r/soldering • u/Domntn • 23h ago

Never soldered before, but looking to learn how to solder and repair, what tools would I want to buy to fix this? Soldering Tool Feedback or Purchase Advice Request

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2 Upvotes

57% Upvoted

3

u/hex64082 22h ago

What are you going to solder here? That daughter board is not soldered, you can replace it as is, just pull it out.

3

u/bigrealaccount 21h ago

You need to desolder the black bit, or both it and the USB port depending on how damaged it is.

You need:

- Soldering iron: this is what allows you to melt the metal to both solder it onto the board, and desolder it from the board.

- Leaded solder wire with rosin/noclean flux core (NOT LEAD FREE): the solder itself, which is what keeps the components in place and conducts electricity

- Flux (any non corrosive flux is fine, some mg chemical flux paste in a syringe will do the job): important tool that removes oxidisation and makes creating joints much easier, but more importantly allows for better heat transfer during desoldering. also decreases chances of fucking your pads

- Wick with flux inside it (any brand is fine, superwick is preferred. can't go wrong with superwick): a braid of copper wire which sucks up the solder wire from the board, and into the wick.

- 99% isopropanol alcohol: needed for cleaning the board from flux and solder residue

- Qtips ear tips: for cleaning and scrubbing the board. used with the 99% alcohol

- Brass solder cleaner: a bundle of brass wire, used for cleaning and tinning your tip.

I think that basically covers it. If you want a recommendation for a good soldering iron look at the recent post I made. Or if you want more expensive options, look at "JBC clone" stations online, do some research. Or a T12 Quick from Aliexpress.

Although, this looks like it would work. The plastic is just slightly melted. Unless those are some kind of mini resistors on the pins themselves?? Why are you fixing it?

1

u/Domntn 2h ago

So this controller mainly is meant to work on gamecubes, and the left two connections that melted seemed to handle converting usb to gcc inputs which i use most often for this controller. This is a super helpful list thank you, but would I likely have to get a new way to connect the main motherboard to the usb port?

2

u/twivel01 21h ago

I see melted plastic, but I'm not sure that will cause any problems. I think those pins do need to be soldered to the green board though. (Unless they are already soldered on the reverse side).

What problem are you seeing here?

2

u/Kaisounovsky 20h ago

It's obvious the previous attempt to solder was with a too large Iron Tip , or the guy that did that was holding the iron in an obtuse angle instead of a near vertical position, & melted the plastics as a result.

2

u/twivel01 20h ago edited 20h ago

It's not obvious to me what they want to fix. I was interpreting their question as how can they fix the damaged/melted plastic. I don't think they did any real damage that needs fixed and my question was to confirm that was what they really want to fix. I think they can live with the cosmetic issue of having some melted plastic.

-1

u/I3lackxRose 21h ago

Looks like maybe they started trying to solder the left pins and melted it a little but the pins sitting on the green board don't look soldered yet? In that case Microcenter. Get you a starter soldering iron kit with sponge and tip cleaner and some solder with flux in it. I would also recommend extra flux, this will help the solder flow like water and make it nice and even vs being tacky and messy looking and flux off to remove and clean after. Watch a couple YouTube videos but soldering is pretty easy with through hole components. It's multiple pin chips and BGA's that become a bit more advanced.

1

u/_maple_panda 20h ago

Unrelated, but the pilot holes for the brass inserts look a little big.

1

u/nonchip 5h ago

there's nothing to fix. except the design ofc, since usb is not meant to do that, but should be fine in most cases.