Intellivision Flashback Controller Repair Question

[darkknight4251]

Hey all!

 

I recently purchased an Intellivision flashback on ebay and one of the controllers doesn't completely work. The down area on the disc tends to either not do anything, or trigger the right side of the disc. The number 1-2 buttons also do not work at all. I've done a general cleaning with alchohol and tested the continuity of the solder points on the green board at the top of the controller. I'm finding very little specifics on how the controller works and I'm kind of at a loss as to what could prevent some of the functions from working (including a possible short in the disc if it's triggering wrong directions). Has anyone had any experience working on these or fixing them? I've attached a photo of what the inside looks like in case someone spots something that I missed. 

Edited June 5, 2021 by darkknight4251

[+fdr4prez]

Can you check for continuity from the board to each of the pins in the 9-pin connector at the end of the cable?

[Sinjinhawke]

One of mine has a similar problem with the down action on the disc.  Nothing happens.  Never tried the 1-2 buttons.  I just got sad and put it back in it's box.

[mr_me]

There's one wire/pin that can take out both the down directions on the disc as well as the top row of the keypad.  These wires are really thin and can break easily.  Be careful removing the little green circuit board, wires can break at the solder point.

[WILLIAM BEAR]

Same here, tried cleaning it with contact cleaner but I think I’ve done worse to it. Tbh I think that it’s a total loss in my case

 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I've had several FB controllers whose wiring has actually broken within the harness itself somewhere along the cable. I just repaired 4 such FB controllers recently that all had one or more broken wires within the cable. I was able to confirm this by carefully moving parts of the cable around where sometimes I would then show registration on the direction or buttons that weren't working. You can clip the wire in that spot and then strip an splice back all of the wires, but they are so thin that it is quite likely to happen elsewhere within the cable later.

 

So, what I did was to replace the entire cable harness on all 4 controllers with those I took from old beatup Sega genesis controllers as those have all 9 wires needed. While still a little fiddly to solder and work with, those cables are of much higher quality from back in the day than what the FB controllers use today. All four were back to proper working order after that. 

 

The only caveat with this, is that I found that while Sega 9piin cables fit fine on the Sears SVA and INTV II consoles, they actually seem to have a very loose fit on the FB console. I think the FB controller pins are smaller in diameter as compared to what Sega and older 9pin controller ports were like hence the super loose fit. But, provided you didn't jostle them too much they worked just fine in the FB still.

 

[+nurmix]

AT Games (or whatever factory they used to assemble these) weren’t exactly soldering superstars.

 

When I was making my Dual Action Controllers, I encountered a lot of bad, cold, or just generally sloppy (sometimes missing!) solder work on the wiring daughterboards.  In my experience, that was more commonly the problem than the wires themselves.

 

For what I was doing, it didn’t matter, as I was desoldering and repurposing the matrix connectors on the daughterboards.  But if it was a controller I was keeping stock and fixing, a reflow of the solder on all the wiring joints usually fixed any connectivity problems.

 

That said, yes, sometimes it was a broken wire or two, and replacing the cable was necessary.

 

I don’t recall encountering any problems with the Mylar circuit matrices themselves on these.  Of course with older or heavily used controllers, those will eventually develop cracks and cause portions of the disc to not work too.

 

[+-^CrossBow^-]

1 hour ago, nurmix said:

AT Games (or whatever factory they used to assemble these) weren’t exactly soldering superstars.

 

When I was making my Dual Action Controllers, I encountered a lot of bad, cold, or just generally sloppy (sometimes missing!) solder work on the wiring daughterboards.  In my experience, that was more commonly the problem than the wires themselves.

 

For what I was doing, it didn’t matter, as I was desoldering and repurposing the matrix connectors on the daughterboards.  But if it was a controller I was keeping stock and fixing, a reflow of the solder on all the wiring joints usually fixed any connectivity problems.

 

That said, yes, sometimes it was a broken wire or two, and replacing the cable was necessary.

 

I don’t recall encountering any problems with the Mylar circuit matrices themselves on these.  Of course with older or heavily used controllers, those will eventually develop cracks and cause portions of the disc to not work too.

 

The 4 that recently came to me for repair, 2 of them were still wired for FB console use, but the other 2 had been rewired internally for use with an INTV II or SVA. The soldering was fine on the small daughterboard and that is what lead me to finding they weren't working due to breaks in the wire within the cable itself. But yes, when I was first converting the actual FB controllers, I used to find several that came out of the box with a broken solder joint on that small board. In 2 of them I recall the actual pad was completely missing on the board and I had to solder the wire to the trace further up. Those FB controllers feel nice to use, but they were very much made to a price point.