A lot of people who have repaired a Switch or the Joy Cons have likely had a similar experience to me when opening the main rear tri wing screws - they slip, cam out, or the heads get destroyed with not much force, even with a good screwdriver. Many of the replacement screws you can find online also have similar problems. Therefore, I have tried out some generic stainless steel machine screws (Torx T4 M1.4x6mm to be precise) and they work far better than the originals as they simply go in with no fuss. As a plus, I could get them without the black coating, which means I can have a nice contrast of silver screws on the black back. Torx headed screws I would especially recommend due to fitting better onto the screwdriver and allowing more force without cam out.
I would highly recommend anyone who needs to open their Switch or Joy Cons for any reason to change out the screws while you are doing the work, as it will save you a ton of time and effort trying to extract broken tri wings in case you need to open it again and the screws cause problems.
I do hope Nintendo use better quality screws on Switch 2, as this is a problem that has likely caused no end of problems for repair technicians. I have repaired a Wii before and its screws were of a far higher quality.
I’d go further and say I’m hoping one of the reasons for the higher Switch 2 prices is better quality components overall. I loved my Switch 1 but good god the build quality was disappointing, in particular for the joycons - had so many problems with those.
One of the reasons I’m holding back on a potential Switch 2 purchase is that I want to see someone do a really good teardown of that console when it’s out and see how much they have improved it. If we can go back to the good old times where we joked that their consoles were built out of “Nintendium” I’d say the $450 price tag becomes a lot easier to digest.
I hope so as well. Switch 2 using magnetic attachment rather than the crummy plastic buckle locks for the Joy Cons is a good sign, but we’ll wait and see what the final product is like. Got one on pre order, so will probably post about it not long after I get it.