Repairing a Hudson Joycard

[Zycrow]

Hey folks - so I have a controller with non-functioning turbo sliders. It's actually the Sansui SSS for the NES, which is more or less the same as the Hudson Joycard. I have a functioning Joycard as well.

The problem: The buttons all work normally when turbo is off. When the turbo switches are on, the A and B buttons don't function at all.

What I've done: Opened the controller and cleaned the slider pins with brasso + alcohol. Swabbed the turbo contacts with brasso + alcohol. Lightly sanded the pins and contacts with 1000 grit sandpaper. Bent the pins outward.

Results: After the second round of cleaning (in which I cleaned the contacts), the B button actually started working on the highest turbo setting. However, I then swapped the sliders, and neither button worked on turbo. Now, when I slide the switch rapidly back and forth, the turbo sometimes engages, which makes me think it's a contact issue between the slider and the PCB.

Anyone have a recommendation of something else I can try? I don't have any soldering skills.

[UglyJoe]

I don't have any suggestions, but I will say that I have four of the Sansui SSS controllers for the NES and all four of them have this exact issue.  Cleaning the contacts didn't work for me, either

[zmaster18]

I have cleaned many Hudson Joycards in my day and it usually has to do with the board being dirty. Are the metal contacts on the boards dull or look ripped?

[Zycrow]

The contacts on the board did look dull, and I did clean them and sand them. I did this for the turbo slider contacts and the A and B button contacts.

It's a shame the SSS seems to have this issue. It's a really high-quality controller otherwise - feels like OEM. I have a Beeshu Zipper too, which works fine, but its noticeably a notch in build quality lower than the SSS.

I'll snap a pic of the board later when I get home.

[UglyJoe]

I'll snap a pic of the board later when I get home.

IIRC, it's two boards sandwiched together.  I may be thinking of another controller, though.

[Duke.Togo]

I just fixed two of these the other day. The problem was no continuity between the pad for the slider to the pin that connects to the secondary board. On both, after flipping over the solder joints to the through pins had broken loose, and in a couple cases, the pad was lifted with it. I had to desolder the connections, resolder the ones with the good pads, and bypass the bad ones with wire. Be really careful with these, as the pads seem to want to lift very easily, and I think it is due to the stress on the second board over time. There is nothing to hold the boards in place other than solder, and it just wasn't a very good design.

After taking the time to rework them, everything works great again. I tested the headphone jack to be sure it worked on both, but I won't be using it again as it is going to add stress to those pin joints every time you insert or remove the headphones.

[Zycrow]

Yeah that's a real shame as the controller is so close to OEM quality.

So I guess the Famicom version doesn't have the sandwiched boards, right? Wasn't that entirely for the sound gimmick they added into the SSS version?

[Duke.Togo]

Yep. The Famicom Joycard is a single board solution. The dual board design is to fit in the sound hardware, and they moved the rapid fire parts over to it since they had the extra space it seems.