Soldering Newbee.

[Xorxfon]

I usually just use the audible beep to let me know I have a good connection.

[crispy_tofu]

You can also use the diode function to measure of there's a good connection. It's different between multimeters, but if the multimeter's showing around 0V, then there's a good connection. The reason why I use diode mode instead of resistance is because it's actually faster on my multimeter, but YMMV.

[Retrohead95]

When I started this project, I watched the first video and from see the modifing of the case, it looked doable so I started going through the modification of my broken gameboy that I got from ebay.

Here is what I accomplished. Looks pretty good minus the fact that one of my button holes was cut a little to wide. https://imgur.com/a/YeKJh

So then came the soldering and scratching off the tracers. Man! This was by far the hardest. It took me about 2-3 hours for me to get the top left wires attached to the board... and to be honest, I do not think I did it correctly (hard to see from my image). I did buy a multi meter and will test it but I would recommend to NOT hot glue it until you tested your soldering trace because of how close they are to each other and how difficult it is to get them to attach. I used CAT5 wires to make my cables and they need to be twisted a little after you cut it or the little copper wires at the end will fray.

The only advise I can give is to get a little bitty droplit of solder on the end of your iron and in a sweeping motion from the wire end to the board, sweep the iron tip away from the wire to the tracer on the board until it sticks. It took me a few times to get it to stick and it was very frustrating, and I still wont know if I was successful until I test it. Here is the multi meter I bought off amazon: http://goo.gl/DCuysu

Did anyone else have trouble attching the wires to the board?

When I just started it took me 3 hours or so but only took 5 minutes the second time. The key is to twist the end of the wire, fine enough so it doesn't spread to the other trace. Then put solder on the end of the wire. This will prevent the wire from bridging and looking clean. Then put the wire directly on top of the trace, use something to hold down the wire to prevent it from moving. Now take the soldering iron and heat the wire. The solder will now melt and join the trace and the wire together. Repeat this for the other wires.

To test the connection place the one end on the wire, then on the round dot on the controller mobo. It will give you a number if a connection is made, and show 0 if there's no connection. If you get a reading from more than one point then it's bridged somewhere. If you mess up now worries, just create a trace further up and you'll be good. I had to create like 3 traces when I was figuring all this out. Was pretty easy after I followed this routine.

[dirtybeagles]

Well, none of them worked...

I may know where I went wrong, so if someone could answer some questions about scratching off the tracers.
1. Do I need to scratch off the scrappers until I see copper?
2. Do I need to have the tip of the wire touching the tracer, or can solder complete the connection?

I guess a tip for someone new is to just scratch off ONE tracer and solder a wire and test before doing the whole board

[dirtybeagles]

So I guess I did not set up my Multimeter correctly because I was not getting any reading at all when I switched it to COM. I then pressed the HOLD button and I started getting readings. Good news, I think my soldering worked the first time. My A and B buttons work great. Bad news is that I went a head and disconnected my directional pad wires....

Oh well.

So anyone who buys this:: http://www.amazon.com/Etekcity-MSR-R500 ... ge_o00_s00

I believe once you set it to COM you need to press the HOLD button before you will get any readings.

Can anyone tell me the purpose of the HOLD button?

[chiz]

Usually, the purpose of a HOLD button is to have whatever the value being displayed in the screen to stay as is. That way, even if you remove the test leads from the whatever your testing, the display will show the last value.

[crispy_tofu]

I'm thinking that the hold button on that multimeter is actually a multifunction button for switching between diode and continuity mode at that setting.

[dirtybeagles]

Yeah. I might have either hit the button by mistake unpacking it or some how it was set to another setting when I first turned it on.

The best advice to anyone else new is to make sure there is a "1" when you are testing COM connections. If you do not see just a 1, then you are on the wrong setting (see attachment)

[dirtybeagles]

Here is some more of my progress: See attachements

[crispy_tofu]

Yeah. I might have either hit the button by mistake unpacking it or some how it was set to another setting when I first turned it on.

The best advice to anyone else new is to make sure there is a "1" when you are testing COM connections. If you do not see just a 1, then you are on the wrong setting (see attachment)

I'd also like to note that other multimeters may show 'OL' instead of '1' - they mean the same thing.