Wrote off conductive ink for years, then fixed my drifting stick with a $12 pen
I always rolled my eyes at people saying you could repair a joystick with conductive ink because it sounded like a cheap hack that would flake off in a week. My DualSense was drifting hard, so bad my guy walked off a cliff in Elden Ring twice, and I was about to buy a whole new board for $40. I grabbed a CircuitWriter pen off Amazon for $12 and painted two thin lines on the pad and the ground trace after cleaning it with 91 percent alcohol. That was 5 months ago and the deadzone is still sitting at 0.03 with zero drift. Anyone else running a conductive ink fix long term, or did yours start flaking after a couple months?
Mine's been going about 7 months now on a launch DualSense that was drifting so bad I couldn't even aim in Returnal. Used the same kind of pen, maybe the MG Chemicals one, and did the pad and the trace just like you. I was sure it would flake off by month two but here we are, deadzone still tiny. The only thing I'd add is to clean it good first or the ink won't stick at all, mine came right off the first try until I scrubbed it. $12 beats a $70 controller any day.