I’m sure many of you saw that someone found a “fix” for joy con drift. I just thought I would share my experience. I went ahead and purchased two small precision screwdrivers off of Amazon because I did not have a y tipped screwdriver at all. I took apart my two left joy cons, one of which was completely unusable due to the horrible drift, the other was usable, but still had many many issues with drift. I highly recommend watching the YouTube videos because then you’ll know what you’re getting yourself into, and what to expect once you take them apart. Unlike the video however I did not remove anything from the joy cons, I simply took out the screws and moved the components carefully. I was able to successfully do the fix and did not have to actually disconnect any of the wires. All that being said I was successfully able to make both joy cons now function completely normal using only a small piece of business card.
Here are a few things you might not see in the video or be able to find information about that I think would be very helpful if anybody wants to try it on their joy cons. I tried initially to use a thin business card, but that did not fix the problem. You definitely want to use a very rigid business card the kind that if you were to bend it at all it would show a crease. That’s kind of the thickness you’re looking for. Some videos on YouTube show people using foam or other thicker options, I would not recommend that. The thick business card is more than enough. The screws in the joy cons are extremely easy to strip and very easy to over tighten. I partially stripped one of the y tipped screws doing very little when getting one out, and I also slightly over tightened one of the Phillips screws inside the joy con and now it’s barely holding anything down so keep that in mind when you are unscrewing everything and tightening it back up. For me the hardest part was actually removing the battery from the tray because in the video he mentions how he’s opened his joy cons multiple times, but the first time you take the battery out it has a very sticky tape or glue like substance holding it in and you have to kind of pry it out which is really easy to snap or bend the plastic if you’re not thinking about it so keep that in mind.
I did go ahead and add the cardboard fix to both of my right joy cons even though I haven’t really had issues with those, but I felt like since I’ve seen enough people have the issue why not take care of it now while I had everything going. I will just make a final comment and say the right joy cons were quite a bit more difficult to work with than the left ones simply because of the placement of the components.
I had originally tried to play Skyward Sword HD with the motion controls last week, and it was completely and totally worthless. I couldn’t do anything with my controllers. However, I went ahead and played for a few hours after I fixed these today, and now it’s like they are brand new and there are no issues at all. I really hope this fix is lasting even though it is just simply a piece of cardboard, but it did work for me, and like I said one of my joy cons was completely unusable. So I definitely think it’s worth it if you’re willing to just open them up.
