Another day, another thing to fix! I picked up a genuine Super Nintendo controller on eBay earlier and thought I’d give it a bit of a clean out. Well… that and I’d never actually seen inside a genuine Super NES controller before.

The buttons weren’t particularly responsive, especially the directional pad. After opening the controller, it wasn’t difficult to see why. Some of the conductive material had started wearing away, and there was plenty of dirt and other rubbish inside. Start and Select seemed alright, but the other buttons were looking rather tired.

I was a little concerned that cleaning everything might remove even more of the conductive material, leaving me with a controller that worked even less than before. Fortunately, I managed to get away with it. The contacts cleaned up reasonably well, although there was still plenty of wear.

I’d also bought one of those incredibly cheap third-party controllers for about three dollars. The circuit board inside was terribly warped, and the whole thing wasn’t particularly impressive. However, it did contain some rubber button membranes that might be useful.

After a little experimenting, I ended up replacing the A, B, X and Y button membrane with one from the cheap controller. The old rubber had worn through in places, particularly around the buttons that were feeling loose. The replacement was a much better fit for the job, even if the donor controller itself wasn’t worth getting excited about.

I kept the original directional pad membrane in place, since the alternative felt a bit too springy and needed more pressure than I’d have liked. With everything cleaned up and back together, the controller was feeling considerably better.

And the real test? EarthBound, of course! Moving diagonally had become much easier, and the face buttons were responding much more consistently.

So there you have it. A genuine SNES controller rescued with a little cleaning and a few rubber bits from a three-dollar replacement. EarthBound has never been so responsive!