I have a Pokemon Scarlet joycon that stopped working after I opened it up for a repair. I double/triple checked everything and it’s all connected, I let it charge and nothing. I don’t really want to send it to Nintendo since they don’t guarantee a replacement of the same style. Should I take it in somewhere to be looked at, or should I just buy a replacement and do a shell swap?
You probably fried the fuse on the motherboard when you popped the battery with a metal tool.
Ideally, you can return it from where you purchased it.
Wait, you said stopped working after you opened it? Why did you open it to begin with?
Nintendo returns are a bit of a hassle but doable, but if they can’t guarantee a 1-1 replacement, you might be on the hook for a swap (I don’t know what this takes to do or feasibility of it), or, may be sell the replacement and use the money to buy an exact replacement online?
I can’t think of any other avenues to get you whole. I love the Switch, but joy-cons are trash.
Well officially you already waived your warranty by opening it yourself. So even sending it in Nintendo might noticed you already did that and won’t do anything about your issue.
Doesn’t it work at all anymore? Even connected directly to the screen?
Or maybe just the LED’s aren’t working (and with that likely the Sl and Sr as well) but still making a wireless connection?
And why did you open it in the first place? What was wrong?
Yeah it’s got no signs of life, even when connected directly. I opened it to replace the plastic clips that lock the joycons onto the tablet, as after only a few months they had worn down to the point of being useless. I could have sent it to Nintendo and that would have probably been the smarter option, but I noticed IFixit sold metal replacements and the job seemed simple enough. I did the replacement on both joycons and right after they both worked fine. It was only the next morning that the purple one ceased function. My red/scarlet one still works fine.
Did you disconnect the battery without shorting the two terminals together or using a metal tool? You should never ever unplug anything in a device until after you’ve unplugged the battery.
That might be it, though I believed I used plastic tools. The only thing I unplugged was the cable that runs between the two plastic panels.
Hm… it’s not best practice, but that shouldn’t kill it entirely either. Ah I wish you were local, I’d love to take a look at it.
Ehh, I can get a replacement for pretty cheap and have the shell swapped by someone who knows what they’re doing.
No. Opening a device is categorically NOT a warranty voiding action, by law. At least in the US. Though, in this case, it does sound like they damaged the joycon, which would make it not eligible for warranty, but it has nothing to do with opening the device.
Check the pins on the joy-con side and switch side to make sure they aren’t damaged or full of junk, try with a friends joy-con if you can to test it’s not the Switch tablet. If those look clean, try unplugging and re-plugging the internal battery of the joy-con and try recharging. If that doesn’t work and the joy-con motherboard doesn’t look damaged from liquid etc, you can try a new battery from Amazon for the joy-con for pretty cheap before calling it quits on that controller.
Source: I’ve repaired 100s of Switches and joy-cons for my business.
Bought a Hori split pad for a temporary replacement and it worked fine… Until the opposite side stopped working lol. I know the tablet is fine though because one of the split pads works and one of the joy cons works at the same time.
When swapping out the shells for a shell-replacement I accidentally must have nicked a PCB with a screwdriver, too. One was just… dead. Tried everything, no dice.
So it might just be a loss. The things are fragile as hell when open.
