I replaced both of the joysticks of the Switch Lite on Christmas day.    I had looked up a Youtube video on how to replace the left joystick and it isn't all that complicated.  Unscrew all the screws, pop off the back shell, unplug and take out the speaker, take out the shoulder buttons, flip the connector locks and unplug the connectors to the main motherboard, the on/off and volume switches and the joystick.  Unscrew the motherboard and take it out.  Unscrew the joystick, replace and put everything back in place.

After that I wanted to start working on the right joystick, but noticed that it was hidden under a much larger motherboard piece.  I started a new video, which had me prepare by decoupling everything for the left joystick again.  At which point I noticed I was watching a video for the wrong joystick and could start reconnecting everything again before looking up another video.  :|


So, take off the aluminum back pannel covering most of the innards, pop out the 2 connectors for the battery.  Unscrew the heatsink and pull it out (mine was glued to the top vent, so I left it in which was more inconvenient, but I didn't want to risk damaging anything).  deconnect and take out the speaker, take out the shoulder buttons.  Unscrew the unit with the game cart tray and headphone port, flip up the socket and take out the connector.  Take out the game cart tray and headphone port.  Flip up all the socket switches and disconnect 4 more connectors.  Unscrew all the screws keeping the motherboard in place.  Take out the main motherboard and unscrew and replace the joystick.  Put everything back in place.

When I had everything back in place I booted up the Switch.  Joysticks both seemed to work, but it wasn't reading the gamecarts.  Figured I probably borked it, but turned it off again and opened it up again.  I had forgot to flip the socket switch for the gamecart tray down.  Having done that, everything worked again as it should.

All in all I replaced both joysticks with little to no preparations other than ordering the pieces with a set of 2 screwdrivers, a pair of tweezers and a plastic bit to jam between the 2 parts of the plastic casing, in little over an hour.

Some takeaways from my experience:

• Replacing the left joystick is a piece of cake.
• Everything is tiny.  Especially so the connector sockets and their switches.  Having done this I now believe Japanese people to be no more than 2 feet in height.  No way this hardware is made to be put together by anyone over 2 feet tall.
• opening up a beloved piece of hardware like this does kinda ruin the magic of it all.
• Should you want to replace your joysticks at one point, keep enough trays on hand to keep the screws sorted.  Also note that not all screws are the same length, so lay them out in a pattern that corresponds how they fit in the Switch so you can place them back in their original positions.