nza420 wrote:

Sorry for bumping old thead, but... Congratulation, you have broken your Vaus controller! If you detach it like that, the resistance is halved and can't be restored back (it will still work but you never can get Vaus to reach both sides at the same time). Instead if you need to open it up, before opening the case, the potentiometer needs to be released from the top before removing the bottom part of the controller case.
I also received some confusing information which I need to confirm yet. I had similary broken controller like that (it was already broken when I bought it) and I brought it for electronic service man who apparently knows a lot about NES things. He told me that the VR1 potentiometer of this controller is not ordinary one but apparently patented by Nintendo himself and some specific detail is making the potentiometer irreplaceable and therefore claiming that it's not possible to replace with any other potentiometer and that the real replacement potentiometer would cost 200 euros! What???
But I still remember reading already that there have been projects making replica Vaus controller and so on... confusing really.