - you’ll get false readings. If the pads are gone, you should scrape off a little bit of the trace, make a bridge and create a new pad. The easiest way to do it is to isolate a part of the ground layer by cutting it out from the rest and routing the bridge there. Tricky on a multilayered board because you don’t want to cut into any layers that are underneath, so care is required. That being said, there’s no need to fuck around with a fix that works unless you see some unexpected behaviour developing - these are just tips for future reference. Congrats on the fix!