Hardware Constant Switch Joycon Drift

[rmail2006]

Hi guys,

So my brother's left joycon has developed a drift and it is out of warranty.

I've worked on many repairs etc in my spare time on my own consoles but I seem to have hit an issue with the joy con repair.

I've ordered 3 joy stick replacements off of Amazon and all 3 have had Drift also.

My brothers joycon's drift was only present when flicking the joystick up, and it took a few seconds to settle back to center.

All 3 of these Aamzon joysticks (from different sellers) have all had an issue where they don't sit center. This is shown in the calibration with them all sitting either off center, directly to the right, or slightly up and right. The calibration sees the crosshair as a circle and not a cross, showing it thinks teh joystick is being pressed.

Does this seem like an unlucky draw or is there any known issues with the joycons that might show this problem?

I've also placed my brothers joy stick back in and it is sitting in the center​

Thanks

 

[JHarris]

You should still contact Nintendo about it! They seem to realize there's a problem with joycon drift in general and have been good about fixing or replacing joycons for free even if they're out of warranty. Search Nintendo's support site for "joycon drift".

 

[rmail2006]

Hi JHarris,

I was thinking about this but my brother has cracked his joycon case near screw hole so wanted to not risk it getting refused.

The problem was me , I had installed the joy stick and tested it in the calibrate joystick section, which showed the issue.

Turns out I should have pressed X to calibrate . All is working as expected now

Feeling pretty silly as I've repaired loads of Nintendo handhelds and consoles but, hey ho

 

[logandzwon]

You should still contact Nintendo about it! They seem to realize there's a problem with joycon drift in general and have been good about fixing or replacing joycons for free even if they're out of warranty. Search Nintendo's support site for "joycon drift".

But also, the repair center is indefinitely closed right now due to COVID-19. Even if you have an open case already, if you send anything in it’ll get returned.

 

[M7L7NK7]

Ditch Nintendo's shitty joycons and get Hori's split pad pro

 

[rmail2006]

Thanks for the info logandzwon, would have been disappointed if I sent it in and got returned
And I wasn't aware that was a thing Milenko, looks like a strange one but it does look cool at the same time, I'll give a few YouTube reviews a watch and see

 

[gamesquest1]

Hi JHarris,

I was thinking about this but my brother has cracked his joycon case near screw hole so wanted to not risk it getting refused.

The problem was me , I had installed the joy stick and tested it in the calibrate joystick section, which showed the issue.

Turns out I should have pressed X to calibrate . All is working as expected now

Feeling pretty silly as I've repaired loads of Nintendo handhelds and consoles but, hey ho

honestly I feel the split plastic on the joy con screw is another design fault, I have about 40 joy con pairs and I would say about 65/80 have a little hairline crack on the top screw near the rail, I presume they designed it pretty poorly and all the stress from the rail in handheld mode gets focused on that little plastic corner

(just to clarify I don't just have tons of joy cons for myself, I bought a job lot of faulty joy cons to fix up)

another resign flaw would appear to be the R button, the microswitch seems to fail a lot on them, and unfortunately the pads they are soldered to are so weak, they usually rip right off the board once the metal bracket breaks free

 

[rmail2006]

honestly I feel the split plastic on the joy con screw is another design fault, I have about 40 joy con pairs and I would say about 65/80 have a little hairline crack on the top screw near the rail, I presume they designed it pretty poorly and all the stress from the rail in handheld mode gets focused on that little plastic corner

(just to clarify I don't just have tons of joy cons for myself, I bought a job lot of faulty joy cons to fix up)

another resign flaw would appear to be the R button, the microswitch seems to fail a lot on them, and unfortunately the pads they are soldered to are so weak, they usually rip right off the board once the metal bracket breaks free

Yeah, its definitely cheap plastic and the screw is far too close to the edge resulting in an easy break if too much pressure is applied when tightening the screw.

Thanks for the advice on the R Button, I'll have to keep my eye's on that if I'm ever in that one. Next project is to fix the lock mechanism on the left joycon as it has developed a small chip resulting in it detaching and sliding out with light-moderate pressure. Again cheap plastic. So metal replacements it is

 

[Clydefrosch]

it seems weirdly unlikely for fresh sticks to drift to such an extend.
did you actually calibrate the new ones?

if it's 'normal' wear and tear caused drift, a small spray of wd40 contact cleaner under the little rubber cap almost always solves this.

 

[andres1234]

can u upload a photo of the stick u buy?
there are some of very poor quality

 

[rmail2006]

it seems weirdly unlikely for fresh sticks to drift to such an extend.
did you actually calibrate the new ones?

if it's 'normal' wear and tear caused drift, a small spray of wd40 contact cleaner under the little rubber cap almost always solves this.

Hi Clydefrosch, I did not Calibrate them, that was the issue , I was on the calibrate Joycon page but did not click X to Calibrate .
All went well once I calibrated.

I'll also remember to try the WD40 trick, I may actually remove the one from mine to test his old one with WD40 as I still have his old part. Bit of a hardware hoarder lol, hate throwing things away unless they're totally cabbaged

can u upload a photo of the stick u buy?
there are some of very poor quality

Sorry andres, I don't have any pictures as they're inside my brothers controller now and He doesn't live with me but I bought them from Amazon from a dealer named 'nanbail'. He's been using them for around 5 days now and they seem perfectly fine.

The only one, out of 3, that wouldn't calibrate (from a different seller than the last 2 replacements), had a green ribbon cable compared to teh blue that the new ones and original ones had. I'm pretty sure the color of the ribbon cable wouldn't make any difference but it's weird that that was teh odd one out

 

[andres1234]

well i replace a lot sticks.
i probe much models, green, blue and yellows ribon and i have a lot of problems with this models(see 1 photo) sometime they dont work, or have permanent drift, and sometimes works fine( but fails a days after used very fast)..... this models is a very bad my friend....
i recomended blue ribons, they cost a litle more but they work very very fine.( see 2 photo)

 

[slaphappygamer]

oh damn, the color of the ribbon matter?!?! i ordered the yellow ribbon type in the first picture above and even have that circle on the bottom too. they should be here soon. ill report this weekend, or when i install them.

 

[NatoKenichi]

I would contact Nintendo after that many repairs. I've repaired my joy cons a few times now without any issue again with them having drift or braking. Maybe something is getting into them? Try a really good Alcohol bath next time and see if you get any different results before opening it up again.

 

[Winnppl]

well i replace a lot sticks.
i probe much models, green, blue and yellows ribon and i have a lot of problems with this models(see 1 photo) sometime they dont work, or have permanent drift, and sometimes works fine( but fails a days after used very fast)..... this models is a very bad my friend....
i recomended blue ribons, they cost a litle more but they work very very fine.( see 2 photo)

the brown ribbon cables joysticks are garbage, I ordered 100 of them, tested out 15 of them each individually and they all failed my standards for my joy-con repair business, I ended up sending them all back, I only will use blue ribbon cable or green ribbon cable joysticks.

 

[Zetman]

Talking about hori split pad pro, I read on amazon reviews that people had the drift issue on the left joycon after 1 month of use, so that's the same s***

 

[ganons]

Great, the ones I ordered appear to be brown ribbons

 

[slaphappygamer]

My ribbon is brownish yellow, like in the first photo (6th post above). Been working great for a few weeks now.