simple question about why my buffalo gamepad "drifts"

[miltk]

as stated , ALL of my buffalos, over time, eventually start to malfunction and it (d-pad) starts to drift.

that is in games where the idea is to lay down placement of pieces - tetris, columns, blockout, dr. mario etc etc. the controller drifts and the pieces randomly slip left or right by one or two stop.

it's uncontrollable. i have, lol, a stockpile of buffaloes that are done. usually it's over a period of a few years, but lately they start to go nutty within a half year

is there a way to get in and fix this?? it makes me think this is some kind of planned obsolescence thingy.
thx all. very very very much appreciated for your help,,,so HELP!!!

[ItalianGrandma]

hmm…maybe just worn down membranes where after a while it takes way less pressure for the membrane to come into contact with the board? I guess first thing I would do is take a wonky controller, replace the button membranes and if that fixes it. I’m not sure what the Buffalo membranes look like, but I’d guess standard SNES replacement button membranes would work? Obviously, open them up first to see.

[deepthaw]

Every iBuffalo I or a friend has owned has eventually gone bad as well. Very sad, given how good they are otherwise.

[miltk]

hmm…maybe just worn down membranes where after a while it takes way less pressure for the membrane to come into contact with the board? I guess first thing I would do is take a wonky controller, replace the button membranes and if that fixes it. I’m not sure what the Buffalo membranes look like, but I’d guess standard SNES replacement button membranes would work? Obviously, open them up first to see.

can you explain "membranes"

thx

[Lightwave]

can you explain "membranes"

thx

the silicone rubber pieces under the buttons & d-pad

SNES1000.webp (10.13 KiB) Viewed 2402 times

[jordi]

a 'deadzone' an 'maximum' values could be a nice feature in Mister main.

[MostroW]

Deadzone only works for analog input as far as i'm aware, and a d-pad is a digital input, as are the other buttons.

[FPGA64]

yep a dpad is digital its either on or off so cant have a deadzone

[H3ML5XLAXBKU]

Hey miltk.

Have you tried opening up up the controllers and giving them a clean with isopropyl alcohol? Both the black dots on the underside of the membranes, and on the PCB as well. If that doesn't work, you might try covering the test pads on the PCB near the dpad inputs with some not conductive tape, like kapton tape. The test pads are circles of exposed copper along the trace.

But seriously. Open them up an dgive them a clean. You may have a stockpile of gold

More generally, I am not sure where this talk of the Buffalo pads being unreliable comes from. I have one that has been with me for 12-3 years and is still going strong. Specifically BUFFALO, not iBUFFALO or ELECOM

Post some serials miltk

Here's mine
BUFFALO
BSGP801シリーズ
S/N:A00308

[miltk]

Hey miltk.

Have you tried opening up up the controllers and giving them a clean with isopropyl alcohol? Both the black dots on the underside of the membranes, and on the PCB as well. If that doesn't work, you might try covering the test pads on the PCB near the dpad inputs with some not conductive tape, like kapton tape. The test pads are circles of exposed copper along the trace.

But seriously. Open them up an dgive them a clean. You may have a stockpile of gold

More generally, I am not sure where this talk of the Buffalo pads being unreliable comes from. I have one that has been with me for 12-3 years and is still going strong. Specifically BUFFALO, not iBUFFALO or ELECOM

Post some serials miltk

Here's mine
BUFFALO
BSGP801シリーズ
S/N:A00308

buffalo bsgp810gy
s/n a71113

i don't know about the japanese lettering. the longevity of your pad is stunningly awesome.
the best i ever had were about 5-6yrs, and in the past year ive gone through 3. this last one was drifting in two weeks!!!

[H3ML5XLAXBKU]

Cool, thanks for sharing.
シリーズ -> series

I haven't looked into this before, but I checked out buffalo's JP site and looked up the product codes.
Seems the BSGP801 came out in 2010, and the BSGP810 is a 2017 revision. Not sure what the differences are, I have stuck screw preventing me from opening the controller and I don't want to strip it by mistake.

I also seem listings on various sites for BSGP815, but I don't think that one is official as I cannot find mention of it on their site.

Anyway. You should open the controller and give them a clean. I have famicom style buffalo pad, which I could open up to show you. See the attached image. Sorry I left the membranes out of the image, but clean those too.

PCB of a Buffalo BGCFC801

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