Update: Can this be salvaged? Dualsense stick replacement
Hi All (again),
Just wanted to circle back and say even though a large portion of the responders were mostly complaining about the post itself (because theyre sick of controller posts, or that I am a newbie working on my controller rather than learning on something else), there were multiple helpful people with very good advice that helped me fix my mistakes and correct my technique.
I hope this post shows that even though you may hate those posts, or think people should do things your way, the post and the helpful people within it gave me the confidence and advice I needed to complete my first real project and everything is working great and I'm really proud of the end result especially given the colossal mess I created from the start.
Here is the disaster picture which you've all seen if you saw the first post. This was taken after I'd replaced both sticks and used WAY too much flux and didnt even remotely have any semblance of technique down (I was aware of the bridges and crap solder joints[including bridges] but was getting frustrated by the cleaning not working and my iron tip not doing a good job on the joints or wicking so gave up for the night and made the post to see if I could even salvage this and if it was worth more of my time):
At this point I was unsure that I could ever get all that gunk off or worse, I had melted something underneath that gunk.
From the commenters:
I was given the confidence that YES this would clean off with time and effort
Advice to put solder inside of the special ps5 iron tip holes when using it, I still am not sure why, I assume its to allow some of my leaded solder to mix with the lead free solder they use in manufacturing and help it move easier. But I did it anyway, and even at a bare minimum it allowed me to know when my iron was ACTUALLY hot enough because the readout was saying it was at temp, but it wouldn't melt my solder i was adding to the holes in the tip for like another 15 seconds after that so it was basically a giant lie.
Keep the temperature lower
Get a different tip for doing the solder joints (the one I was sent with the station was far too fine). This advice was HUGE. Doing the soldering was 50x easier with a bevel/knife tip. I went from a super fine conical tip to a much bigger bevel/knife looking tip.
Was sent a video to someone using an appropriate amount of flux when touching up the joints on an xbox controller (the videos I had seen they went way overboard in their flux usage.)
So I got to work cleaning my ass off. The alcohol and brush+qtips werent working because it was just WAY too much gunk. I had the idea to just use a toothpick (I know, hacky, but soft wood vs pcb/metal felt safe and it really helped get the large chunks off) and go slowly/carefully and I was able to get the vast majority of it off. Here are some progress pics:
I cleaned and cleaned some more, saw that the sticks werent even fully seated on one side so I redid both of the sticks (basically just used the special iron tip and pushed in some more), and then redid the solder joints one last time, put everything back together, cleaned one last time and here is the final result (the 2 brown marks on the left are light coming through that ribbon and leaving an orange-y shadow):
It's not perfect, but it works and I'm super proud of the result given the beginning of my work.
So thank you for all of the helpful people, you gave me the confidence to keep going and advice I 100% needed to do this right.
Apologies to all the people annoyed by the first post, and potentially this post, but know that the post resulted in one more person being confident enough to start soldering stuff.
And for the people who dont know why they see so many posts about sticks, I hope I can shed a little light on it. This is from the perspective of someone who treats their stuff very well and gently. I don't throw controllers, beat on them, or use excessive force. The sticks that come in these 70 dollar controllers are just junk and fail over time. Below is a before and after of the stick in a tester tool.
The colorful circle shows what the stick is capable of reading when you move the stick in a circle. The bottom numbers are basically where the stick sits when you arent touching it. So you can see the left stick is entirely thrashed. It not only had stick drift (bottom numbers, it should sit at 0 LX+LY if possible otherwise the game thinks youre moving when youre not), but the actual stick wasnt even reading a full circle in some spots, and too far in others. The % in the middle is the error rate. The common knowledge is you want between 5-8% I believe.
Before:
After:
I hope this update can soften the blow of the poor souls coming here looking for help in the future, because even though you may get sick of them or think theyre stupid, you guys are a resource that people NEED. Getting direct first hand back and forth advice from people was absolutely what was necessary for me to finish this and do it "correctly." I could watch TronicsFix or Joey Does Tech til my eyes bleed but without someone seeing what I'm doing and using, I dont know if I ever wouldve zeroed in on the actual problems. I'm not sure I would have completed this otherwise. Maybe? Who knows.
Either way, big thank you to the people who helped me in that last post, there were many of you. Even some that started off angry that ended up trying to help.
My next task is to get a massive amount of flux off the ps5 iron tip from the first attempt that was a disaster. Every time I use it it leaves some of the gunk thats on the tip on the board. I'm thinking I might find some piece of metal that I have lying around, heat the tip, and just stamp it over and over in new spots until it comes off and stops leaving gunk. I tried cleaning it like I did the PCB but it is ON there. Even the tooth pick method wasn't working. If anyone has any ideas please let me know I'm all ears!