Need Help Fixing guitar Hero Drums (For Wii)

[damohonda]

Hi,

I've been searching the net endlessly looking for parts to help fix the guitar hero drum kit for the Wii.

The jack connectors that the drum pedal fits into are faulty.
I've taken the drums apart but I can't find the drum board component, nor even the mono pcb jack mount, I'd try a re-solder if I could get hold of them.

I've attached some photos.

Can anyone help please?

[nickb]

Welcome to the forum!

Finding the right parts is always one of the big time-consuming tasks.

You need to measure the old one. Critical are the height off the board of the hole center, the mounting & electrical pin size and locations, the distance from the board edge to the jack -- you get the idea.

Next you need to to know what kind of socket it is, 3.5mm dia? Stereo/Mono, Switched?

Once you have that you can start your search with the major distributors - in the States that would be mouser.com digikey,com, newark.com sometimes jameco.com have stuff you can't get elsewhere.

You will need a soldering iron, some solder wick and a flux pen to remove the broken one. Apply flux to the wick then put the wick over the joint you wish to remove then heat with iron. The olde solder will wick up into the braid. Don't over heat of mechanically stress the PCB. Make sure all solder is gone and the pins are free before trying to pull the jack. Best if you can find someone with the skills and equipment if you can.

[52 Bill]

The jack connectors that the drum pedal fits into are faulty.
I've taken the drums apart but I can't find the drum board component, nor even the mono pcb jack mount, I'd try a re-solder if I could get hold of them.

Are the jacks actually bad or are they just loose from the pc board? The photo of the solder side of the board show some very iffy looking solder joints.

It may be that the jacks are okay and re-soldering them will fix the problem. What sort of soldering skills and equipment do you have?

[rjb]

I wouldn't go shopping for parts before determining that the ones on hand are bad.

Your connectors look like 3.5 mm phone jacks (as used on sound cards), but I couldn't find any at Mouser with your pin and plastic post configuration. Having 3 pins, they're either stereo/TRS or mono/TS with switched Tip.

First off, might those long capacitor leads be shorting? Hard to tell from the pic. Clip them anyway.

To see if signal is getting to the connector pads, plug in a TRS cable and check continuity to the exposed plug.
3 5mm Jack Male to Male Car Aux Auxiliary Cord Stereo Audio Cable for Phone MP3 | eBay
Pad closest to the board edge will be Shield; farthest from the edge is Tip; middle is either Ring or shorted to Tip when cable is unplugged.

Then trace the PCB tracks and check for continuity between connector pads and headers.
With PCB mounted connectors, sometimes traces can crack due to torque on the connector when cables are inserted.
(I've encountered this problem with 1/4" jacks in guitar amps, mixers, DI boxes, digital pianos, etc.)
If a trace is cracked, you can solder in a piece of wire to replace it.

But before going through all that trouble, try Bill's suggestion and hit all the pads with an iron.

[nickb]

...and to add to rjb's advice, are you sure it's the jack / board that is faulty and not a break in the cable of whatever connects to it?

[Jazz P Bass]

I would definitely touch up those jack solder pads.

In my experience, it's the cord that goes bad, not the jack.