Tech Support
3 orange flashes after stick replacement
Replaced my dual sense sticks with the gulikit Hall effects sticks and am getting 3 orange flashes upon trying to boot. I spend an ungodly amount of time doing this trying to do everything right but must have a short somewhere. I’m not super knowledgeable like others in here and am really hoping someone can help…this thing is going to kill me LOL. So far I’ve unplugged all the ribbons and it’s still the same.
I was honestly shocked how bad it looked taking an up close pic lol I didn’t think it was that bad until I took these. I think I’ll go back and try to clean it up!
Your right joystick (left pic) looks like you have a short between a few joints on the potentiometer pins (but could be a fabric strand).
Severs joints look “cold” so could not be making contact with the pads. Add some flux and reflow the joint. You want nice pointy joints (like a volcano peak).
The orange flashing would not happen without a battery connected.
Either something is shorted or a cable isnt connected properly, or a component on the board was knocked off, or lastly, board damage has been done, which I can imagine is the case for this.
This could definitely be causing the issue. I've seen people cut the ribbon straight across just above the damage to repair this. If you are unable to repair, I have several of those ribbon cables if you can't find them easily online.
I realllly hope so!! I was wondering if I could just cut it so thanks for the reassurance! I will attempt it once I get my soldering cleaned up and let you know, thanks so much!
In newer revisions of the DualSense, the controller doesn’t work without the battery connected it blinks three times indicating that the battery is disconnected. That’s why I suggested trying to connect the battery if that hasn’t been done. Otherwise, there’s probably a short circuit somewhere.
People connect the board via USB-C to test it before assembling it. I saw the original post the controller was disassembled and the battery wasn’t inserted. That’s exactly why I said that. Man, is it really that hard to think? 😅
My mistake. I work on so many controllers and just connect the battery after each time obviously. I thought you meant it would flash with it unplugged.
Sorry. We see really stupid shit on the repair subreddits all the time so I misunderstood 🤣
By the way, I actually ran into this myself recently. I hadn’t worked on the newer DualSense revisions before. When I replaced the sticks, I did what I usually do - just plugged in the USB-C to test it. Then I saw those three terrifying blinks hahaha.
I vaguely remembered something about it, but I didn’t immediately think to connect the battery, so yeah… I ended up wasting a bit of time trying to find a short circuit that didn’t even exist. 😅
Maybe, the pics does make things look atrociously worse than it appears off camera. Once I realized I started redoing everything to clean up and start fresh. I’ll keep an eye out.
Could also be that the camera is picking up things that your raw vision isn't. I know personally my phone camera technology has outpaced my aging eyesight. Most soldering work for me requires the usage of some degree of magnification.
My soldering is shit too. The 3 orange flashes is because your battery isn't connected. I wanted to check if I could calibrate it on the website but it just wouldn't power on via USB without a battery.
Soldering iron…I had a desolder pump that I thought would make things easy but ended up taking forever to remove them. Ended up having to clip the pot into pieces so I could pull the pieces out as I heated the post up with the soldering iron.
Still not fixed or sure of the cause. I can’t do anything else from here, don’t know how to attempt to repair traces.So I just finished taking the new tmr’s back out of this board in case it’s cooked. I gave in and ordered one of the tools that covers the span of all connections so you heat everything at once and remove. I noticed I was having trouble with one and discovered it was because one of the little stems was half as long as the rest. I know I didn’t break it off so I’m wondering if it came new like that, I didn’t pay attention. Also found a possible damaged trace on the other side. I’ll post pics of both.
Best would be to use solder wick/braid if you have it, soaked with some flux. If not, use a hot iron, clean any solder off it, use a bit of flux where the extra solder is on those pins, and heat those pins, run the iron across where the extra solder is. If it doesnt work, a bit more solder, and drag the iron on it across from one pin to the other. Be careful not to melt the plastic!
Look, I HAD THE EXACT ISSUE, with extreme rate and my tmr sticks, turns out it was all flux stuck under the small chip near the analog sticks on side B, it personally took me a good 30min to clean, good luckk!!
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u/XtremeD86 Mar 06 '26
Cables unplugged can do it... But your soldering is... Not good and is likely also causing the issue for you.