benk26•22d ago

Spent $150 on a fancy solder station for my PS5 controller and it was totally useless

I bought one of those expensive digital solder stations thinking it would make swapping thumbsticks on my DualSense easy, but the tips it came with were way too big for those tiny SMD components. Ended up burning two controller boards before I realized I needed a cheap $30 station with finer tips from a local electronics shop. Anybody found a good brand that actually works for console controller work without breaking the bank?

3 comments

3 Comments

benreed22d ago

Classic case of the expensive gear being totally wrong for the job. I wasted $200 on a station before learning to just use cheap irons with the smallest chisel tips for controllers.

shane_wilson22d ago

My buddy Mike fried two Xbox pads before he finally bought a $15 iron.

nina14722d ago

Oh man, I did the exact same thing! Switched to a $12 iron with a tiny chisel tip and suddenly soldering controllers became way less stressful (and a lot cheaper).