Controller repair solution?

[thecolecokid]

I've been thinking about this on and off. This wouldn't address anything but the contact issue on the fire buttons, but couldn't you use some of this conductive "paint" and just coat the contacts on the controller fire buttons instead of getting the button replacement kit? Here's a link to some of the products I'm thinking about

 

http://www.tedpella.com/SEMpaint.htm

 

Some of it seems relatively cheap for the amount of contacts you could repair. Any thoughts on this from anyone?

[Mock]

I was under the impression that the majority of the problem was in the flex circuit itself as well as the contacts? Is that true or not? If so I doubt that the the paint would have much effect.

 

I always thought it would be cool to have an actual self centering stick and real fire buttons...I'm not a big fan of the 5200 stick itself but I'd like to try one out made like that just to see if it makes it tolerable or not.

 

[joeybastard]

I never liked the feel of the 5200 fire buttons. I have modified all of my sticks to use microswitches for the fire buttons. It's 1000% better and not hard to do at all.

[jetset]

I never liked the feel of the 5200 fire buttons.  I have modified all of my sticks to use microswitches for the fire buttons.  It's 1000% better and not hard to do at all.

 

Could you post pics of that? Sounds like something to try out!

[JB]

I was under the impression that the majority of the problem was in the flex circuit itself as well as the contacts? Is that true or not? If so I doubt that the the paint would have much effect.

Yes, the problem is in the flex circutis. But rasiing the conductivity of the rubber contacts helps a lot.

Gluing aluminum foil to the carbon dots fixes them. I suspect conductive ink would too.

[joeybastard]

Could you post pics of that?  Sounds like something to try out!

 

Well, it was easy but let me say I'm not responsible if somebody tries it and messes up their sticks

Here's the first one I did, it's a little rougher than the 2nd but it shows what I did better. The buttons were from a $1.99 PC joystick from Goodwill. I just used a pair of dykes to cut the board they were on to fit the old button size There is also some rubber(orange in the pic) that I put behind them as a shim. It holds them in place but still allows me to slide them forward or back for a better feel.

 

The wiring is simple. I disconnected the white connector, pried the metal contacts down a little and soldered on wires to the Orange, Green/White and Yellow wires. These were the lead out to the wires I had already attached to the buttons. Orange is the ground so one contact from the all buttons went to that. Yellow is the bottom side buttons so the other contact got joined to that. Green/White wire is the top buttons so they got their free contact soldered to that. The hardest part is routing the wires so it doesn't interfere with putting the 2 halves of the stick back together. The best part is, the flex circuit isn't touched so I can always convert these back if I wanted. For the Start/Pause/Reset buttons I replaced the Atari ones with carbon rubber buttons from an old phone I had. They aren't anything too pretty but they work great.