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A guy at a Portland retro shop ripped my solder joints and it fixed my whole approach
Back in 2019 I was modding GameCube controllers for Smash and I thought my work was clean. Then I brought a few to a retro shop in Portland and the owner watched me crack one open and go straight for the iron. He grabbed my board and pointed at two pads where I had bridged the tinned wire and just said 'you are cooking the plastic before the metal'. He showed me he holds the iron on the pad for a count of 2 seconds, adds a dot of fresh solder, then feeds the wire in. I started doing that on every swap, and my dead controller rate went from about 1 in 5 down to basically nothing over the next 3 months. Turns out most of my old 'broken' sticks were just cold joints I made worse by reheating them over and over. How do you all handle pads that already look a little lifted before you even touch them?
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anthony4261mo ago
Remember learning to MIG weld from a guy who said same thing: clean metal, steady heat, let the puddle form before you move.
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