Any Thoughts on How to Fix This? (Replicade Centipede Mini Trackball Controller Card)

VectoRaster

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My Centipede mini wouldn't start after 2 months so I thought: no problem - just need to recharge the battery. Plugged it in and after 5 minutes smelled something burning. Took it apart and found the problem. One (or both) of the capacitors coming in on the tackball controller card's 5v power line is shorted. The game won't run with the controller card plugged in, but works when disconnected (of course without any control movement). My Li-ion battery doesn't hold a charge anymore, which I guess makes sense due to the voltage demand created by the short.

Hopefully this is on-topic enough for someone familiar with the design of this type of controller interface to know what I need to do to repair it. The 5v trace has continuity all the way to the connector. If you were in my situation, what would you do?

I have no idea what capacitors I need since there are no wiring diagrams or schematics floating around that I can find, but maybe someone out there with a lot more board repair experience than I knows . . .
 

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I would hook it up without them and see if it even works. Looks like those are just smoothing / filter caps to me, but I may be incorrect. Caps dont "have" to be exact to work, so you have some wiggle room.
 
I agree, it looks like 2 filter caps on the incoming power. One large to stabilize voltage, and one small to bypass high frequency noise.

There is no need to use surface mount parts. Clean the circuit board as best as you can. Find good places to solder to, and install a 220uF electrolytic, and a 0.1uF disc.

Finger's crossed.
 
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