Controllers ruined from static electricity

[SePh1r0tH]

Anyone ever experience this in the past? I've ruined 2 Sega hss-0136 for my Saturn from shocks. My hands are kinda dry sometimes, today I got a shock while playing some Saturn games, then the joystick stops responding. It gets stuck going a certain direction. If I put my hand on the monitor while one hand is on the stick, I can fix it temporarily with another shock lol. Any way to fix this? I've ruined 2 expensive modded sticks now >_>

Dave

[trap15]

I've never heard of that before! Maybe you're possessed?

[Ed Oscuro]

You need to heed the omens from the gods and stop playing.

In all seriousness, what's this? How are these sticks grounded, or not grounded? The bit about touching a monitor makes it sound like somehow something is not grounded here, lol.

I'm not familiar with these sticks, but is there a metal underside to the case, or the top, and do you usually play with it placed on a stable surface, or do you put it in your lap?

p.s. you post a question the FIRST time something crazy like this happens, not the second! ouch, that wallet! ouch, that classic plastic

[SePh1r0tH]

Hahaha, I'm not sure about the sticks being grounded or not but the bottom plates ARE metal. I always play with them on a table, never on my lap.

I can snap a pic of the insides if that will help at all.

[Ed Oscuro]

My guess was that there's not enough clearance between the chassis and conductive elements internally.

What does this mod entail - any board swapping? It might be possible to protect the board a bit by placing a sheet of metalized antistatic bag material between the boards and the chassis.

Tear out that shag carpet too, if you can. Good for other reasons besides video game safety, anyway

[shmuppyLove]

I'd agree with what Ed said --

It looks like you're mounting the PCB underneath your new buttons, and dollars to donuts those new buttons are deeper than the originals, so that PCB is gonna be pretty darn close to the bottom metal panel.

Cover the inside bottom of the case with something non-conductive, or hot glue bukkake those solder joints.

[nasty_wolverine]

Or if you look at it the other way, there is something wrong with the saturn that is blowing up the sticks. get a multimeter and check the volts coming out of that thing.

[Ed Oscuro]

Or if you look at it the other way, there is something wrong with the saturn that is blowing up the sticks. get a multimeter and check the volts coming out of that thing.

Seems unlikely. The monitor was mentioned as well.

But dollars to dimes this is a plain old clearance issue.

[matrigs]

i actually have a similar problem but with my cabinet. sometimes when i touch the control panel with my wrists at a point where the overlay peels of i get a bit of a shock and the game pauses (presumably hitting the "start" switch)

well, at least it's not releasing a bomb / hyper etc. when it does this

[brokenhalo]

i actually have a similar problem but with my cabinet. sometimes when i touch the control panel with my wrists at a point where the overlay peels of i get a bit of a shock and the game pauses (presumably hitting the "start" switch)

well, at least it's not releasing a bomb / hyper etc. when it does this

it's a grounding issue. make sure you have a three prong cord on your cab (and that the ground wire is grounded to the cab ground), and make sure you're plugging into a grounded receptacle.

Anyone ever experience this in the past? I've ruined 2 Sega hss-0136 for my Saturn from shocks. My hands are kinda dry sometimes, today I got a shock while playing some Saturn games, then the joystick stops responding. It gets stuck going a certain direction. If I put my hand on the monitor while one hand is on the stick, I can fix it temporarily with another shock lol. Any way to fix this? I've ruined 2 expensive modded sticks now >_>

Dave

the button pcb that is floating around needs to be insulated so that it won't make contact with the bottom panel and short anything. easy fix is to take some electrical tape and wrap it up. the pcb touching the metal panel by itself probably wouldn't damage anything, but you sending thousands of volts of electricity through the pcb via static discharge definitely could. tape it all up and try it out again.

I'd agree with what Ed said --

It looks like you're mounting the PCB underneath your new buttons, and dollars to donuts those new buttons are deeper than the originals, so that PCB is gonna be pretty darn close to the bottom metal panel.

normally that pcb is soldered directly to the buttons, ie the button stems poke through the board and are soldered where the wires currently are. so normally the pcb has plenty of clearance and is solidly mounted. if you mod these sticks you can reuse this board (or not), but it will float around if you do it this way. the original buttons are the same depth as sanwa/seimitsu buttons. slightly different diameter on this stick though, iirc.

[Damocles]

I'm in much the same situation as you are. I have so far killed two slimline PS2 systems, a set of computer speakers, and a laptop simply by touching them after walking around. I now make it a point to ground myself before touching anything electrical. Even then, I have received multiple shocks simply by touching the touch pad on my current laptop.

Pretty shitty, considering I work in IT.

[SePh1r0tH]

Ahhh glad to see I'm not the only one who's possessed. Thanks for all the responses.

[nasty_wolverine]

All of the above definitely sounds like bad grounding problem. call a electrician and get the house wiring checked.

[brokenhalo]

All of the above definitely sounds like bad grounding problem. call a electrician and get the house wiring checked.

Not really. The house wiring could be perfectly fine and you could still have the above issues happen. Plus, the hardware forum is free. It's $75 just to get me to walk into your house for a service call .

[Ed Oscuro]

Ahhh glad to see I'm not the only one who's possessed. Thanks for all the responses.

So, are you going to do anything to check into this? $150 is pretty steep to just roll the dice again without any confirmation of what's going on.

[SePh1r0tH]

Ahhh glad to see I'm not the only one who's possessed. Thanks for all the responses.

So, are you going to do anything to check into this? $150 is pretty steep to just roll the dice again without any confirmation of what's going on.

Yea after reading a lot of these comments I know its the actual mod on the stick and the lack of insulation with the hanging pcb. The sticks broke about 5 months apart and it only happened with those 2 sticks out of dozens that I own. I still don't have a solution on how to fix the sticks...the boards will need repairing. But at least I know how to prevent it now.

Dave

[Ed Oscuro]

Good stuff. With luck it's not the ICs that are broken. If it is, hopefully the ICs are some standard type that can be transplanted over.

[matrigs]

Fun fact: the more dirty it is in my house, the more shocks i get.

This is NOT a joke. If i have an accumulation of dust on my floor i get shocked much more often then when it's clean.