Quickshot QS-130F joystick repair

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sandord
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Quickshot QS-130F joystick repair

Post by sandord »

So I bought a little gift for a dear friend the other day. He recently got himself an ST after living without one for many years so I wanted to surprise him with this Quickshot QS-130F which I stumbled upon when I visited a retro gaming collector whom I recently got acquainted with. The reason I got this specific model is that is the exact same joystick my friend used to have when we used to play games together on his ST when we were kids. So I figured he'd appreciate seeing (and having!) one after so many years.

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When testing the joystick though, I found that the directional switches didn't work very well. Often I had to put additional force on the stick to make the game catch my intentions.

Of course, my first thought was to open it up and clean the connections.

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As you can see, the rubber domes were in a pretty bad shape. When further inspecting them it became apparent that they weren't going to last much longer, possibly just a few gaming sessions.

So, instead of cleaning the contacts and the domes, I figured I could repair (and simultaneously upgrade) the joystick with some of these cheap micro switches (https://nl.aliexpress.com/store/product ... 75986.html) I had laying around from another project. They're 12x12 mm and the casing is 3.1 mm high. The button protrusion adds another 4.2 mm to that, totaling 7.3 mm.

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I had the 7.3 H as seen in the picture but if you get the 4.3 H versions, you won't have to clip the button protrusion off like I did.

The original domes are 5 mm. high and 3 mm. high when pressed. Since this is not very different from the switches, I figured I could give it a shot. This fix would not only make the joystick work properly again, it would potentially make it more sturdy. But I can't predict if the fix will last very long, the switches may come off some day. Fortunately, it would be easy to fix them again in such case.

The domes originally were secured on the PC through two holes each in the PCB. Luckily enough, two of the switch legs fit exactly through those holes. Not so much securing it but placing it in a proper position that has the button nicely centered, exactly where the dome used to be.

I had to carefully plan each switch separately. After measuring the pins I determined that I could simply solder two diagonally opposing legs to the PCB. In one occasion (the switch at the top) I had to use a wire because I couldn't simply solder a jump.

I scratched of some of the PCB coating where I wanted to solder the switch legs to the PCB.

On the picture below, I've marked the spots where I scratched the PCB and put some solder in advance. If you see any solder elsewhere in the picture, just ignore it because while figuring out the best spots I may have put solder in places that I didn't use in the end.

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Before soldering the switches, I put a blob of strong glue on the spot where they were going to be soldered, to extend the lifetime of the upgrade.

I didn't upgrade the fire buttons though, they looked quite okay. But I guess you could use the same approach to fix them. Alternatively, there are also smaller micro switches available (I think they're 6x6 mm.) if the larger ones don't fit.

So here it is, in it's final state.

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After leaving it to dry a little bit, I tried the joystick with one of my favorite games. Et voila, it works flawlessly!
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