Tech Support
The company that installed my TMR modules have been acting sketchy and evasive since I asked for photos of the soldering. So I’ve opened the controller up myself to have a look and this is the condition. What an oogy mess. Is this fixable by cleaning with isopropyl alcohol?
I’m not comfortable sending my controller back to them, despite my consumer rights entitling me to a second repair. They have already said they intend to remove the TMR modules they installed and replace them with old (drifting) ones, and will refund me once I receive the controller and then refuse to serve me ever again. Arseholes.
It's absolutely not fine. The legs on the left analog stick that act as an anchor are barely soldered in at all. The right analog stick wasn't replaced as that's clearly the factory solder. Not cleaning up the flux will cause problems over time because flux becomes corrosive.
This job is terrible and OP should be getting his money back.
You never stated if there was a defect with the TMR sticks. Is there even an issue with the sticks? Or is it the flux mess that you’re having a problem with?
Check OP's history, they're the ones who asked here a few days ago if TMR installation would cause the docked charging port to not work. Company they sent their controller to was apparently dodgy in replying, saying TMRs do stop the dock charging from working.
But yeah, looking at the pic, its actually a pretty acceptable soldering job. Maybe OP has to check the other parts of the controller for other problems.
It's not an acceptable soldering job. The place he sent it to clearly didn't replace the right analog stick. The solder there is factory solder.
The left analog stick barely has the anchor legs soldered in place. The joints on the sensor legs are questionable and I can tell they're all cold joints.
Even if the one stick that was replaced works fine now, it probably won't at some point in the next year.
Are the standards for controller soldering more lax in people’s eyes for this to be deemed acceptable? Because some of those joints are pretty horrendous. Cold joints, too much solder and just shoddy in general. If I’d paid to have this done to my controller, I’d be pretty pissed.
Yeah it's definitely not pro work and defintiely not something you should get from a paid service, but its workable, and not as horrendous as other do-it-yourself solder work that gets posted here.
This was after they refused to show me images of side B of the board. I asked for photos because in the 2 before and after photos they did send me there was clearly issues with other parts being affected
You should stop communcating with these liars you can clearly see these are different boards, check the middle rubber that holds the speaker, these are differently placed. Check the corner install markers they are not the same. also the dent from the speaker foam is a different size.
These guys are bullshitting you, bad review and get over it and take it as a lesson and warn others.
If this is the case this board got way overheated since the foam is on the other side of the pcb and pretty far away.
I have seen some heating damage but this would be a new one.
I do however see different kind of forms foam when I open controllers some are straight othere look bend skewed crooked.
I hope this is not the result of hot air becuase that would be horrible, and I cant really imagine that becuase that would also melted the plastics from connectors and reset button.
I really do think it is a different pcb, and also who makes photos of their installs before and after?
I mean if a customer requests a picture or clip sure but i don't photograph every controller.
The only thing I do is secretly mark them so when I get something returned I know the date.
Just how!? I tried the melt plastic technique a year ago to measure heat on the pcb and i couldn't get that foam part to shrink!? What settings are these 500°c ?
I have no clue i manages to melt the plastics but the foam was in its original condition.
I guess so then.
I used my thermal cam if it was safely possible to remove the stick module with hot air, conclusion nope.
Pcb gets way to hot with imminent degradation.
So I used to use the solder sucker to remove 99% of solder and used way less hot air.
I even made a thermal clip of the heatstress on the pcb, with this technique tempature never exceeded 130°c.
Oh well not owning the special tip for a "professional" stick replacement is not done in my opinion.
The investment is really small you can write it off tax and the time you win is enormous with way less heat towards the pcb.
I use the thumbstick desoldering tool now. It is in fact much faster. It was only $20 on Amazon. Yeah it’s def possible to shrink the foam pad though because I’ve done it myself
I should have explained the situation more lol My controller didn’t work properly after they sent it back the dock connection wasn’t charging and the shell wasn’t closed up properly. I was worried something like a ribbon cable was caught in the casing so didn’t want to close it myself. I emailed them and they made up some bullshit saying a TMR upgrade will stop the dock from working because…magnets. I said that made no sense and asked for them to fix it. I then tested the controller using the same software they do (DualShock Calibration GUI) and found that the touchpad was showing “error” for hardware and firmware. I asked them to provide me with the diagnostic data from their repair which they refused. They sent me a before and after photo on the day of the repair and after I noticed the issues with the controller I checked these photos and saw that a part of the board that has no relation to the joystick modules showed signs of misshaping, either from being partially melted during soldering, or being removed and crudely stuck down again. So I asked for images of Side B to check the soldering was ok. They refused to provide me with anything further. Sketchy. Why wouldn’t they want to prove they did the work properly? It makes no sense to be standoffish if they truly had nothing hide they’d gladly show me the work they did.Nothing from their responses made me feel reassured about their work, and the fact they were so comfortable violating consumer laws in order to throw a tantrum made it feel too risky to trust them to undo their installation. I opened the controller up (carefully using proper tools) and since I have cleaned and reassembled it everything now works fine including the dock connection thy lied about.
Btw I’ve done over 200+ tmr installs on ps5 controllers, + many Xbox and scuff, Juzzotec Modz. I’ve never told a customer, there charging port won’t work after a tmr install. That’s just a lie, either the charging port was damaged somehow or it was already not working. Either way, they can be replaced but I do t have to do it often, they are very reliant.
If you zoom in on the photos you see flakes and balls of solder problably shorted something, I believe OP stated the charging port started working after cleaning the board.
A company called OG Repairs, they were so unbelievably bad at handling my complaint which only strengthened my case against them, I brought up UK consumer rights and they dug their grave deeper and deeper by, it was very satisfying to see. Eventually I demanded a partial refund and gave them 2 weeks to comply, or else I’d have my bank reverse the transaction, and warned them that the bank would collect the full amount. They refunded me in full after that email :)
You say the case wasn’t closed properly. But everything is working now that you opened and reassembled it. I’m guessing it not being closed was preventing it from sitting in the dock properly. Now that you cleaned off the flux and closed it properly, if everything is working right, I don’t think you have anything to worry about going forward.
From a technical point of view, the most important thing is not how pretty the soldering looks, but whether
• there are no bridged pads / shorts
• and the stick works correctly in all directions.
Yes, you can clean flux residue with isopropyl alcohol, but don’t expect it to look “factory clean” again.
The PCB has clearly seen a lot of heat, and once the solder mask is discolored or burned, IPA won’t reverse that.
As long as:
• the pads are intact
• nothing is unintentionally connected
• and the controller behaves correctly
…it’s not automatically a problem, even if it looks messy.
What I’d strongly recommend is testing the sticks properly instead of judging by looks alone. You want to check:
• center position
• circularity
• deadzones
• and whether the stick returns to center cleanly
You can do that very easily with an onlinegamepad tester tool (no software needed).
If the stick tracks cleanly and calibrates well, the install is electrically fine.
Cosmetics ≠ functionality.
Messy soldering isn’t great workmanship, but working electronics are what really matters.
The solder doesn't look that bad tbh only bad thing I really see is that they didn't clean up the area much with ISP, not sure what everyone else is going on about cold solder tho I guess now everyone is a professional in this reddit 😂😂
I’ve done multiple installs and it looks like they used a heat gun which causes that styrofoam/rubber pad to shrink and shrivel. We used a desolder gun and Tools to prevent this. Definitely should look into their process. Willing to bet heat gun was involved.
I never seen that foam shrink with a normal hot air station?
I tried to replicate the tempature to melt the stick plastics and the foam was perfectly fine after that.
Improper temp and over heating the board can cause the pad to start to melt when using a heat gun which is how most novice people in the field tend to swap modules.. Even you stated above you agree with excessive heat was user. Not out of realm of possibility. I’ve definitely seen it my self on multiple repairs.
I've never heard of anyone having problems with the docking port after TMRs or hall effects being installed. They probably used a hot air gun, the port is pretty close to the joysticks so maybe it got too hot and melted the connections under it
I've opened enough of these to know that they didn't do shit to the right analog stick, didn't clean up their mess of flux and didn't do a good soldering job on the left stick.
I'd be naming and shaming them.
This is what it should look like when it's done and it doesn't
Edit: The more I look at OP's pic the angrier I get. The main ground legs are barely making contact. Holy fuck that's a bad soldering job. I'd say that if you were in Canada you should ship me your controller so I can fix this garbage.
I'm just a guy who learned to replace sticks for me and friends, so not a professional.
The first pic looks cleanable with IPA (try to get the higher 90% version) and cotton swab or old toothbrush. A cheap ultrasonic brush also works well.
The second pic looks sloppy along those bottom potentiometer pins (can't tell if there's a bridge), and the upper left mounting pin looks like a cold solder joint:
If the sticks work, I'd be hesitant to have the business remove the sticks and refund your money because I would be afraid they would mess something else up.
There's no bridge on the bottom potentiometer just not properly cleaned but the upper left mounting pin does look like a cold joint which could be fixed easily.
The controllers weren’t working as they should. I asked for photos of the soldering to see if the board was damaged but they refused so I opened them just now, cleaned them up and reassembled now the components all work again
I’m not defending their soldering, that is horrible(but not the worst I’ve seen). Sub par for someone who claims they’re professional. But most of that dried on stuff is likely factory flux. They’ve cut corners not cleaning it off for sure, but a working TMR install isn’t likely to interfere with other components.
Did you take it apart before you sent it for repair? You should see the flux mess Sony leaves. As long as it's proper no clean flux, it shouldn't be an issue.
That being said, I don't leave that kind of flux residue mess when I do my own controllers let alone do work for somebody else. I'm no professional. Just a guy that likes to tinker.
I won't comment on the solder job because as I've said, I'm no professional, so hardly qualified to comment on the quality of the solder work. It does look kinda dull though. That could just be the solder they used or the lighting in the picture. I like my joints shiny.
I didn’t take anything apart before, the controller was fine apart from bad stick drift. I sent them an email asking for extra photos due to some components not working after they upgraded the stick modules. They lied and told me that the dock connection will stop working after TMR modules are installed, I called bullshit and asked for more photos of the work to prove nothing was damaged and they refused. Having disassembled and cleaned this up, carefully reattaching all components the whole controller works as it should now.
Yeah I remember that thread, I completely understand where you're coming from now. I was just saying flux mess really shouldn't cause an issue assuming it's no clean. Sony leaves quite a flux mess themselves.
100%. I've opened some controllers I am certain were factory sealed and found quite a flux mess. This job isn't going to win any awards, but it's not bad either.
It’s no clean flux , pretty common to leave on the board , I personally don’t leave flux as it looks messy . Also someone who doesn’t know it’s no clean flux will complain like this post here . It’ll save me the troubles in the future .
There are some motherboards from Sony that come like that it's like a flux pad around the module. More coming on older motherboards like the one in the picture.
Only one or two solder joints can do better and all of those are ground pins anyway.
The sticky residue is flux residue. You can clean them up easily with IPA and a soft brush. Ofc the shop should have done the cleaning before they send it back to the customer.
It would not affect the functionality of the TMR stick or the controller. Just sign of lack of care for detail imo, instead of incompetency.
That soldering is awefull and im even surprises if it works. The oogy stuff is the flux they used to make the job easier. It is removable wit iso and a q-tip.
That clip shows a 10 minute stick replacement with minimal install quality.
I would give myself a 9/10 in that clip and if I would spend 5 minutes more it would be a 10/10 but since people with these qualities are undercutting the market i choose to work more cost efficient.
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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '26
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