John Oldman
Writes about the things he takes apart - src.gdn
John Oldman writes src.gdn. He repairs game controllers, mostly PS5 DualSense joystick modules, on a bench that has a desoldering station, a cartridge iron, and a magnifier visor he is slightly embarrassed to be photographed in.
John Oldman is a pen name. The person behind it is real, did the repairs described here, took the photographs of them, and prefers to keep a legal name off the internet. You are not asked to take his word for anything: the boards in the photographs are the ones that were repaired, the failures are left in, and the address at the bottom of this page reaches the same person.
He learned this the way most people do: through experimentation, mistake and iteration. The guides on this site carry the scars. When the DualSense desoldering guide tells you that hot air will melt the module body through the board, or that the ground plane will outrun a cheap iron before you have finished reading the sentence, that is not received wisdom from another article. It is what happened on this bench.
That is the whole point of the site. There is no shortage of repair content written by people who have never held the part. What is scarce is someone telling you which method not to use and why, which is usually the more useful half of the advice.
Away from the soldering, he tests graphics cards and writes about what actually limits them, uses GoPros more than is reasonable, and follows machine learning closely enough to explain it to people who do not want the hype.
He tries to use only his own photographs, taken of the actual board, tool or failure being described, and every DualSense repair photo is his. Where he has not been able to capture an image himself, he has used other sources: manufacturers' product shots and, in a few places, AI-generated images. Where an article recommends a product, the link may earn a commission, which never changes what gets recommended or what gets warned against.
The real John can't remember getting this old. He has a software background (BSc Hons Computer Science) covering DirectX, OpenGL, shader development, and video streaming and DRM, and still has nightmares about his work in fintech. He runs Epoch Controllers as a side hustle, and lives in Northern Ireland with his wife, daughter, seven cats, three dogs and, most recently, a horse. He loves motorcycles and makes an awesome chow mein.
Contact
Corrections are welcome, and a correction that changes the advice gets the article updated and dated. If something on this site is wrong, or you have taken a board apart and found otherwise, say so: hello [at] src.gdn.