Hardware No response from right Joy-con after fall to floor

[Veroniica]

Hello,

I dropped the right joy-con on the floor earlier this week and to my frustration, the joy-con is not responding. Regardless of which buttons I press, there is no signal or indication of life. Unfortunately, I can't find the receipt and therefore get it fixed on warranty. Therefore, I've opened the joy-con to look into this as it seems too good to be true that a simple fall on the floor would kill it. In the process of looking into this, I've made sure that the battery is fine since it power the other joy-con without issues and measured the voltage. I've disconnected and reconnected all cables/connections without success. Further, I've measured resistance over several places on the motherboard. For example, the lights indicating signal are showing green for each pin, so I guess the SR ribbon flex cable is intact.

I'm considering replacing the whole motherboard as new joy-cons are nearly 100$ in my country. Any last advice before I buy a new motherboard from Aliexpress?

 

[ds34]

Can you post some pictures of the board? You might be missing components. (At least this happened when I dropped a phone some years ago)

 

[Veroniica]

I reassembled the joy-con again after swapping batteries and now it is at least alive seen form the picture below. Both joy-cons are attached to the Switch, but the right is not recognised as physically connected. It says it's charging, but it's not as I after some hours can't reconnect the joy-con. If I press the connection key, I see a very weak blink in the lowest light indicator (nr 4 from left).

The buttons, joystick and heptic feedback (vibration) seem to be working fine. I think the issue is the connection between ribbon flex cable and connector ensuring connectivity/charging between Switch and Joy-con. I don't think the issue is at the Switch's right slide rail bracket as it seems fine. I've even used a brush to remove dust from it.

I'm having a struggle making sure the ribbon cables are well connected, especially the connnector to the rail ensuring connection to Switch. I guess measuring ohm over every pin from the connector where the flex cable is inserted to the pins who connects to the Switch on the rail is the best way to verify that every pin is working?

 

[Veroniica]

Any ideas regarding how I can further verify that components are fine? I'm considering buying new parts, so I'm wondering if I only should buy replacement rail with sensor and latch or if I should buy a new joy-con PCB as well?

 

[ds34]

You can test the right joycon with the rail from the left one

 

[Veroniica]

It was not an empty battery causing the joy-con to not power on again. No signs of life after swapping batteries and rail. I guess that if the issue had been with some of the ribbon flex cables, I would be able to turn the controller on, but with missing features such as buttons, heptic feedback etc.

My best bet is probably to buy a completely new PCB and swap it? I'm thinking about buying a new right slide rail bracket with sensor as well given that when it had power and was physically connected to the switch, it didn't say it was attached (seen from the picture). Any other components I should buy as well?