Hey everyone,
So me and my wife started playing Pokemon Arceus a few days ago and we were having a blast besides the left joycon acting up (welp its 4 years old and has 2000 hours so was expected to catch the drift sometime).
So I ordered a few replacement sticks and replaced it. (Disclaimer: I dont advertise doing this on your own unless you have no warranty left because it will void it. but its easy to do if you have some dexterity and the tools.)
Being me i ripped the old stick open to see how it works and played with it a little bit.
(see this video https://imgur.com/a/YAynuK4)
How this works is that these sliders on the side move with the stick and they slide over little graphite pads at the bottom which increases or decreases the resistance. This resistance is measured inside of the joycon and then translated into a xy position of the stick.
Firstly the graphite pads were almost pristine and there was almost no dust inside. So I can also agree that the theory that its due to these probably does not hold.
What I recognised when playing with the stick before opening it was that it had a little crunchy feel and rattled a little bit when shaking. only slight but noticeable.
So now it being open I varied the pressure on the center and the little nubs (both) that go into these little sliders start to slide out of their position easily and made that crunchy feel i noticed before opening.
This feeling stopped when i inreased the pressure on the center. (again see the video where i varied the pressure while moving it)
This also lines up with the finding, that sliding a little paper behind the joystick inside the joycon fixes the drift problem for many users (https://www.ign.com/wikis/nintendo-switch/How_to_Fix_Joy-Con_Drift#How_to_Fix_Joy-Con_drift).
This may be due to inceasing the pressure on the spring and narrowing gaps inside the stick.
So my theory is that the drift happens probably due to a shift/bending in the metal casing of the joycon or due to the spring getting weak over time causing the nubs to slide out of position and getting stuck temporarily.
I just found it interesting and thought maybe people would like to discuss this or tell me that im wrong. 😀
Anyway have a great day,
Cheers