- Controllers break, and for some people, they break often.
But just buy a new one, right?
Wrong!
Even without getting all preachy about e-waste,
and toxic chemicals, landfills, yada, yada, yada,
controllers can be expensive, difficult to replace, or both.
So repairing broken ones makes a ton of sense.
Microsoft recently confirmed the alleged shortage
of current generation Xbox wireless controllers
that's been driving up prices,
and the ongoing retro gaming craze
has resulted in skyrocketing demand for older controllers
that simply aren't being manufactured at all anymore
with more and more of them dying each year.
The good news is that we have the solution.
That's right, it's good old right to repair,
back to save the day once again.
In most parts of the world,
replacement components for popular game controllers
are pretty easy to come by.
So we asked our staff to bring in
their precious broken hardware for us to take a look at.
That's right.
Whoop, here it is.
The doctor is in.
So let's get started.
Oh my God!
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Depending on the model of the controller
and the particular problem,
a repair job can be anywhere from dead simple,
to absolutely nightmarish.
And while I suspect that everything we look at today
is gonna be on the easier end of the spectrum,
you never know when you're gonna crack open a WiiMote
and find that many of the PCB traces
have been corroded away by battery schmoo.
This has no internal battery,
meaning it should be a relatively easy one.
We're gonna start here.
The Super Nintendo was my childhood
so it would warm my heart
to keep David's busted controller out of the landfill.
His problem is apparently
both a broken Start and Select button.
Let's get this baby cracked open.
(upbeat funky music)
Wow, that's some 1990s PCB right there.
David didn't even say
that he had a broken right shoulder button.
Well, if it's not bothering him,
guess it doesn't bother me.
Whoo, cable replacement seems to be
a relatively simple operation.
This gives us a really good look
at the internals of the controller.
It's very simple.
All membranes, just like with the cheap keyboard.
So it works with this rubber nipple here
that has a conductive material on the bottom of it
that just connects to traces, closing a circuit,
sending a signal to the connected device.
There are no joysticks,
which means we have none of the cost or complexity
that accompany those.
The main points of failure then
are either cracked nipples, which these all seem to be fine,
or dirty contact points, or dirty nipples,
which prevent the circuit from being closed.
So it's actually likely that a controller of this style
can be repaired simply by cleaning it.
Why don't we start with that?
Obviously, the Start and Select are the problem,
and wow, this is dirty.
I don't know.
Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho.
I'm getting bit of a spill vibe here.
You can see whatever it was,
seeped through the Start and Select,
through the membrane here, through the hole and around it,
and oh, it's kinda oily.
Yeah, it's all over the board.
This is, as gross as it is, it's actually good news
'cause it means it's very likely that this fix
is as simple as just, grabbing a Q-tip,
spraying some alcohol on it, and giving this a wipe down.
Bleh, bleh, bleh.
Fumigate this thing.
Since we're already in here, we're gonna use a smooth motion
to clean off the bottoms of these other contact pads.
We're pretty lucky the originals are in good condition
because while we did prepare by picking up
a whole set of replacement membranes off of Mortoff Games,
honestly, they just do not feel as good as the originals
even though the originals
are over 25 years old at this point.
And it gets a lot worse than these.
Like, if you pick up random ones on Amazon,
there's a good chance they're gonna feel pretty awful
compared to the originals.
Let's go ahead and put this back on then.
If this shoulder's not bothering David,
I guess it's not really my place to say
that it's a problem, right?
Can I steal one from another controller?
- [Writer X] Yeah, absolutely.
- All right, cool.
Okay, perfect.
So we're in pretty okay shape.
It's test time.
Well, it still works.
Well, Start works.
All buttons are working.
David, you're welcome.
Your controller is saved.
Our next victim, this Game Cube controller comes courtesy
of our former editor Taran in it.
Presumably thanks to his Spider-Man 2 speed run hobby
has a banged up C-Stick knob, and a flacid joystick
that we need to get returned to its proper erect state.
Unfortunately, while the Game Cube has great joysticks,
it's nearly impossible to repair
the internals of the stick box.
So when they break, they must be replaced.
There are three main types of stick boxes
that you might find in your controller.
And depending on the version you have,
the job of de-soldering them
could be a little more difficult.
This metal cover here means that ours
is either a first or second generation unit.
So it means that heat will spread away faster
from the soldering iron.
The good news is that generations
one and two are interoperable.
So that gives us a few more options
for sourcing a replacement.
The bad news is that while there are lots of new stick boxes
available on Amazon, Ali Express, and eBay,
they will likely make your precious
first party controller feel like an off brand
like circa or old school,
and those can be had for about $10 brand new.
So the easiest way to obtain a good replacement
is by salvaging one from another Game Cube controller,
or a Wii accessory like the nunchuck.
Though it should be noted I'm using the term easiest
rather loosely here.
The Game Cube controller is a much more involved tear down
than the SNES controller.
Starting with Nintendo's trademark tri-wing screws,
you will need an iFixit kit or similar
in order to get these puppies out.
And ending with the de-soldering
that we're going to have to do to get
our donor joystick and C-stick out of this bad boy.
(upbeat funky music)
Off comes the joystick cover on the C-stick.
We're gonna hold onto that
for Taran's controller for later.
Now to get the C-stick out.
In some versions, this is soldered,
but conveniently, on ours, it's a socketed plug
so we can just pop this off,
and out comes the soldering iron.
(upbeat funky music)
That's it for our donor controller for now,
but we're gonna hold onto it
for when we inevitably need
that second joystick down the road.
Our second operation here is to replace the stick covers.
And here again, we could just purchase new ones online.
But again, many of the cheap options online
don't quite measure up to the originals,
and our customer is particular.
Thankfully, our broken controller happens to have
all the right working parts to fill in
the less working parts of Taran's.
Now to open up Taran's controller.
And this time we need to go deeper into our disassembly
of the rumble pack by fully de-soldering it.
This is going to give us the access we need
to the back of the stick box.
And once again, it looks like this controller
has been spilled down.
Check this out, we've got the stick box out
and this thing looks freaking rusty.
What is even going on here?
Ultimately, that's probably not
what made it loose like this, but it certainly didn't help.
(upbeat funky music)
Taran's C-Stick box is in acceptable condition
so all we need to do is put the new cover on top of it,
reassemble, and it's time to test.
And whoo hoo!
It's not brand new tight,
but hey, it didn't come from brand new controller.
So what do you want?
Game Cube controllers, particularly the joysticks,
are a rabbit hole and a half to go down.
So in the interest of time, I would suggest
that instead of listening to me talk about it,
you check out places like SSB Wiki, GC controller library,
or pretty much anywhere
that Smash Bros players tend to congregate.
Let's do something a little easier next.
Where'd it go?
Ah, here it is.
This PlayStation 3 controller
is from our cameraman, Andy.
Hi, Andy. - Hello. Hi.
It still works perfectly fine, except whoops.
The built in lithium battery is toast.
One solution that I pitched to him
would be to switch over to Xbox like a proper Chad.
- [Andy] No.
- But Andy didn't have any of that
so I guess we'll replace this battery for him.
Replacing a battery is mostly painless
when the controller's easy to open, and this one is.
Just unscrew the back.
Philips head screws.
Huh, thank you, Sony.
And lift forward toward the trigger buttons.
If your L2 and R2 fall out, put them back on right away
and make sure the little spring
is on the inside of the trigger.
Otherwise, you're gonna have a pretty sloppy trigger.
Now it's time to unplug the battery.
It might be a little tight,
but if you use a pointy plastic tool like this,
you'll be able to get a little bit more leverage,
and you should be able to push it out
if you keep trying.
Now one of the challenges when it comes
to replacing batteries in any device,
not just a PS3 controller,
is that due to a lack of right to repair legislation,
official first party replacements
either do not exist, or they're not sold for very long.
And it's a long way down the road
that usually is when we need these things.
Purchasing third party batteries is absolutely an option,
but it can be a gamble since shady sellers
can claim that a battery holds far more charge
than it actually does.
And in an even worse case, they might make mistakes
in the production of the product.
For example, it's pretty common with the PS3
to have the polarity flipped on the battery.
So make sure that the black wire is actually going to ground
to avoid frying your controller,
or potentially turning the battery pack
into a pretty spicy pillow.
When you insert the battery,
make sure the black and red wires
are on the same side of the connector groove.
We'd recommend taping down the battery at this stage.
Then once you've got the shell back together,
you're gonna wanna make sure that your triggers
and your shoulder buttons are working correctly
before you screw it back together.
So Andy, your controller is restored to battery life.
- [Andy] Wow, I can play GTA5.
- Here you go. Whoa!
Next up, we've got what I'm gonna call
the little brother special.
It's a Rock Candy controller from PDP for the Xbox 360.
I have no idea why this holds
such a special place in Alex's heart, but it does.
And given that Xbox 360 controllers
have been getting much more difficult to come by lately,
I feel it would be a service to the gaming community overall
to fix this one up for him
so that he doesn't have to go buy up
one of the proper first party ones
that the rest of us would rather use.
From talking to Alex,
we know that the problem with this controller
is that it will intermittently disconnect,
which can be anything from corrosion
on the contacts inside the USBA connector,
to a partial break in the cable,
to some kind of loosening of the connection
even here inside the controller.
Now because it would take us a long time
to diagnose which of those particular problems this is,
what we're going to do is we're just gonna
strip down the controller and solder on
a completely fresh USB cable.
We start by unscrewing the shell,
and lifting up the back avoiding the triggers
just like the PS3.
Then looking closer at the PCB,
there's what seems to be an oscillator here
that's either glued down, which would be fine,
or has some kind of schmoo leaking thing coming out of it,
which could be causing our connectivity problem.
We think it's more likely to be the USB cable
so we're gonna go straight to that fix.
We'll need to take the board out
and remove the joystick covers
just like we did on the Game Cube.
And at this stage, we need to note
the order of our USB wires.
If the board is labeled, black is ground,
red is voltage, green is negative data,
white is positive data, and this will all be relevant later.
We can de-solder the wires from the board
with a soldering iron or heat gun,
however it works for you.
Then it's time to put the controller aside for a minute
and find a donor cable.
I'm feeling more like a classic black.
Yeah, now we strip it, tin it, and solder it.
Remembering the order.
What you're looking at now is us doing it backwards.
Whoops, so we'll need to do that again.
(upbeat funky music)
If your original cable had some kind of strain reliever
or rubber grommet to hold it in place,
make sure you dissect that, wrap it around your new cable,
and reinstall it.
It can be the difference
between years of trouble free operation,
or it just immediately breaking again.
If you had better foresight than us, by the way,
you could put some heat shrink around your cable
and that would probably help it stay in place a bit better.
Now we reassemble and return.
Perfect.
- And no dropping in and out.
- [Writer X] Hey, Alex, your crappy controller back.
- Thank you.
I can finally play Rocket League well again.
- We got pretty lucky on that one.
Not every third party controller is easy to fix.
They often use different PCB layouts,
and or components that make finding replacement parts
much more difficult.
Also, because they're less common,
the online resources for repairing them
can be few and far between.
This PS2 controller from David is a perfect example.
We honestly had a hard time
even getting the thing open, let alone working on it
without risking any additional damage.
So his makeshift solution to the dead spring
in the right trigger might be the best
that he can do for now.
Bringing us finally to something a little bit more modern.
I've actually got a couple of broken Xbox one controllers.
So let's see, I'd say the broken
micro USB charging part on this one is pretty minor,
and too similar to something that we've already done.
So why don't we do the one that doesn't power on at all?
I think this one ended up with some kind of coating
all over the PCB as part of a previous video.
I actually don't remember all the details though.
Step one is to pry up the handles hard.
Gotta get those off to get at the screw holes.
Then there are five screws.
Two on either side, and one under the battery cover.
Now pop off the front plate,
and it's time to unscrew all these tiny screws.
There's not actually a ton of them, but don't miss any.
The rumble got disconnected at some point.
We're not sure what happened there,
and this conformal coating.
Ah, yes, this was from Bathtub gaming.
It's clearly coming off,
but the weird thing is we're getting continuity on it,
and yet it simply doesn't work.
I don't know how much additional time
we're gonna be investing into this one,
especially when we've got
more important things to talk about.
We actually didn't get any modern controllers
with dead joysticks.
But given how common stick drift is,
I feel like it's at least worth talking about.
There are a handful of joystick technologies
that have made their way into consumer controllers.
The Sega Dream Cast used hall effect sensors,
essentially magnetic joysticks.
And the notorious N64 joystick
actually used an optical sensor.
So despite flopping around
due to a defect in the mechanical design,
the accuracy almost never degraded.
It's one of the few stick boxes by the way
that can actually be repaired
by disassembling and refurbishing it.
The writer for this video is on probation
so he didn't make it into the YouTube video.
This is his controller that he wanted to get fixed.
But maybe we'll have him do it
as a Float Plane exclusive when we're done.
Sign up on floatplane.com.
Unfortunately, no modern joystick
uses either an optical or hall effect sensor.
Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, and even media darling, Valve,
all use Potentiometer joysticks,
which, well, are inherently fragile.
A Potentiometer is a variable resistor
that restricts the flow of electricity.
Each joystick then has two Potentiometers.
One for up and down, one for left and right.
So moving it around changes the voltage values
that are being reported to the console
on both of those axis.
A spring returns the stick to center.
The issue with potentiometers
is that they involve two pieces
of conductive material rubbing together.
If those two pieces start to wear out,
warp, or they get dirty, well, it's possible
that they will output a value that corresponds to this,
rather than to this.
Causing the input from the stick
to drift a little even if physically
it's in the right position.
Potentiometers are used because they are cheap,
and really for very few other reasons.
It's kinda wild that in 2022*,
we have more expensive controllers that use worse technology
than what we had back in 1999.
Some companies though, like Gulikit,
are working on aftermarket hall effect sensors
for the Steam Deck, and Switch,
and maybe other controllers in the future
to finally solve a problem
that shouldn't have existed in the first place.
The script says until we have hands on,
we can't speak to the quality of their solution,
but I actually tried the Steam Deck one today
right before I came over here, and it is better.
Especially with the Steam Deck
where you can configure the dead zones, no dead zones.
So fine.
Anyway, this was a lot of fun.
So if you're looking to get more mileage
out of a controller you already own,
or if you wanna score a deal on a controller
by fixing it up yourself,
or maybe you even wanna start a new hobby or side business
fixing and flipping old controllers,
I'd say it's worth giving it a try.
Just be careful where you get your controllers from.
Japan is a good source,
and is actually where this pile
of Super Famicom controllers came from.
They belong to the writer who worked on this project.
If you run into export woes though,
there are lots of as is controllers on sites like eBay.
Just be careful because if they're coming
from other refurbishers, as this one likely is;
I mean, who else would strip off the battery covers,
then you have no way of knowing
if earnest efforts have already been made to fix them.
They could be just irreparably broken.
This one, on the other hand, looks a lot more
like someone decluttering their garage,
and could be a prime candidate for some fixing.
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- If you guys wanna see us do more videos like this,
let us know down below.
And these controllers pair great
with a MiSTer Multisystem.
So go check out Anthony's video on Short Circuit about that.