Sensitive D-Pads ?

[bmoc]

That wasn't my pic but I have done it on my Switch pro controller that behaved exactly as you described. I think I covered a little less than half the circle. It greatly reduced accidental inputs. It hasn't bothered me enough to take it apart again to tune it further.

[Ziggy587]

Awesome, thanks! I'm gonna give this a try, maybe tomorrow, and will report back the results.

[bmoc]

Hey Ziggy - did you get your d-pad working better? Just curious.

[Ziggy587]

Nope, haven't had the chance yet. I've just been keeping busy the past week or two.

I have noticed though that it's a little better. Maybe it got "broken in" or something. It still has the problem, just not as bad as when it was brand new. I definitely still want to try this fix, and will definitely update this thread once I do.

[Ziggy587]

Try putting some tape partially over the d-pad contacts on the pcb. Like this:

OK, so I finally got around to trying this. I noticed that I was having the same issue with my CiRKA SNES controller, so I tried this tape remedy on that controller. It definitely works, it is now much harder to accidentally input a diagonal input when I'm trying to hold a cardinal direction. BUT, it is also now harder to input a diagonal input at all, even when I'm trying to. I'm using the controller test ROM...



When you press a button on the controller, it lights up the corresponding button on the screen, so it's the best way to see what's going on. I can hit the diagonal only if I very firmly press both direction down, otherwise it tends to just light up one of the cardinal directions, it's hard to light up both at the same time. And I didn't even tape half of the contact like in the above pic, I taped maybe only 1/4 or a 1/3 of the inner side. I'm thinking covering more of the contact will make hitting a diagonal even harder.

So this DOES work, but you sacrifice the ability to more easily input diagonals. I think I'll definitely do it to my NES controller. In a game like Castlevania, you never really want to hit diagonals anyway. In fact, not many games on the NES require true diagonal inputs. Can you think of any? But on the SNES, this isn't a good idea. I just tested the controller with Link to the Past, and it's now hard to make Link walk in diagonal directions! I suppose I could experiment with covering just a sliver of the contact, instead of the 1/4 or 1/3 like I did, but I'll have to do it with an X-Acto knife and tweezers.