Kinda concerned...

[Lodmot]

Alright, call me a wimp or a worrywart or whatever, its fine. XD

But I am kinda nervous about fixing my Atari 2600.

Its a small problem, and it may sound stupid, but Im trying to replace the controller port on my six-switcher. That's the only problem the console has. But Im afraid of messing it up even more. Im not exactly skilled in soldering components to circuit boards, and I'm just concerned about being clumsy and melting something, or creating a short circuit somewhere.

 

So I have two questions:

 

1) what kind of must-have tips do you have for soldering?

2) The controller port for player 1 is the one that is broken, but the port for player 2 works fine? Should I replace both, or just the faulty one?

[+GroovyBee]

Does it have cracks in the solder around the connector's pins on the PCB or pins missing? If its the former you can just reflow the joints. If its the latter you'll have to remove the connector.

[Lodmot]

Well, when the connector was on the board, it looked like the pins connection to the board was just split. I probably couldve just resoldered it back together, but the area where the cracked pin was was so cramped that it was too iffy to try. So i simply removed the connector and got rid of it. I ordered 4 new connectors which should be here around February or so. I was really careful, and from the looks of it, the board doesn't appear damaged/burned.... at least not yet.

[Lodmot]

Well, when the connector was on the board, it looked like the pins connection to the board was just split. I probably couldve just resoldered it back together, but the area where the cracked pin was was so cramped that it was too iffy to try. So i simply removed the connector and got rid of it. I ordered 4 new connectors wh ichh should be here around February or so. I was really careful, and from the looks of it, the board doesn't appear damaged/burned.... at least not yet.