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 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.
Thanks for the replacement tip. I’m not sure much is going to change moving forward though. Nonstandard screw heads are used to keep bored people (especially kids) out. Only the invisible sky wizard knows how much stuff was saved from my preteen curiosity by not being a Philips or flathead. (RIP my old Walkman, sorry I never figured out how to put you back together properly.) Do you know how tempting those clips on the top of NES carts were to me as a kid? I poked at them even knowing the security screws were there. Had those been anything I could undo with my dad’s tools, you bet your ass I’d have them disassembled, inspected, running back and forth across the carpeted floor (which also served as the work table) to get more carts, seeing if game boards could fit in another case to prank my brother, the whole nine yards.
If one of those ~$50 games ended up not working (whether by carpet-fueled ESD or a literal misstep or whatever), best case scenario is that I would have been out of a game if my parents didn’t find out. (Worst case, my mom wouldn’t be able to play Tetris anymore and I may not have survived third grade.) Because they certainly weren’t going to buy “it just stopped working” from the kid that disassembled Optimus Prime. I can see other parents buying the sob story though, making a big scene at the store or on the phone (and these days, online), demanding a refund/replacement regardless of warranty status.
Of course none of that impacts hobbyists - we just get the right tool and go to town. But nonstandard screw heads work well enough at keeping out kids (and idiots) that they’re likely here to stay.
And we both know the answer to the fastener quality issue: if you can shave a penny off of a part that’ll be used hundreds of millions of times, well, that’s what you’re gonna do. There’s precious little in the way of (regular) user-serviceable parts in anything anymore. The manufacturers don’t want us in there. Is that going to stop us? No.
We can hope for better, but IMO “this makes a great replacement part” is awesome info on its own.
Thanks for reading my very long-winded “thank you.” ^_^;
I get you so much. I used to also be the kind of kid who would disassemble pretty much anything in sight (thankfully nothing too expensive was broken) and I definitely get the purpose of the tri wings, as pretty much nothing outside of electronic specialised kits or specific drivers have those bits. My DS thankfully did not end up being the subject of experimentation (until I got my iFixit kit-). I wish Security Torx was the solution to this problem (high torque, but can’t open it with a regular Torx driver) but at this point there’s probably more Security Torx drivers out there than non-Security since Security Torx is used seemingly everywhere.
Also I must accept the reality of the screw quality - very few people are probably disassembling their Switch at all, so they can get away with poor quality screws since if you go to Nintendo (at least here in the UK) they’ll just send you a refurbished unit and you can be on your merry way. Unfortunate for hobbyists though, especially considering Nintendo’s turnaround times sometimes.
Also, if you’ve still got the bits of the Walkman lying around somewhere, it might be worth giving fixing it now a shot. The old Sony service manuals (which are amazingly written by the way, I wish every manual could be like it) are usually widely available across the internet, and there’s now a fairly active community who make items like replacement drive belts and gears. Can’t really say much more though, I’m mostly a retro iPod guy (love my 4th gen).
The Walkman is long gone, like 30+ years ago. Still have Optimus’s foot, though.
I just replaced the left joystick last night and it didn’t even dawn on me to get replacement screws. I did buy a repair kit, which had the tweezers, spudgers and the necessary screw drivers, all of which came in handy. I really wish you would have posted this 12 hours sooner, though replacing the triwings would be fairly easy.
It is super nice to have a guilikit hall effect stick. I didn’t touch the right one for now, as I wanted to make sure the left one was working given a few of the Amazon reviews. But so far, so good.
I’ve switched my joysticks a lot and the screw settings failed. So mine kinda have a frankenstien look to them. I drilled a small hole for a bolt and a nut with the cap to keep them together. Not the sleekest but it works. Cant use the joycon grip depending which ones you replace.
So it appears the screw holes weren’t just on my Joy Cons. I guess at least it gives some comfort to know they were all built terribly (my Joy Cons even had missing solder on the supports for the button), but I really do hope the quality on the Joy Cons improves with Switch 2.
