I love the TAC-2 joystick! I tend to buy them whenever I see them at a good price at Swedish eBay. However, every other joystick has an issue with a direction or button not working. The most common cause of these failures are a broken cable. Luckily, it is fixable with a replacement cable, and some soldering, as shown below.
This may be a suitable project if you are new at soldering. It gives you some dexterity training, and you really don’t risk breaking anything: all cables / wires etc are replaceable!
Disassembling the TAC-2
The TAC-2 joystick is held together with 3 screws. While these screws often have a square pattern, you can loosen them with a Philips screwdriver. When inside the joystick, cut the old cable next to the cable strain relief.
TAC-2 cable replacement
I bought a bunch of replacement cables with a built-in strain relief that matches the TAC-2 perfectly.
Now, it is time to determine which wire in the TAC-2 goes to which wire in the replacement joystick cable. For this, you need to know the layout of the C64 / Amiga etc joystick port, and test the eqvivalent holes on the joystick connector with a multimeter. Carefully write down the results, as it is easy to confuse the colors while soldering. For my joystick, this is the correct layout (white, brown and yellow on the cable are not used):
UP (TAC-2 white) = red
Down (TAC-2 blue) = black
Right (TAC-2 brown) = orange
Left (TAC-2 green) = light grey
Button (TAC-2 orange) = green
Ground (TAC-2 black) = blue
Next, I stripe the wires on the joystick side. The wires on the replacement cable are already striped. Then, I tin all cables with some solder. I cut some shrink tube and place it on the wires of the replacement cable.
A pair of helping hands or similar make the soldering process much easier. Match the cables, solder them neatly together, cover the joint with some shrink tube, and apply heat. Rinse and repeat.
Then, position the strain relief, and make sure to create some order inside the joystick. You don’t want anything to get squeezed once you assembly it again. This may take a few attempts. Try to hide the wires underneath the connectors for the buttons, and push down these connectors a bit to hold the wires in place. Then, add the three screws to the bottom of the joystick again.
There we go! This fix will make sure your TAC-2 will last a few more decades for sure!
See also:
Repair of a TAC-2 with a broken stick.