Issues with my kite’s Circuit Sword Lite build - select button misfire

[PegCityRetroGamer]

Hey guys. Hope you can help me. I mostly finished my Kite’s Circuit Sword Lite a week ago. But I have been having an issue.

The select button is acting like it is always pressed. The button itself is an original gameboy select/start button. It moved down when I press it (just like a normal gameboy). It doesn’t feel pressed down. Yet when I am operating the gameboy, the functions of that happen when you press select happen without me touching the button. For example, the menu that select brings up pops up randomly. Or when i am in a game, it will go back to main menu when I press start (normally have to press select and start) or it will try to save the state or reset the game when I press other buttons.

I tried checking the button. It seems fine. I tried loosening the circuit board (in case it was pressing too hard against the select button). Made no difference.

Any ideas guys?

[kite]

Hi, can you inspect the board here and see if the highlighted pin (the brighter red one) looks correctly soldered? Perhaps if you could also measure the resistance of this pin in relation to GND (with the CSL turned off).

Screenshot from 2019-03-12 13-59-23.png (24.26 KiB) Viewed 4416 times

Also, inspect the other side of the board around the select button, is there any stray solder on it?

[PegCityRetroGamer]

I checked for stray solder on the select pad. Nothing. I checked the pin you mentioned, I can’t see anything. I included pics. I was unsure how to check the resistance. (I have a multi meter but am not well versed with it).

Also, not sure if it is related or not. But the speaker doesn’t seem to work. The headphones work fine, but the speaker doesn’t make any sound. I included a shot of that too. It seemed to work the first time i tried it, but not after that.

I appreciate the help

[kite]

That resistor "RN3" the top right corner of it looks a bit suspicious to me.. how good is your soldering? would you be able to try and tin the top of that resistor? That is a 4 parallel resistor device, and that top corner looks like it's not fully soldered. It would be worth giving it a go, and if you fail that's fine I'll accept return and repair for you so nothing to lose, only to gain!

Also, the speaker, can you unplug it and measure the resistance from the + to - (on speaker itself). And also when powered on the voltage with one probe on the CSL GND (e.g. the USB port or anything metal on the pi like the HDMI port) and then the other probe on either the - or + of the speaker, and get the reading for both?

[PegCityRetroGamer]

I tried to see if I could solder it this weekend. I tried a little but it seemed to be a failure. I don’t think i have a fine tipped enough soldering iron or solder. I’m pretty sure i would solder the whole resistor together if I did tried any further. Sorry. Let me know how to proceed.

[kite]

Send me an email and we'll go from there