Fixing sticky buttons

[Erik_Twice]

What do you use to fix sticky buttons on your controllers? Do you take them apart or do you simply clean them up? If so, how?

[nullPointer]

It depends on what what the nature of the substance is, and to what degree the buttons are sticking. Speaking as a father of six year old twins (who manage to accumulate all manner of gunk on their hands and are inevitably already playing a game before said gunk is discovered), I have found that a cotton swab dipped in isopropyl alcohol can work wonders. We're not talking sopping wet with alcohol mind, just enough to moisten the perimeter, then work the button a few times to work it through. Allow to dry (it should do so quickly) and repeat as necessary.

[Anapan]

For classic NES, Sega or SNES controllers, I just open them up, stick the buttons, rubber pads, and shell in the dishwasher's closeable small cutlery tray (use a large tea-ball if your dishwasher does not have a closeable area), then take q-tips with 99% Iso to the contacts on the board. I've heard of guys putting the entire motherboard of the console into the dishwashers plate rack, but I'd never attempt that myself.
For screws and other smaller parts, I stick them into a small jar, put a couple of capfulls of Iso into the jar and shake them up; Let them sit for 10 minutes, shake, drain and rinse.

For newer system's controllers (Xbox 360 etc) and certain keyboards I'd rather not open or pull apart (mechanical), I pour small amounts of 99% Isopropyl alcohol into them, shake the controller, press all affected buttons and then spray a lot of compressed air into every crevice around the affected buttons. I repeat until all buttons are free and working well. With a large area/large spill, this can spread the substance to other buttons, making them unresponsive, but usually it has a decent success rate. The idea is to dilute and scatter the gunk from the affected keys using the air pressure and solvent.

For keyboards that cannot be removed from a laptop for whatever reason or complex controllers for newer systems, I buy a can of compressed air, and a bottle of clean-evaporating Butane (lighter refill - London brand or another that comes clean when evaporating on a mirror). I set up a fan at a distance if there's not enough wind outside, hold the bottle upside-down and use pliers to empty half of the bottle into the affected area(s). Be careful of the fluid, it can probably damage skin. Have someone shake the laptop around if possible while doing this. Press the affected keys repeatedly, then blow compressed air into all areas. Repeat the process for the rest of the can.

The last paragraph is potentially dangerous/explosive with the fan and all. It should not be tried at home, tho that method has saved two of the 4 laptops I got asked to fix without the client/friend buying a new keyboard assembly - only a quick trip to the corner store. All those laptops were affected by beer or syrupy drinks (fun girls). Too bad it didn't work on my Bose Sound Dock Portable.

Topic should be moved to technical help section.

[alienjesus]

I open them up and clean the plastic buttons and controller shell using water and a toothbrush or similar (but gently) ro remove any grime that's there. Then I use alcohol and a tissue to clean around the edges of the buttons and the buttonholes on the controller.

Rubber pads I just use the alcohol swab on.

It should be noted I've only done this on older controllers. No idea about 360, Wiimote, Gamepad, Dualshock 4 etc

[Ziggy]

Best way to clean them is definitely to take them apart.

All the plastic parts can be cleaned with a tooth brush. I'll often use rubbing alcohol, but be careful! Some screened logo can wipe away with alcohol! For really dirty controllers, like sticky soda residue or whatever, warm water works well. A little bit of soap in warm water works great too, but then you have to rinse the soap off. A tooth brush is usually all you need, but sometimes a toothpick works well for really small recessed areas.

As for the PCB, the only thing you really have to clean is the gold contacts. They should be cleaned with rubbing alcohol or electrical contact cleaner. Just like cart pins, you might have to make a few passes to get them 100% clean. You really don't have to clean the other areas of the PCB, but if you must, rubbing alcohol is fine to use all over. Just be sure to let it dry fully before reassembling.

As for the rubber pads inside the controllers, they're a little trickier to clean. You DO NOT want to use alcohol or anything similar, as that will damage them. Alcohol will remove the black conductive stuff from the pads, and you absolutely want to avoid doing this. Unless soda spilled inside the controller, you should just avoid cleaning the pads. I've yet to come up with a go-to method for dealing with them, but I have messed around with a few repair kits.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Sticky controllers? Lay off the eroge games bro.

[Anapan]

You DO NOT want to use alcohol or anything similar, as that will damage them. Alcohol will remove the black conductive stuff from the pads, and you absolutely want to avoid doing this.

I did not know that! Just last week my brother called me while cleaning a SNES pad and said black stuff kept coming off the pads and the buttons kept getting worse. I ended up giving him some spares I had.

Thanks for that, Ziggy.

[CRTGAMER]

What do you use to fix sticky buttons on your controllers? Do you take them apart or do you simply clean them up? If so, how?

What is the stickiness from? Is it food or sweaty hands or an older controller that has a chemical reaction with sticky surface residue? I have some older controllers that all by themselves became sticky, notably rubberized plastic handles of vintage Flightsticks and analog sticks of older game controllers.

If the goop is really stubborn, try LiftOff or GooGone. As mentioned, best to take apart to prevent the cleaner from soaking into the electrics underneath. The cleaner of course is just for the outside and not the button electrical contacts. Based on your question, I am guessing all the button contacts are fine, just an issue of a sticky outer surface.

The Flightsticks i mentioned earlier were sticky due to that chemical reaction polymer outgassing, a "paint drying" affect of the "new car smell" for the rubberized plastic to settle down. Even underneath the grip, there was a layer of the sticky glue. After the aggressive scrubbing with LiftOff, I have not seen a return of the stickiness.



I mentioned the plastic reaction issue in the Game Storage Guide.
http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 19#p625519

[Ziggy]

You DO NOT want to use alcohol or anything similar, as that will damage them. Alcohol will remove the black conductive stuff from the pads, and you absolutely want to avoid doing this.

I did not know that! Just last week my brother called me while cleaning a SNES pad and said black stuff kept coming off the pads and the buttons kept getting worse. I ended up giving him some spares I had.

Thanks for that, Ziggy.

Yes, I did the same thing a while back with a Genesis controller.

For those that don't know, here's a quick rundown of how the buttons work: The gold contacts on the PCB, it's two signals in close proximity of each other. Think of it as a positive and negative signal. The rubber pad inside the controller, those black dots are a conductive material. When you press the button down, the black dot shorts the positive and negative signals together and that tells the console that the button was pressed.

The gold contacts on the PCB are just like the gold pins on a cart, and you can clean them the same way (wipe them with alcohol). Those black pads though, when you wipe them with alcohol, you wipe away some of the conductive material (you'll keep wiping black off of it). Each time, you're making it less and less conductive. Alcohol is the worst, but I'm sure plenty of other cleaning liquids will do the same. Unless they're covered in soda or something, I'd recommend not touching them at all.

For black pads that are damaged, there's products out there to fix them.



I have the above linked product, but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. I want to use it with the above mentioned Genesis controller.

[Erik_Twice]

Wow this is really in-depth guys, thanks!

I simply scrubbed the buttons with a toothbrush and they seem to work now. I would pull the handheld (GCW Zero) apart, but it would require dismantling the PCB so yeah, superficial cleaning is good enough for now