Awesome vid. I have a spare dongle so grabbing a few $15 "untested but powers on" wavebirds to completely take apart and clean and maybe retrobrite. Great guide.
22:52 Another thing you can do with the button membranes is wipe the dark gray parts on paper. They appear glossy when they’re worn and lightly dragging them on paper until they return to a more matte color tends to make better contact with the pads on the board. These controllers are awesome, I recently had to open up three of mine because somebody left batteries in them and corrosion spread. It was a very long night and work day hoping that they worked when I put them back together, but they did! I hope this video gains more traction there really isn’t to much in terms of WaveBird tear downs for TH-cam, mainly just wired controllers.
The best thing to do is to wipe the pad with a qtip and rubbing alcohol, when you wipe the pad on paper you might take off a little more than you want to and create a small dead zone
great video, i just got a couple of wavebirds off of ebay last week and i had to give them a good clean as well. i totally agree with you on the ergonomics of the gamecube controller, there’s really nothing else like it
Great vid, man. I just came across my old Wavebird this morning and sadly found that I left the batteries in it. It's also pretty grimy from the many hours of use and then the years of sitting in a drawer coagulating. Sticks are both pretty gross, case is pretty gross, etc. I have always wanted to get into videogame equipment restoration/repair as a hobby, but have been scared to take apart a working controller. Since the Wavebird is DOA with all the corrosion, and looks reasonably simple to work on, I think it will be the perfect starter project. Your video will be extremely helpful. Thanks!
Awesome vid. I have a spare dongle so grabbing a few $15 "untested but powers on" wavebirds to completely take apart and clean and maybe retrobrite. Great guide.
22:52 Another thing you can do with the button membranes is wipe the dark gray parts on paper. They appear glossy when they’re worn and lightly dragging them on paper until they return to a more matte color tends to make better contact with the pads on the board. These controllers are awesome, I recently had to open up three of mine because somebody left batteries in them and corrosion spread. It was a very long night and work day hoping that they worked when I put them back together, but they did! I hope this video gains more traction there really isn’t to much in terms of WaveBird tear downs for TH-cam, mainly just wired controllers.
Thanks for the tip! Nintendo hit it out of the park with these controllers. Thanks for watching!
The best thing to do is to wipe the pad with a qtip and rubbing alcohol, when you wipe the pad on paper you might take off a little more than you want to and create a small dead zone
@nicklesm202 Noted! Never occurred to me that the paper damaged it a little bit. Thanks for the tip.
@@Sacren365 of course! And happy gaming!
great video, i just got a couple of wavebirds off of ebay last week and i had to give them a good clean as well. i totally agree with you on the ergonomics of the gamecube controller, there’s really nothing else like it
Great video!
I dream of having a TV entertainment system like this one day
Glad we could send it out to you! :D
Thank you! It was a fun project.
This is an awesome video!! I’m definitely buying a couple of wavebirds now!!
One of the best controllers of all time. Thanks for watching!
I want to retrobrite and restore my Grey Wavebird specifically, so this is very helpful. Thanks for the video!
Thanks for watching!
Great vid, man. I just came across my old Wavebird this morning and sadly found that I left the batteries in it. It's also pretty grimy from the many hours of use and then the years of sitting in a drawer coagulating. Sticks are both pretty gross, case is pretty gross, etc. I have always wanted to get into videogame equipment restoration/repair as a hobby, but have been scared to take apart a working controller. Since the Wavebird is DOA with all the corrosion, and looks reasonably simple to work on, I think it will be the perfect starter project. Your video will be extremely helpful. Thanks!
That's the best way to learn, on stuff that already doesn't work! You've got nothing to lose. Good luck on your project.
Great cleanup! Do you have a link to where you got the replacement sticks?
I just grabbed them off of Amazon. There were several listings, but they all seemed pretty much the same to me.
How long did you leave it in the pot?
Both of my controllers have missing retainers on my triggers. Wtf?
I don’t think every controller has them, even the spring length is different on controllers