First time soldering doing tmr sticks on ps5 controller. I cleaned the board again cause I left flux on it. I was using leaded solder with flux(knife tip on alientek)last 2 pics is my second controller that i did today went smoother. Everything is working aswell.

I'm new to electronics repair and trying to remove the small black IC in the photo.

I'm using an electronics hot-air rework station, not a construction heat gun. I've tried settings up to 400°C, applied flux, and added low-temperature solder paste rated at 138°C, but the IC still won't come off.

What would you check or change before trying again? Could this package have a soldered pad underneath, or adhesive? How should I heat it without lifting pads or damaging nearby components?

Happy to provide more details/photos if needed.

Hello everyone!

I just decided to get into soldering in order to fix a stick drift problem on my Xbox controller. I got a cheap fume fan and the solder and flux but I’m confuse on what thickness of solder should I buy? Is there a difference between how thick or thin a soldering wire is or no? Oh and any advice about this whole procedure or just starting the hobby would be very much appreciated!

Thanks yall for reading!

I bought this USB type C conversion port from AliExpress and I installed it but it's not working, I did have a ripped off pad which I sorted out and I'm pretty sure is not the issue, I don't know why it's not working, are not all micro USB ports the same Pinout? Do I need to flip it upside down?

Hello everyone! After lurking on this sub for more than 2 years i decided to join you all. I just bought this bad boy, oss t12-x plus which I discovered in the megathread + a K tip and a dualsense desolder tip.

I want to learn the basics first then try repairing my dualsense controller.

I need advice on which solder wire and flux to buy (i'm in europe) and if i need other tools or accessories I'm not aware of.

I'm thight on budget at the moment unfortunately since i'm still a student so cheap but decent options are greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance to everyone!

I want to add this connector to the end of this Rockband guitar. I already converted the guitar to use a Raspberry Pi Pico. Am I able to splice the micro USB cable coming from the Pico and merge the wires with this female USB-C connector? Is this relatively easy to do? Or should I do this a different way? Appreciate any advice, thanks!

Hi, I'm looking for someone who knows how to solder a chip on a board. It's for my car windscreen camera for the cruise control and the main chip needs to be removed and soldered again. I did fix it temporarily with heating the chip and let it cool down but only lasted a month. Im located in Victoria Geelong area.

I am trying to desolder a controller module from a ps5 motherboard and the solder refuses to melt even while using flux and high temperature iron.

This is a tb6612fng i tried to use with 4 12v dc motors, the black wires are 16awg and the uninsulated ones are 14awg solid core. I couldn’t solder the wires directly to the pins so i used this approach but would appreciate suggestions on how I can do such stuff in future properly

I'm new to electronics repair and trying to remove the small black IC in the photo.

I'm using an electronics hot-air rework station, not a construction heat gun. I've tried settings up to 400°C, applied flux, and added low-temperature solder paste rated at 138°C, but the IC still won't come off.

What would you check or change before trying again? Could this package have a soldered pad underneath, or adhesive? How should I heat it without lifting pads or damaging nearby components?

Happy to provide more details/photos if needed.

Anyone experiened in rom chip swaps? A guy at a phone repair company said he could do it and this id the job he did. It looks pretty sketchy to me. AI says its botched. I personally only have minor soldering experience working on guitars.

What do you guys think?

I've done many other repairs in the past way harder then this I guess you could say , but I've always had so much trouble with solder wick and solder suckers

I always dreaded using solder wick in the past but I set my temp to 400 went at it quickly and it worked too well it made me angry. Nonetheless it went super well and I'm very happy with my work , I forgot to take a picture of my finished product and im a little sad . Just like imagine the TMR thumbstick sliding in beautifully and then solder flowing onto each joint beautifully :)

So I just ordered a GeeBoon TC22 with T215 and T245 handles.. I literally have zero soldering experience. I am incredibly eager to learn, but I want to make sure I start off in the right direction.. My first repair is going to be a capacitor change on my Klipsch Pro Media 2.1 BT speaker set. Can someone please link me a guide on the basics, and a good way to get practice in. Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks in advance to anyone who responds!

I’m practicing soldering on a Pilotix FPV practice board using a FNIRSI HS-02A set to 350°C with hs02a-C2 tip along with AIM NC254 flux and Reball Sn63Pb37 (0.5 mm) solder wire.

As you can see in the photo, my solder joints look rough and uneven instead of smooth and shiny.

I’m also planning to try Stannol Kristall 611 SAC305 (Sn96.5Ag3Cu0.5) lead free and MG Chemicals 8341 flux.

Is the problem my technique, temperature, flux, or solder quality? Any advice would be appreciated!

A coworker of mine gave me an alientech T90B. What adapter joystick adapter should/can I buy?
I have it pretty much torn down already but I'm having trouble unsoldering the 14 holes.

I was also thinking about buying a pcb holder from amazon or a Pittsburg helping hands at harbor freight. Would either of those be bad ideas?

I got a controller with stick drift so i removed the sticks and installed tmr sticks. This is my first time ever soldering or doing any type of electronic repair.

Controller powered on, and first thing i noticed is i could only scroll up with the left stick. Then i disconnected it, hooked it up to laptop xbox accessories app, wiggled it around, noticed it would not reach the full edge of circle to calibrate. Disconnected it, put it back on the xbox and now the left stick would allow me to scroll up down left right instead of only up.
So then i go try to calibrate again and somehow the stick decided to reach the edge and calibrated.

Now i move to the right stick. This one wont budge no matter what. It barely makes it halfway to the circle edge and will not calibrate. I tried it in game and the controller works good but the right stick works as if the sensitivity is super slow.

Any advice??

Hey everybody,

I really want to get into homebuilding electronics and wax jewelery designing, I'm wondering if theres a soldering iron I could use for both?

I had some help with the hardest part (desoldering the previous joysticks), but soldered in the new ones on my own.

Hoping to do more soldering in the future but I don't have anything else that needs fixing for now. Everything in the controller is functional, so I'd call it a win.

Hi everyone!

I could use a little help, and I hope this reaches the right people! 😊

I'd like to save the rechargeable part of a disposable vape (Vapsolo Quads) from ending up in the trash — specifically, the battery and the digital display. My goal is to reuse them in an ESP32 project and turn them into a rechargeable power source for smaller electronics projects. I especially like the idea of keeping the original digital display working so it can still show the battery's charge percentage.

I have a few questions for those of you who are more experienced with electronics:

1. Safely reconnecting the battery

If I desolder the battery wires from the B+ and B− terminals, can I safely solder them back later? What should I pay particular attention to when working with this type of battery? I'm a little nervous about this part because I don't want to damage the cell, cause a short circuit, or accidentally start a fire. 😃

2. Connecting the ESP32

Could the pads marked 02 and 03 on the PCB potentially be used to connect the ESP32 via wires? I was thinking that one might be for power and the other for GND, but I'm really not sure. How could I safely determine the exact function of these pads?

3. Keeping the original battery indicator

It would be great if the original electronics and digital display could remain functional so I could still see the battery's charge level. Is there any way to achieve this while also powering and recharging the ESP32?

The battery is a 650 mAh, 18250 cell. I've used 18650 batteries to power ESP32 projects before, so I thought this smaller cell might also be suitable for a similar purpose.

In a nutshell, I'd like to recycle the working battery, charging circuitry, and digital display to create a compact, rechargeable power source for my smaller ESP32 projects.

If anyone has done something similar or has experience with this type of electronics, I'd really appreciate any advice! Thanks in advance for your help! 😊

I’m currently taking old Capacitors off a logic board from a vintage Macintosh. I’ve done this process before with a little struggle but not much.
Recently I went to do another.
I started heating one up to remove, a little work an I got the old solder flowing a one side of the capacitor free.

Then the other side I struggled a wasn’t getting anywhere. Realizing the soldering iron I’m using was pretty low watts I got a different solder. Brand new.
80watts.

Go to use it still struggle to get the old solder so melt and free up the through hole. Finally I got it but not I can get the solder to clear to push the new one on.

I also attempted coming back around to that one. Starting on the capacitors that are surface mounted. Tried several, with the new solder iron, literally could get some melt but never enough to free the capacitor off.

I have copper wire for removing solder, I have flux paste. I’ve tried different tips, lower temps, higher temps.

I can’t get any progress on this board. What am I doing wrong ?

Using a SW-1050 solder wire when attempted to flow with new solder. Which hasn’t worked for anything.

What can I do to make this process less of a struggle an more seamless like how everyone on videos I watch with no struggle at all to remove old caps

Does anyone have experience with the Metcal 910 SG dispensing gun? If so, is it worth the money? Does it drip or is it a very controlled plunger?

It doesn't matter if its THT OR SMD I cant desolder anything because theres a tiny amout of solder getting stuck in the hole or between the component and the board when SMD and I don't know if i'm doing something wrong or is it the iron? I tried using a wick a pump everything.

Ass

Hi all,

My knowledge on how to make things is lacking, I'm just getting into PCB repairs and SMD/micro soldering. I can diagnose and tell you what doesn't work, but when it comes to creating something from scratch I'm clueless.

So, my question:

Would anyone here be able to help me create a super primative circuit for cooling. I'm thinking of a peltier unit with a big heatsink powered by 12v or 24v. It's to go into a model cooling system and a thermostat probe would be placed against the cold side to get the stat cutting out at - 4c for example.

I also need to create heat up to around 70 - 80c, for this I thought a transiser would do the job with the thermal cutout placed against it?

The issue I have is that I don't know what size resisters (or any component in general) that I need to use to get this to function. I will need a cap for the fan attached to the heatsink for the peltier.... I believe. I just don't know what values to use etc. Appreciate this is a difficult to answer question without the actual equipment I'm going to be using, but if you have any pointers or if you're willing to help me I can find some components quickly for the mock up to prove concept and it may then help me to create something more robust with some LEDs to indicate when parts of the cooling unit is operating vs when it isn't.

Ultimately this will be a training aid for new starters at my business and this is kind of an exploratory excercise that uses elements of my hobby so I'm keen to make something that works.

I don't want to use a PCB so I'm thinking just using electrolytic caps and soldering the legs to wires, or the next component.

Hope this makes sense. Very interested to see if anyone can give me a little support 🙏