Wires/solder

[winnston84]

As someone rather new to wiring something like this, I'm a bit unsure what to buy - what should i be buying for the wires to connect everything up and the solder to use?

I tried searching but "wire" and "solder" came back with not specific enough!

Thanks

[Hathe]

60/40 flux core .050" diamter (1.27mm) is great for 99% of this project. If you're doing any super fine connections, you will need a smaller diameter solder wire. 60/40 is the percentage of tin and lead, the more lead there is in the solder, the lower the melt point (ie easier to use). I strongly recommend picking up some soldering flux paste as well. You can buy them in plastic containers, pens, many different things. Just add some to what you're going to solder with a toothpick and it will burn out the oxidants and make a phenomenal bond between the solder and pcb. This is a must for fine connections like the SD cartridge / gameboy cartridge wiring, you'll go mad without it.

Wires can come from anything. I normally don't buy them. This is OK, but the gauge is a little fine for my liking, the shielding kind of sucks, and it's all aluminum. However, it is neatly color coded. I strongly recommend using 100% copper wiring. Copper clad aluminum (CCA) is OK, but it's still aluminum and can break easily. I like getting my wiring from CAT5 cables that are stranded, which most are. A standard 6' cord of CAT5 will yield 48' of wiring, more than enough to do 10+ pi zeroes.

[Hathe]

Also, this is an excellent introduction video. A good deal of it will not apply to you on this project but the knowledge is incredibly useful down the road. https://youtu.be/vIT4ra6Mo0s

[Ganreizu]

I wish someone told me about the ethernet cable trick for getting fine wire earlier. Wired my teensy and everything with thick af 22 guage wire.

[winnston84]

Awesome, thanks for the advice greatly appreciated! I have a fair number of stranded ethernet cables lying around that have no use anymore, so i'll go with that to save buying something new.

Cheers!

[winnston84]

Also, this is an excellent introduction video. A good deal of it will not apply to you on this project but the knowledge is incredibly useful down the road. https://youtu.be/vIT4ra6Mo0s

As a brit who says "sole-der" "saw-der" is just odd!

[RxBrad]

Hmm.. apparently you REALLY need flux for the Game Boy Zero controls..

I've soldered wires together before. I thought this couldn't be that much harder. Right? Wrong. Absolute unmitigated disaster.

No matter what I did, I couldn't get solder to melt and bond to the places where I exposed the copper on the controls part of the PCB. At best, the solder would accidentally touch the iron and form a big blob that wanted nothing to do with the DMG PCB.

Did some quick Googling, and found that I must've needed to get it hotter. Turns out that 450° apparently melts PCBs.

Good thing you can buy those premade Game Boy Zero PCBs.