Disclaimer: I do not know anything about electronics and I do not claim to know anything.
I'm (at this time) not necessarily interested in repairing the pcb that came out of my old guitar hero guitar (the fretboard /button controls). However, I am really interested in figuring out what exactly went wrong with it.
Backstory, I bought the guitar control (xbox 360 wireless Les Paul controller) at Goodwill for $1.99 not knowing if it would even work. After plugging it in and starting up the game, I noticed one of the fret buttons, the blue one, was constantly pressed down on screen even though I was not touching the button. I then opened up the controller and took the plastic buttons and rubber/silicon pads off so that the circuit board sensors(?) were not physically touching anything, but blue button was still being registered as held down.
SO, next step, I pulled out the old cheap little multi-meter
(looks like this one: https://www.solarpanelstore.com/sol...eZ7DxiqbqwRGfhF5hdTRz-txKyJ4q8ncaAp5hEALw_wcB)
and tested the board for continuity along the connections (sorry if I'm not using the right terms). I pretty much used the technique in this video (
).
Basically, all the points (pads?) showed that there was resistance except the point labeled BLUE(X), which makes sense since that is the button that was having trouble.
As I said above, I've given up most hope to fix this since I cannot purchase this part without buying a whole new controller and I'm assuming repairing it would be costly and too technical for me. Also, I already used another part of this guitar controller (the strum board) to connect to another model controller that had gotten some juice or something spilled on it and was rendered useless. All in all, I still think it was two dollars well spent.
My question is, why does this happen to circuit boards? Would fixing it involve completely replating the pads, or is it even more complicated? Especially since from physical inspection (not using a microscope though), it looks fine.
The curiosity is killing me. Thanks to anyone who can reply.
I'm (at this time) not necessarily interested in repairing the pcb that came out of my old guitar hero guitar (the fretboard /button controls). However, I am really interested in figuring out what exactly went wrong with it.
Backstory, I bought the guitar control (xbox 360 wireless Les Paul controller) at Goodwill for $1.99 not knowing if it would even work. After plugging it in and starting up the game, I noticed one of the fret buttons, the blue one, was constantly pressed down on screen even though I was not touching the button. I then opened up the controller and took the plastic buttons and rubber/silicon pads off so that the circuit board sensors(?) were not physically touching anything, but blue button was still being registered as held down.
SO, next step, I pulled out the old cheap little multi-meter
(looks like this one: https://www.solarpanelstore.com/sol...eZ7DxiqbqwRGfhF5hdTRz-txKyJ4q8ncaAp5hEALw_wcB)
and tested the board for continuity along the connections (sorry if I'm not using the right terms). I pretty much used the technique in this video (
Basically, all the points (pads?) showed that there was resistance except the point labeled BLUE(X), which makes sense since that is the button that was having trouble.
As I said above, I've given up most hope to fix this since I cannot purchase this part without buying a whole new controller and I'm assuming repairing it would be costly and too technical for me. Also, I already used another part of this guitar controller (the strum board) to connect to another model controller that had gotten some juice or something spilled on it and was rendered useless. All in all, I still think it was two dollars well spent.
My question is, why does this happen to circuit boards? Would fixing it involve completely replating the pads, or is it even more complicated? Especially since from physical inspection (not using a microscope though), it looks fine.
The curiosity is killing me. Thanks to anyone who can reply.
