26th May 2020, 10:13 AM
That wonky thing was always misfiring on the perpendicular to whatever direction I put in. However I've recently been able to do something about it. I applied a fix I read about online combined with a little extra I added. You'll need two things. The first is electrical tape and the second is a gel style super glue applicator pen. (Be sure it's that specific kind, and that it's the kind formulated for wood, metal, glass, and plastic. Oh and yes- don't glue yourself if you can avoid it.)
The first step involves disassembling the controller until you can get under the d-pad to the copper traces beneath. That's a bit more involved than I expected. There's many little hidden screws, starting with the two in the handles. Then you slide those two off like sleeves. From there the plastic "back" has 4 silver screws. Remove those and under this are 5 more screws, black in color. Yes- five. Do not proceed until you find them all. There's a few hidden VERY well in two little tubes in the battery compartment. Now you can separate the shells. Be careful here, as there's a ribbon cable connecting two boards together. You'll need to pull up on a tab on one side or the other to slide the cable out cleanly. Lastly, there are 4 more black screws on the "facing" side of the controller.
Once it's all open, remove whatever rubber contacts are still clinging to the board and take a look at the 4 contact points. You'll notice how each one consists of two half circles. The rubber pad contains a metal contact inside it which bridges these points and that gets interpretted as a button press. (A microcontroller is used for this, otherwise you'd need two wires running to the console for every button on the controller.) There are two issues with this d-pad's design, and we're going to handle them both. The first is that the contacts can connect with very little input. Those half circles connect very close to the center as well as out to the tip of each direction. The second has to do with the plastic d-pad itself. Look under it and you'll see a half-sphere that kind of resembles a ball bearing underneath. This is intended to prevent pressing left-right or up-down at the same time. The ball is just a smidge (millimeter or two at best) too short and thus doesn't do it's job.
The next step is going to take some experimenting. We need this to be very accurate. Take the glue applicator and apply a little dot of super glue right in the middle of the d-pad contacts on the PCB. There's a little divot where the plastic part rolls around, aim for that. Let it soak in and spread and wait an hour or two for it to harden. This will provide a higher base. Again, we're talking millimeters. Better to apply too little than too much here. If you don't trust yourself with the glue, I found ONE layer of electrical tape can do the job too, but it may degrade quicker over time.
Now cut 4 thin strips of electrical tape. You're going to want to put it over the contact traces closest to the middle. The goal is to prevent a circuit until the d-pad is depressed a little more, to prevent accidental presses. You may need to adjust the position further inward or outward (from the center), then screw the controller back together enough to test it, then take it apart and adjust. I had to do this a number of times. The goal is to prevent accidental presses in the wrong direction while still making the button press "register" the moment you "feel" that direction click down. For me, that ended up covering I'd say about a forth of the contact.
Once you are satisfied, screw the whole thing back together. One piece of advice: when you are screwing it all together start by "unscrewing" until you feel a click, that's the screw finding it's original thread. This is plastic, if you don't find the original thread you're going to end up drilling a brand new thread into the hole and over time that's going to degrade that screw hole. Since you're going to be putting the thing together a few times to test the feel, please consider this.
Anyway, my d-pad is FAR more satisfactory now. I've found even in games that don't use it for direction control it's been a major help in controlling the games properly. It finally feels as good as the SNES d-pad. I also prefer how that center ball being raised a bit makes it more "rolly" now- to prevent buttons from triggering if I press too hard on the center.
The first step involves disassembling the controller until you can get under the d-pad to the copper traces beneath. That's a bit more involved than I expected. There's many little hidden screws, starting with the two in the handles. Then you slide those two off like sleeves. From there the plastic "back" has 4 silver screws. Remove those and under this are 5 more screws, black in color. Yes- five. Do not proceed until you find them all. There's a few hidden VERY well in two little tubes in the battery compartment. Now you can separate the shells. Be careful here, as there's a ribbon cable connecting two boards together. You'll need to pull up on a tab on one side or the other to slide the cable out cleanly. Lastly, there are 4 more black screws on the "facing" side of the controller.
Once it's all open, remove whatever rubber contacts are still clinging to the board and take a look at the 4 contact points. You'll notice how each one consists of two half circles. The rubber pad contains a metal contact inside it which bridges these points and that gets interpretted as a button press. (A microcontroller is used for this, otherwise you'd need two wires running to the console for every button on the controller.) There are two issues with this d-pad's design, and we're going to handle them both. The first is that the contacts can connect with very little input. Those half circles connect very close to the center as well as out to the tip of each direction. The second has to do with the plastic d-pad itself. Look under it and you'll see a half-sphere that kind of resembles a ball bearing underneath. This is intended to prevent pressing left-right or up-down at the same time. The ball is just a smidge (millimeter or two at best) too short and thus doesn't do it's job.
The next step is going to take some experimenting. We need this to be very accurate. Take the glue applicator and apply a little dot of super glue right in the middle of the d-pad contacts on the PCB. There's a little divot where the plastic part rolls around, aim for that. Let it soak in and spread and wait an hour or two for it to harden. This will provide a higher base. Again, we're talking millimeters. Better to apply too little than too much here. If you don't trust yourself with the glue, I found ONE layer of electrical tape can do the job too, but it may degrade quicker over time.
Now cut 4 thin strips of electrical tape. You're going to want to put it over the contact traces closest to the middle. The goal is to prevent a circuit until the d-pad is depressed a little more, to prevent accidental presses. You may need to adjust the position further inward or outward (from the center), then screw the controller back together enough to test it, then take it apart and adjust. I had to do this a number of times. The goal is to prevent accidental presses in the wrong direction while still making the button press "register" the moment you "feel" that direction click down. For me, that ended up covering I'd say about a forth of the contact.
Once you are satisfied, screw the whole thing back together. One piece of advice: when you are screwing it all together start by "unscrewing" until you feel a click, that's the screw finding it's original thread. This is plastic, if you don't find the original thread you're going to end up drilling a brand new thread into the hole and over time that's going to degrade that screw hole. Since you're going to be putting the thing together a few times to test the feel, please consider this.
Anyway, my d-pad is FAR more satisfactory now. I've found even in games that don't use it for direction control it's been a major help in controlling the games properly. It finally feels as good as the SNES d-pad. I also prefer how that center ball being raised a bit makes it more "rolly" now- to prevent buttons from triggering if I press too hard on the center.
Nice work, though.