Turbostick repair.

[tohondero23]

Hi new guy here. Recently acquired a turbostick and initially it didn't work. I cleaned it completely with isopropyl and it worked. I played blazing lasers for at least 40 minutes until I lost all my lives. All of the sudden the only buttons working are the joystick and the select button. Do you think something may have shorted out? It may not have been completely dry? I checked continuity at both extremes of the cable and it's all there. What could it be? Thanks in advance.

[majors]

You checked continuity on the cable, but if you twist the cable does it change the non-working buttons? I've seen a few cords that have been flaky. Other than that, clean the plug...but I guess you did that.

Isopropyl should have dried by the time to re-assembled that stick.

Of course it doesn't help when you lose in Blazing and throw the stick at the TV when you die

[tohondero23]

Hi, thanks for the reply. Yup I tried twisting the cables and cleaning the connector. It almost seems like a component gave out. The way the buttons just stopped working so abruptly. Unfortunately I'm not sure how to proceed and troubleshoot it... And believe me I wanted to slam it against the ground so bad when it wouldn't let me continue. 
I just find it so odd that the only button that works now is the select button. I asked the question elsewhere and was told to clean the sliders but these are soldered in place and has two extra buttons that are on/off buttons for the turbo. Could one of those be bad? Being that they're all pretty much tied together. And I did rearrange all the little membranes to different locations and still just the joystick and select buttons are the only ones working. I'll tinker with it some more and then eventually slam it against the wall when I'm done failing with it. Thanks again.

[majors]

Another possibility is the ground trace is broke somewhere on the board after the directions and select button. Can you test for continuity? A guess is the PCB flexed and might have cracked.

Gamesx has details on the polling chip. Maybe attempt to test the chip against a known working pad and if it does not match up, swap it. Personally, not worth killing a good pad to just get the US Turbostick working (if it was a XE-1 Pro HE, then it'd be a different story)

If you cannot troubleshoot it, you could try and fit a Raspberry Pi inside