Alternative to copper tape

[Pulsar]

First post, so short intro: i'm Pulsar, 32 years old, from the Netherlands, building a gbz out of my own childhood, scratched up, had-a-line-of-dead-pixels, gameboy classic.

I'm going Wermy style button pcb and wired it all up, but I can't find any copper tape. Online I need to either order 30 meters (I need about 0.3% of that) or I pay insane shipping costs. I was thinking about using an old trick instead: strips of folded aluminum foil.

How good/bad of an idea do you think this is? Anyone try something similar before?

[Thijs852]

Have you checked praxis or gamma or any other "bouwmarkt". 4 meters for €9,19 https://www.gamma.nl/assortiment/nature ... 0wodZccLew ? Or is it too expensive?

[the antithesis]

I have used aluminum foil to make a gamepad once. There was a Youtube video where a kid shows you how to make a gamepad using a microcontroller from an old keyboard. (My attempt was a story of colossal failure, but that's for another day) The video can be seen here, for those who are curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2bgjl43Cm8 It does work as far as I can tell, but here's some concerns you may wish to think about:

• Use cheap heavy duty aluminum foil. You want heavy duty so that it's a bit thicker, but you don't want name brand foil like Reynold's Wrap. The big brands tend to coat their foil with plastic or some other coating because they're made for wrapping food, not making electronic circuits. Go figure. Cheaper store brands tend to not have this.
• The tried using aluminum wiring in houses but stopped when they found out they tend to catch fire. This may not be a concern to really worry about since a game controller will likely be carrying 5V for short pulses instead of 110-220V for extended periods of time. Even so, I have a hard time thinking of aluminum foil as a permanent solution. Aluminum is cheaper than copper, I would think, so why don't consumer electronic use aluminum more often? Or do they? Anyone know?
• Copper tape has the advantage that the glue backing is also conductive. Since this is for the X and Y buttons, make sure the common ground is connected. I did try soldering to the foil and for some reason the solder would just bead up like water on a freshly waxed car hood. I don't know why.

There may be other reasons why you don't want to use aluminum foil, but from my experiences, while it can work, I think it's likely to stop working at some point for some reason and then you'll need to open up your Gameboy and fix it. The Gameboy Zero is a hack, but I would want to minimize the potential points of failure. That may just be me, though.

[vishald]

What about marktplaats/speurders? Any luck with that?

[sander]

This is 10 euro's without shipping cost.