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Sodering Advice/Suggestions for Wiimote Accident... help!

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tLove

Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2005
Location
California, PA
Okay... I was following this post (http://www.frontrowcrew.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=1196&page=1) a bit and decided I wanted to paint my Wiimote for the Wii.

First I got apart the nunchuck and painted that, made sure the paint looked good, didn't smear, etc. It looks fantastic... flat black with white keys. I'll get some pics up once everything is done.

Anyway, I started taking apart the Wiimote, which is quite a b**ch if I do say so. The front in is snapped in very tight. Anyway, I got it apart, and once I got the circuit board off, I realized I made a terrible error. Apparently when I got it apart, I broke the red positive cable that read to something that deals with the speaker in the Wiimote.

Here are pictures of where its broken off. Everything else works fine (pointer, lights, motion control), except the speaker... so I'm convinced that this part dealt with part of the remote. And yes, I did make sure the speaker's volume was turned all the way up.

336651381_f0390cc5c9_o.jpg

336650786_8019f2f812_o.jpg


It looks like I can't possibly repair the damage since it broke right at the circuit board. Now, if you flip it over, the cable will reach to the other side where all the sodering stuff lies. You can see that in these pictures.

336649690_66b9814382_o.jpg

336650247_b18e671c4f_o.jpg


I don't know anything about sodering, but I do have a few friends that have experiance. Is it possible that I could strip that cable like a 1/4" and soder the wire to that spoke indicated by the green arrow? Any help would be appreciated :) . I miss hearing my tennis racket swing :)
 
i would take it over to your friends house that have Experence . I would Try and remove the the stuff on the bottom with a de-sodering gun or with some wire braid then try and re soder the the wire to the pcb
 
||Console|| said:
i would take it over to your friends house that have Experence . I would Try and remove the the stuff on the bottom with a de-sodering gun or with some wire braid then try and re soder the the wire to the pcb

So would that mean the first two pictures? Doing it that way, trying to soder it where there is no soder? Or the bottom pictures... removing some of that and trying to resodder it on that side? (opposite the normal way?)
 
Well if the red wire goes into the hole pointed to by the green arrow then yes you could solder it to the back. The part sticking out is the end of the wire. You may also be able to drip enough solder into the hole on the front side to get the wire to sit back in place but I would go with soldering it to the back. Make sure the wire coming around the edge won't interfere with the case though.

Look at it this way, if you screw it up then whats the worst thing? You have to buy a new one at this point anyways. Why not gain a little soldering experience on something broken already..
 
Like console said...kinda.
1) Heat up that solder bead (second two pics). You can probably use a pair of tweezers to pull out the piece of wire that's still in the hole embedded in the solder, while it's liquefied. Solder won't stick to chrome/steel tweezers.

2) Strip back 1/8" of wire, twist it tight, stick it through the now empty hole, and re-add solder to make it look like the connection next to it.

3) Yell Wii. (sorry, couldn't help myself)
 
On my bench, it would be a quick...

Heat underneath of pad, melt the solder, suck it up with a solder sucker, tease wire end out of hole if it didn't come out with the sucker. When you're lucky, the hole comes out clean with the sucker, if not, I use a needle held in longnose pliers and heated with the iron to open the hole up. Just basically, poke it through and rattle it round. Then strip and tin the end of the wire, keeping it nice and neat so it will fit, poke it through, go round the back, hold the iron tip on the pad and wire at the same time, apply solder. Hold wire in place when it melts, and take the iron off, blow it cool, visually inspect. Put it all back together....

Though while you've got to mess with it anyway, that speaker looks a little small..... :D

Road Warrior
 
Wow... thanks for all the replies. Good news... this was cake work for my soddering friend. He patched it up in no time. I just tend to freak out when I break something expensive... even if I know its going to be repairable.

Anyway, here is the finished product if anybody is interested. Link goes to flickr picture. Later!

337429945_064a5854f6.jpg
 
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