Nintendo Switch Joy-Con controllers

[8bit]

During an intense family game of Boomerang Fu recently (great fun) I unfortunately managed to drop one of the joy-con controllers for the kids' Switch into a glass of beer. Long story short, one or two of the buttons are now sticky or just don't work at all and I am now the family pariah.

I'm not sure how repairable these things are, I suspect it's goosed and should just be replaced. Looking at replacements, the official Nintendo ones seem to be £60/pair no matter where you buy them. I have seen some third-party alternatives that are significantly cheaper, are any of these any good?

[EmilA]

I tried some of the cheaper ones off Amazon (not genuine) and they were shockingly bad. I returned them and got an official set in the end. Went for some different colours this time.

[Hanslow]

Strip them down and give them a good clean with some 99% IPA, the sterilising fluid, not more beer. All being well they'll recover if you don't let them fester too long. There are plenty of joycon repair/teardown videos on youtube to get you going. Nothing to lose and could save you a princely sum.

[8bit]

EmilA said:

I tried some of the cheaper ones off Amazon (not genuine) and they were shockingly bad. I returned them and got an official set in the end. Went for some different colours this time.

Thanks, thought that might be the case.

Hanslow said:

Strip them down and give them a good clean with some 99% IPA, the sterilising fluid, not more beer. All being well they'll recover if you don't let them fester too long. There are plenty of joycon repair/teardown videos on youtube to get you going. Nothing to lose and could save you a princely sum.

I had a look but the screws are so bloody small I couldn't even see what heads they were. Don't look like standard flat or cross-head though. I'll have a look on Youtube, thanks.

[Mr E]

Screws are tri things. You can buy the screwdrivers cheaply, but they round off easily.

I’d suggest a button/bumper replacement kit for a few quid and have a go. Clean up everything else with isopropyl as suggested above.

Worst case, you learn what not to do next time.

[8bit]

Mr E said:

Screws are tri things. You can buy the screwdrivers cheaply, but they round off easily.

I’d suggest a button/bumper replacement kit for a few quid and have a go. Clean up everything else with isopropyl as suggested above.

Cheers, I'll look into that.

Mr E said:

Worst case, you learn what not to do next time.

Yes - don't drop it in beer again

[Steven_RW]

You can buy a single replacement official joycon from CEX

£32.

Comes with 2 years warranty and saves all this idea of screw drivers and wasting your time. :-)

RW

[Mad Maximus]

Official genuine only don’t waste your time on others. Even then the proper ones can still go funny. Keep an eye out and you do find occasional bargains.