Saitek X52 - thumb tophat not working (potential) fix

I recently bought a very cheap but 'for parts or not working' X52 from ebay. I'm handy so I was happy to do some work on it, assuming (from the description) that it largely worked ok.

It was rather dirty (acetone did a good job on that) but otherwise, it did seem ok until I noticed that the joystick thumb tophat (the lower one) wouldn't register 'right'.

I took the joystick apart (initially following this guide: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Saitek_X52_Pro ) and got to the tophat, etc buttons and controls. I tested and found that the microswitch for tophat right was actually working now so clearly something had been causing an issue elsewhere though what this was wasn't obvious as I hadn't removed anything or had to refit any loose parts.

As I reassembled the joystick, straight after refitting the trigger (and spring), the tophat right stopped working again (I was testing the joystick after each step of reassembling). I removed and refitted the trigger and it seemed to all work again.

I fully reassembled everything and tested which showed everything working - Success!

Or so I thought - The next day, on first attempt to use the X52 with Elite Dangerous, tophat right wasn't working again 🤬

I took the joystick apart again (I'm getting quite good at it now!) and again, as I got to the point of removing the trigger, tophat right was working again.

My working theory is that the (torsion) spring on the trigger (at the anchoring point where it clips onto a piece of plastic) is possibly shorting something on the circuit board that the tophat and several buttons are connected to - The spring does anchor very close to the board though it doesn't obviously contact it - I wondered if in use it moves slightly and enough to cause an issue.

I have now put a couple of layers of insulation tape on the board where the spring sits directly above so that there can't be any shorting and on reassembly everything is working and seems to be holding.

A bit of a bodge to fix and it does seem odd that the design would allow for this but if anyone else has similar problems, hopefully they can find this via google and give it a go.