Xbox Wireless Controller Stick Replacement - Lfc#320

Hello interwebs welcome to let's fix computers. I'Ve got an Xbox wireless controller here. I think this is one of the more modern ones, because it's got the share button on it um. So I think this is from a Xbox One X or One S uh, not sure. If it's from a series, um or not, but don't know, my Xbox is that! Well, if I'm honest anyway, it has stick drift, so we're going to replace the analog sticks on it. I'Ve got a couple of new sticks here which I bought from eBay. These are apparently a new design, so not sure if I got the right thing or not, but I'm sure they'll be fine. Anything is better than something that already has drift. Um so yeah the sticks themselves fairly, simple design, they've got a couple of potentiometers um on them for the X and Y, then the press down is actually just a tactile button. There, literally just mounted into the frame um and the rest of it, is just the spring mechanism that allows it to re-center from any angle, so yeah quite interesting um. So the first thing we've got to do is disassemble this I have taken apart an Xbox controller before, but it's been a hot minute, so I might look a little bit Jank doing this. We'Ve got to start out by taking off these side bits and that's going to reveal screws which actually get us into the device. So I'm gon na get a little bit vicious with this guy and see if we can get this side panel off. Oh there's going to be some unpleasant plastic noises. Okay, let me grab a second prying tool just so I can pry from multiple points. There we go. I think we're making progress looks good. Oh, we've got two of these once I've got one off and I can actually see how the clips work should be able to make less of a meal of the second one. Oh okay, there we go we're off. Oh wow, yeah! No, there's no easy way around! That those clips just grip in all directions, so yeah mercifully I didn't break any of them. I'M actually surprised. I thought I was going to break at least one of them then, and that is just that's a thing that happens when you're taking apart Plastics, that sometimes you will break clips, and there are people who'll be like. Oh you've got to use a plastic spudger and like plastic spudges, don't stop you from breaking clips that just happens when you're going in blind um. Now I'm not saying that you break Clips all the time, however, breaking one or two it will happen: um and yeah. Either way, we've got that off no broken clips, and now you can see, we've exposed screws so I'll get the other one off as well, and then we can proceed. Oh this one's going, much easier, whoops whoop there we go, there's our two bits off. So we've got some Torx heads in there now. Oh those are security talks, that's gross all right. What are you then? So these are security talks, eight um. Now I have security talks bits. So that's not a big deal for me. The pro tip, if you don't have security talks, you can often just Jam a flat head in there and it will either get enough purchase to turn the screw. So, in other cases um, if you stick a flathead screwdriver into a security Torx bit, I have seen before on low quality screws. You can just snap the center post off of the screw and then it becomes just a regular Torx screw. So, in fact, I think that's what I've just done on this one yeah I've just mangled the the little Post in the center of the screw there um. So now I can stick in a T8 and it comes right out. So, no, I tell you what I'm gon na cheat. I have got iFixit open at the moment as a reference for the disassembly, so I'm going to ah there's a hidden screw underneath the label. That'S what I've missed! That'S why it doesn't feel right. All right! You are around there somewhere there we go that's more like it right, that's our two um front and back covers off. So, incidentally, if you want to make a custom controller, those are your two covers off now's a rad time to do a spray paint job on these. You could just rattle can them with a cool color. If you wanted to right. So we've got our two vibration Motors there um and we've got the um the triggers there as well. You can see there's more vibration Motors in the triggers, which is how they get that haptic feedback on the triggers, which is really cool. This is one of the main reasons why I recommend having um if you're a PC Gamer and you want a Gamepad, just buy an Xbox controller um. You know whether you get a basic one like this one or the Xbox or the um, the Microsoft Elite controller, which is totally worth every penny. In my opinion, and these feedbacks in the triggers are just it just feels so much nicer than third-party controllers do and third-party controllers are cheap. The PDP ones are all right um, but there's there's nothing. That'S quite the same as a proper original controller, very cool. All right so um you can see the analog sticks are on this back um well, how's that where's the other one yeah they're, both on this board here. So we need to get this guy out. So I'm going to need to desolder a few connections. We'Re going to need to take off these solder wires here the these two antenna connections. I guess um are going on to this mod board, so those will just pop off and then I think the board will come out. We'Ve got a couple of screws there as well all right, let's fire up the soldering line and take off those um uh those spot points. First, all right, I'm going to use a tsku tip for this, which I've got in my D60 soldering iron. I'Ve got a couple of these electronic soldering irons on my bench and I have a different tip in each one. So when I need a different tip, I just pick up a different Iron, but obviously all the chips. The tips are interchangeable. I'M using this one because it's got a nice point on it, so it's good for just getting to these little wire connections. Here, um and I'll tell you what else I'm going to do while the iron heat I'm just going to take a picture of the back of the controller, so I can see how the connections were done. Obviously, I'm making a video recording of this that I could refer to, but a picture is always easier: foreign, foreign and now I think, we're stepping down to a a T6 for these internal screws, and that's done what's holding me up now right, I can see you Can see, we've got a board interconnect down there. I think that's a connector, so I think this just needs a bit of a pry. So I'm going to stick my prying tool under there and just gently there. We go. That'S just popped that out and are we good to go? Oh, the audio port just fell off yeah, that's uh, that's held in with push pins, because this guy is surprisingly replaceable. Inexplicably this guy's just not sold it in. I remember that being a thing which is makes this thing, these devices remarkably repairable in a weird way, but it's just that right. How do we get past this and held up behind the triggers at the moment? I think I've just got to finagle this around there. We go so there's the connector, that is the board interconnect, and this doesn't um this guy um. If you're pulling up from the sides, the board is going to bend as you try and lift it. But if you get a prying tool just under there and just go, that's just going to pop right off, so no Force required there all right. So it looks like I probably could have pulled the um uh. The actual sticks off as well all right. So we're down to the board, so here are old, um, our old things. Oh wow, look at that hmm is that normal behavior yeah they do get stuck at the end of their range. Anyway. I think I don't know what a worn out stick looks like, if I'm honest, so your guess is as good as mine right uh. Anyway, we've got to desolder these guys. So there's a couple of ways we could approach this um. I might be able to use hot air with a big nozzle if I clamped this up in hot air and just used a hot air station, with a large nozzle on just to warm this entire area and just desolder all of those pins. At the same time, however, what I'm going to do I'm going to get my desoldering gun out and I'm going to see if I can desolder and gun those um might be able to solder Wick all the holes dry as well, but this one looks like it's Going to be a challenge uh either way, I'm going to get this guy viced up right. Please give this Dutch angle: it's the one that I've chosen so uh we're gon na desoldering gun these and before I get started, I'm going to wet all of the joins with fresh solder, and this will make them easy to work with, because this will all be Unleaded solder in there at the moment, lead free solder, which is harder to work with, and also just because it's old solder as well. So if we just touch up all of these joins with some fresh solder and just flow some new metal into that, it will just make all of them a little bit easier to work on. So I'm just going to keep adding fresh solder and just keep cleaning. My iron periodically - and this means that when I go in with the desoldering gun, they should fight me less. I could probably use some flux here as well, but I don't, I think, that's probably getting a bit Overkill. We'Re not particularly worried about the uh. The finish on these, I just want to see them flow in a way, we're also preheating a bit. We'Ve just put some heat into these pens right. That should do, let's give it a whirl, so the desoldering gun, I'm using, is my gaussian s993a. I'Ve used this a couple of times in a couple of videos: um desolden guns can be a bit hit and miss um. When they're on big thick heavy boards, they tend to be less effective on smaller boards. They can be your best friend. So, let's see how this goes, I'm just going to heat the joint with the tip, so it's molten then go over. It make sure we're centered and heated and suck okay. That didn't seem to get me very far. I'M going to give a bit more heat into this guy make another attempt: okay, not sure how effective this is. If I'm honest, let's add some extra solder here, so we can get a nice seal over the top of it. Well, it's pulling out a lot, but not all so I don't know how well. This is gon na work. I'M gon na try and go over all of these drawings first to see how much we can get out and just see how far that gets me. So here's the fast forward a bit that one came up clean. Okay, I think we're struggling with these ones because our just burnt myself, I think we're struggling with these ones because they're on a ground plane these ones that are not on the ground plane. Those came up clear straight away. The anchor points are gon na follow me because I cut the nozzle's too small to get over those. Ah uh uh, uh uh all right. That'S not a bad start. So, as you can see here, the holes that are not ground pins, those actually cleared up really nicely with the desoldering gun. So we've given ourselves a good start here by getting a lot of them clear and remember, like I'm, I'm anticipating that I might need the hot air gun to finish this off. So the more I can remove the more holes that are clear in advance. The less have to be flowing with the hot air, and that means that it's going to be easier and require less hot air to get out so um. Although I didn't get a success on all the pins, if I can get it down to just the anchor pins, that just immediately makes my life easier. So I'm going to go in I'm just going to quickly try a little bit of uh solder, wig and flux. Now my solder Wick is really bad. I need to get some good stuff, because the stuff I have is bad and doesn't work very well, but I'm going to try anyway, just to see how we do. I will apply it. Some flux to these treble joins and just see if I can do anything with that foreign anything out of that hole. Let'S try an anchor hole, it's helping, but it's not going to make it free right. Okay, I think I'm gon na go for the hot air. So I'm going to change my clamping position now now for this bit previously I was just clamped around this flat area of the board, so I wasn't clamping too hard because I was clamping on top of this, so I just had it in there just enough to Hold everything in place now I want to apply Force to things so I'm going to move around and clamp on the actual stick itself and then we're going to pull the board off of the stick. All right here goes nothing I'm making this up as I go along, so I'm gon na go in with my my standard, seven or eight millimeter nozzle, which might be too big um and I'm going maximum airflow at uh, 400 degrees C and let's just start heating. I'M going to try and point away from this area and I'm just gon na warm the entire area, because we need to get all of these anchor points to flow at the same time, it's on its way it moved there we go foreign all right, that's not Too bad, so that was a little bit nerve-wracking because I was oh, you know where I was having to hold the board at a distance because of the heat I was stressing this area here quite a lot, which is bad shouldn't. Do that um. However, I was going for a tactical that was a a tactical stress. Um, some experience will tell you what boards can handle um and yeah. I believe this board can handle that, so that seemed to come off the main thing is we weren't going for a rip or anything like that? I was just gently gently flexing just giving it a little bit of a nudge to see if it moves. If you're needing to use Force, it's not ready when it's ready, it'll just let go, and if it's not just letting go, then it's not ready and you're. Not getting to that point where it's just letting go, then something is wrong. You don't you know, you're, not heating it evenly or enough, or something like that. So that means you might need more heat, more airflow or I could have switched to a larger nozzle. So I was covering a larger area at the same time, something like that either way that guy seems to come off and we've got fairly clear holes there, which is good as well all right so uh, let's see, am I going to put on the new one. Yet no I'm going to go we're going to go for we're gon na go for everything. So let's do the same procedure with this one um. I think for this one, I'm gon na try and just hot air it clear off the board. Just in one go and see how that fares, so I will Reflow these joints like. I did because that always helps and I will Reflow the joints and then I think I'm just going to go straight for the hot air and skip the desoldering gun. The desoldering gun definitely helped, though, so you know if I struggle we'll come back to that again. Whoops, don't like that grip! Hmm, I can't find a spot where I can hold the board. This is getting very hot. I don't think I'm going to be able to get all of these at the same time, nope I'm bottling out that might have been doable. If I had a strategy to be able to hold on to the board and pull um, I don't have a strategy for that. So I'm gon na get the desoldering gun back out and we're going to get rid of the worst. So we've got fewer joins to flow at the same time. Ah, all right, it's almost there. There are areas that are moving just not all of it. At the same time, there we go. It'S ready, whoof, there's our old one they're made by Alps. The action on these does feel nicer. These don't have any brand name on them. I don't know if I've bought cheap ones or not, if I'm honest, but they feel very nice and they don't stick on the end of their travel. Hmm. So, let's start out with this one. Let'S just see if I could just press the new stick directly into that, these guys can just loosen a packet, so the legs aren't very straight, so I'm probably going to need to give it some guidance I'll pull the camera out a little bit. While I fumble there we go, I was a bit naughty then and used a bit of force, but I knew that it was only a tiny little bit of solder left in those holes, good that guy's in that's ready to be soldered. Now it's flat on the board: we've got a nice big edge around the um. The stick press button there that allows me to see that it's flat on the board yeah I'm happy with that that one's good to go this guy one of the anchor holes. It isn't clear and that anchor hole is too big to force, so that's definitely going to need a little bit of work. So, let's Vice this up and see what we can do with that again, I'm not being I'm being very gentle when I Vice it in this way, I'm not crunching it tight, we're just gripping it hand, grip, okay, so I'll feed in some solder here, which I Know fills the hole again, but it also gets the heat down into the hole which is what we need there we go when they work, they work man now we're still being held up here. I think it is, I think it's the other anchor hole, possibly these guys, I'm going to go over all of these holes. There'S no point in messing around. I have a method that works here. Ah, yes, uh, yes, uh. Yes, that definitely got it all right there. We go, we should be able to drop in now foreign. That'S on that's flat. We are golden excellent. Now, we've just got to sold all these on so again I'll just drop into here, because we don't need to apply any Force to anything. Now and now I can just go around and just flow a fresh solder into all of these. Here we go so we'll start with the anchor points, and I'm just lingering on this join to make sure it flows all the way through that hole and we'll get the opposite side right. Let'S do nice, big solder blobs. Now, let's go around and do the others and again it's important to linger here, because if you take away the soldering iron the moment you've got a blob of solder on there. What will likely happen is you'll have just a cap of solder, but it hasn't actually gone through the hole and that will give you a dry joint that will most likely fail and because these joins endure a lot of mechanical stress because In the Heat of gaming, You'Ve got someone who's literally smashing these thumbsticks left and right. We do want to make sure that we've got really good joins here and what you'll sometimes see when doing joins like this is initially you'll flow, a bunch of solder on and it'll be sitting at the top and then after you've lingered for a few moments. You'Ll. Suddenly See It Go into the hole and that's good, that's the golden moment where the Via has actually heated and is then wicking up that solder, you've placed above the top of it. There we go now I'll just go over all of those joints again, and that is one attached thumbstick and you can just see at the base of those pins there where the solder has flowed up through the PIN. So that's good! That'S a nice solid connection that guy ain't coming off: let's do the same on the top one foreign spray, some IPA onto a toothbrush and just use this just to scrub away the flux residue. I don't want to drown this because I don't want IPA to get into the stick itself, because it'll wash away the um, I don't want to wash away the lubricant that will be in the stick foreign there. We go. That'S good enough! There'S a few marks there, but you know there often will be. You can always look at something and tell when it's been hand soldered. So now we've got two new sticks fitted it's just time to reassemble this thing and then we can test it out. Now I can look at my reference picture to see how these wires were in, so we've got negative at the bottom positive and then I'll call that gray stripe the positive as well. It probably isn't, but I'll pretend it is. We'Ve got blacks at the bottom colors at the top and it is the same on the other side, black at the bottom colors at the top. Let'S see oh heck, I forgot to put the thing back in okay: that's not a disaster. We can do this without desoldering these wires. I was doing so well foreign, so this guy should slot into place and there should be a locator, a plastic pin that just locates this into place. That didn't go very well. Let'S try that again yeah! So on the bottom, there's a plastic pin sticking up there. There you go! You can see that guy sticking out that Peg goes through a hole in the board and that's how we know when it's in place. So because I'm doing this in situ, I won't be able to show you it very well. However, that's how I'm going to know that it's in position right, let's do a quick look around the desk. I haven't left any other parts out. The only things we've got are the casing and the case screws. So on we go. How does this guy fit on? Oh there we go. I just needed a little bit of poking. I think that's good screws in I'm committing and time for a button test. So left stick looks good. Let'S stick activated right. Stick right, stick activated trigger trigger bumper, bumper x y b, a menu menu start, whatever d-pad excellent abuse, lots of abuse Hammer the buttons make sure they don't break after 30 seconds good, that's a fixed controller. Excellent! Now I'll just stick these back on and we're done crunch crunch crunch yum, yum yum, so that's us done so um yeah. That is all fixed. Now, I'm quite happy with the result of that um. So um, is this a viable repair? I'M not convinced. Personally, if you're really practiced at doing this, you could probably whip these out and replace them um in you know, half an hour or so there's probably some console techs out there that can do this, lickety-splick um and for them it's probably worthwhile. I don't think this is a service that I'm going to offer as a standing service. Just because, like this has taken me, this has taken me like an hour and a half to do um, which is not really viable for the amount of money that it that I'll be able to charge for this um. However, it was an interesting experience and it's very good solder practice to deal with a complicated device like that. So I hope you guys found that interesting or failing that. If you're working on your own, maybe at some point you can probably buy like some really flashy ones or if this was like an Xbox Elite or something like that which is going to be different on on the inside. But the the concepts are going to be pretty similar I'd. Imagine so yeah food for thought anyway. Thank you all for tuning in, and I will see you guys next time bye for now.