How to fix an nes Controller Test Jig
So i bought this test equitment a year ago on ebay. according to the seller it was fully functional. but when i got it only one of the controllers worked. after contacting the seller about it i said instead of returning it and throwing it away i asked if he would give me a discount so instead of 250 i only paid 80 after some testing i found one of the lines had a short in it. after a year of looking for a cable that matched the one the controller jig used i gave up till i thought well maybe a cheap china nes extention cable will work. it problably has all 7 lines. of course when i got it it was only 5... so i shelfed it again. till i relized the dang thing doesnt use all 7 lines and only 5 lines. what brings my piss to a boil is why did nintendo make this device so complicated!? it could have been simplified down to a nes four score cable without that board inside the black box. One day nintendo... so anyways i made the clone cable to fix it. after testing the line to make sure it worked. i put in back together. and guess what. the other original line stopped working! so now i have to make anather line
so now to the tutorial on how to fix it. i prefer to keep it as original as possible.
you will need a tomee nes extention cable (there really cheap like 5 dollers) and there the same size as the original cable. the nes controller cables are too fat for the job.
0000 fine steel wool
A soldering iron and solder.
Small shrink tubing.
a broken nes if you can find one (or just the part that plugs into the nes motherboard for the controller port)
a few broken or ratty nes controllers
a dremel with a cutting tool
and some patence.
scrub the cable with the steel wool to give it a matte finish like the original cable.
now compare the original cable length to the extention and cut the extention a few inches longer than the original. (for if you make a mistake)
cut the wire back and expose all the copper and twist them up. put a bit od solder on each wire strand now heres the tricky part. dont solder color to color as they will not match.
you will need to compare the original which is also diffrent than the nes port connectors... so for example the black wire on the nes test jig is the broun wire in the nes port connector. i preferred to follow the wires on the cheap china cable so break open the female end of your extention cable and just follow the wires colors that are connected to the back of the female port. do it anyway you want what ever works for you. this was hard for me to explain and confusing to do lol.
now take your dremel and crack open your ports on the nes controller and pull all the metal pins off of the wires and solder them to the new wire put the connections back together according to the china female end and re assemble it. and now you have a fixed jig that still looks original.
i hope this helps any one with a broken one of these.
so now to the tutorial on how to fix it. i prefer to keep it as original as possible.
you will need a tomee nes extention cable (there really cheap like 5 dollers) and there the same size as the original cable. the nes controller cables are too fat for the job.
0000 fine steel wool
A soldering iron and solder.
Small shrink tubing.
a broken nes if you can find one (or just the part that plugs into the nes motherboard for the controller port)
a few broken or ratty nes controllers
a dremel with a cutting tool
and some patence.
scrub the cable with the steel wool to give it a matte finish like the original cable.
now compare the original cable length to the extention and cut the extention a few inches longer than the original. (for if you make a mistake)
cut the wire back and expose all the copper and twist them up. put a bit od solder on each wire strand now heres the tricky part. dont solder color to color as they will not match.
you will need to compare the original which is also diffrent than the nes port connectors... so for example the black wire on the nes test jig is the broun wire in the nes port connector. i preferred to follow the wires on the cheap china cable so break open the female end of your extention cable and just follow the wires colors that are connected to the back of the female port. do it anyway you want what ever works for you. this was hard for me to explain and confusing to do lol.
now take your dremel and crack open your ports on the nes controller and pull all the metal pins off of the wires and solder them to the new wire put the connections back together according to the china female end and re assemble it. and now you have a fixed jig that still looks original.
i hope this helps any one with a broken one of these.
Comments
This is perfect seeing as I have one that does not work at all I'll have to try this out and see if it fixes it
Cool, let me know if it fixes it! after looking at this thing a few times. its a really bad design so i suspect many other of these controllers dont work due to the wires failing.
I'm glad you got it working again or at least figured out what you had to do to fix it.
Yes it took some time thats for sure... it look like new and works perfectly now. if it was damaged (like a broken corner) i problably would have returned it.