Is there a way to remove corrosion from the button sensors?

[Gowford]

This is a follow up to the last post i made about this, I wasn't sure whether to just add this to that post or make a new one, but since the two are now separate things at this point i might as well make a new one. (mostly because the previous post was to figure out why things were happening, now i know why i just need to know how to fix it)

I fully opened up the 3ds (classic one, no XL or New or 2ds), unglued the sticker briefly and saw the insides, this is what was below the sticker:

Now, i am not sure if this is corrosion actually or the gold/copper on the sensors just degraded and is unusable.

What i really want to know is if this is salvageable, if there is a way to remove that/make it so the button works again. I thought about maybe lightly coating that with solder? but I'm not entirely sure what that would achieve. The problem seems to be that whatever happened to that button causes the input to always be pressed, if that helps.

Post automatically merged: Jan 26, 2023

I have tried scrubbing it with isopropyl, and have tried to use baking soda mixed with distilled water. Neither worked very well, if at all, although the cotton buds i was using to try and remove that stuff were getting visibly dirty with black stuff, so maybe it was removing just a tinge bit of it, or maybe just some of the outside stuff, which had no impact on the 3ds and didn't fix anything at all.

 

[FAST6191]

That looks less like corrosion and more mechanical damage/removal of material (possibly someone getting a bit intense with a wire brush), though some of the other test pads might have seen a spill. If it constantly acts as pressed then it is more likely something is shorted (don't know offhand if this is pulled high or pulled to ground for this board).
If it was corroded then you might have been able to remove it and if you were really bored coat it again with something. That.. if it was an industrial device (only one we have, can't get another... sort of thing) I would probably make a daughter board and put controls on that instead, that or it gets very serious and a new track gets cut by whatever means and I glue that down and join the thing to the original traces. I don't have much in the way of material replacement options, much less that I would put forth as something you are going to want to play with.

 

[Gowford]

How would i go about making a daughter board? I am interested in coating it with something to help mitigate it, i was wondering if solder would do the trick, although i'm not entirely sure if it would.