Rubber button membranes suck. What can we do about them?

[Chuplayer]

I've had enough of these stupid little rubber pieces of crap. All of my old controllers are breaking down because of these little membranes. They keep wearing out! I had to hunt down a lightly used NES controller at a Play N Trade. I had to retire my 9 year old Dreamcast controller and use my lightly used player 2 controller.

I'm currently trying to restore a SNES controller with a D-Pad membrane from one of those stupid Acclaim Double Player controllers from the NES that I never used. Unfortunately, the membrane doesn't quite agree with the SNES controller, and I can't quite get diagonals to work. I'm still looking into what I can do to get it to work, though.

I don't want to convert everything to an arcade joystick. I want good usable controllers that work as they should. Short of stocking up on new controllers on ebay, what can I do about these membranes? I've seen replacement membranes on Estarland and MCM Electronics. (I don't think MCM has them anymore). How are they? I also thought about converting all of the buttons to small surface-mount switches. But those would certainly require lots of hot glue or other goop to keep them from breaking off of the PCB because they aren't going to hold very well when they're jimmy-rigged there in the first place.

Has anybody got a solution?

[NFG]

One of the things you'll never be able to do is replicate the rubber button feel with another kind of switch.  Finding a solution is going to be eternally tricky as each pad's going to require a new switch of a different height...

Interestingly I've never worn out a pad, even after extended, heated play.  I never really considered myself easy on controllers either...

[kendrick]

Rubber membrane deterioration is a result of environment, not usage. Humidity and extreme heat changes are the two main things. Moving a controller through different buildings frequently, or using it in a place like a basement with inconsistent environment might contribute to the problem. One guy I knew made the mistake of lubricating his button mechanisms with mineral oil, not realizing that doing so was going to break down the rubber underneath.

[Chuplayer]

I'm not really concerned about replicating feel. I just want to regain functionality. The only reason I thought up the switch idea was because I had an old Saitek PC joypad that used switches under its d-pad. It served me extremely well for years with various emulated fighting games, and it was superb for every other type of game, too. It was the d-pad equivalent to the NGPC joystick.

And while I do use my stuff in my basement, it's no more uncontrolled than any other room in the house as far as climate is concerned. I have heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer.

I think the most telling thing is the fact that the most used parts of the controllers are the ones that have problems. Left and right are much more worn out than up and down. The X and A buttons on my SNES controllers still have a nice pop to them, but the Y and B buttons are a bit more mushy. The shoulder buttons don't feel bad at all. Also, my like-new Dreamcast controller's d-pad is still like-new most likely because I had barely used it in the years I'd owned it. My old controller's membrane was wearing down in the right direction, probably because of all the years of doing double tap dashes and attacks towards opponents when facing to the right in fighting games.

[Tiido Priimägi]

I'm having a box full of controllers and parts, and whenever I get a damaged membrate, I'll replace it. I see damaged membranes rarely though... and mostly on PSX and Nintendo controllers.

[Drakon]

yeah I've only had that part break on cheap third party controllers or clone controllers.  All of my official controllers work fine....and they're really old ones.