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Does anyone have any advice on how to make homemade conductive paint to fix a cracked carbon trace in a game controller? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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It's the trace going towards the mode button, so I'm pretty sure resistance won't exactly be critical over a ~3mm gap, as long as it recognizes when the plunger button is pressed down.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

While that idea sounds good on paper, the crack runs right by the edge of the button plunger, so the fix is gonna have to be about as flat as possible, and well adhered with conductive paint.

At least it didn't crack directly under the button traces themselves, but it's right next to it..

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Standard pcb board is about .15mm .2mm flush mount screws are fairly common.

To be honest you are most likely better getting a new device.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Nah, no need for a new device, all the actual game controls actually work after I glued the crack and soldered bridge wires over all the broke copper traces.

The only button that doesn't work is the Mode button, which swaps the D-Pad and left analog. Its default mode is the normal mode you'd expect anyways, so fixing the Mode button is totally optional.

It's just a bit tempting to get the controller back 100% functional, but it's not terribly important.

I was kind of curious to dabble around and learn ways to make conductive paint at home, and use the controller as a first test try.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

crush up some graphite really finely in a mortar (from a good source, like the carbon rods in zinc-carbon batteries, which can be usually found as those chonky D batteries if you dont need the large rods the video shows, or soft pencil leads, as the hard ones contain clay, and also be prepared to spend a lot if you go the pencil lead route), mix with glue, play with ratios (the more graphite the better, but it might start cracking with too much graphite) and type of glue (elmers, superglue, epoxy, try to aim for something slightly flexible as tou mentioned it's gonna be under stress)

but i'll warn you that it's gonna work kinda bad compared to finding where the carbon trace originates and soldering a wire there (there's gotta be metal somewhere)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago

Those all sound like a good set of options indeed. I'm kinda hoping to be able to use silicone glue, but any which way, I'll be testing on sample cards first before applying anything to the board.

Unfortunately, even if I find the metal trace it connects to, the very end of the carbon trace is a dead end, it functions as one side of the rubber plunger button contact pad. So the fix has to be carbon trace friendly, soldering simply isn't an option here.

Thanks for the thoughts and advice 👍