If you find the joystick buttons on your Apple joystick aren’t working consistently anymore, then it might be time to replace the switches. Link to buy it from Mouser
The part you will want to get is the Omron B3F-4000, which is good for another 3,000,000 button presses.
You can also choose to get the long service life version, the Omron B3F-5000, which is good for another 10,000,000 operations. 🙂
You will also need a long enough phillips-head screwdriver, and your trusty soldering iron and some solder.
Next step, opening up the joystick. The screws are hidden behind the rubber foot pads on the bottom of the joystick. You can pry the feet off gently and they should have enough adhesive to put back on again. Note that only two of them need removing (upper left and lower right as shown in the picture below).
You will see that the switches (grey color) have components soldered directly to them.
So with your soldering iron, carefully detach each wire and resistor connected to the switches. Remember where everything is supposed to go! I just take photos so I can refer back to them when it’s time for reassembly.
Here are the old switches after removal:
Finally, resolder the connections on to the new switches.
Done! Now get back to playing Alien Downpour…
Give your Apple joystick buttons new life by installing Omron B3F-5000 switches.
This article is a port from a thread on the Apple II Enthusiast Facebook group. The author of the original thread is John Keoni Morris. The thread is transcribed here as is.
A very common problem with the Apple IIc is having the volume knob/potentiometer fall apart. Here is a quick tutorial on how to put these back together, at least if there is no major damage.
If yours looks like this, then you are unfortunately screwed. Here there is obvious physical damage and the resistance strip is missing.A good one should look like this. It will need to be desoldered from the motherboard. Clean up the black strip with a bit of Deoxit.These are the 3 parts of the assembly. The knob, potentiometer and a little circular clip.
What typically happens is that the clip slips off the end of the knob and allows the know to fall off.
So, after cleaning up the electrical portion, we need to reassemble. This involves simply laying the ring over the end of the knob with the curved portion facing upwards.
Then using a 4mm socket, we push the ring back down onto the shaft. No too hard, but it should click in place.
Then we use our soldering iron to melt the end of the shaft just a bit to pin it back in place.
Finally, we simply solder the entire assembly back into place! We are done!
