Just stopping by to remind everyone that Hall effect sensors are not new technology. They were used for the analog sticks for the SEGA Saturn in 1996 and the Dreamcast in 1999. Manufacturers don't use them today because they would rather your controller wear out so you have to buy a new one.
As an FPV hobbyist, THANK YOU for making a video (albeit a short one) about hall gimbals. There is literally no downside in using these over potentiometers besides the slight increase in complexity and tiny increase in price. It's so worth the added consistency and longevity and it baffles me that potentiometers are still the norm in expensive video game controllers.
@@placebomessiah If someone wanted to interfere with your input, I imagine it would be more practical to jam the radio signal. And magnets are not very effective over long distances so it would it would probably have to be a pretty powerful magnet.
If I know what they are doing with the whole "Planned obsolescence" thing then I know they won't actually implement these features on newer controllers or designs, and will continue to create unnecessary E-Waste, even though these Hall effect sensors are better in literally every way.
Don't forget there are no original (good) replacement parts. Back in the day I tried to fix my Xbox 360 controller and the replacement stick couldn't do a smooth circle anymore, only a square with rounded corners.
@@LEXXIUS yeah I have 3 Xbox original controllers which have stick drift but are perfectly fine otherwise, but it makes them completely unusable because I do not have any soldering skills, or equipment to fix them, When I used to play PS3 a long time ago, stick drift was never a problem for me and to me it just feels like they purposely switched to carbon based potentiometers in the PS4 and PS5 controllers just to make more people buy a lot of them more often.
@@shepshepson nope. The PS3 also used carbon-based potentiometers. Sony and every other console manufacturer switched to Alps potentiometers since they thought the magnets may interfere with the wireless signal.
this problem had already been solved in the 90s. the sega saturn analog pad, and the dreampad both used hall effect tracked joysticks, using 4 board mounted hall effect sensors, and a single magnet in the base of the joystick. the design was pretty ingenious, because the centering mechanism was practically impervious to mechanical wear too. even after thousands of hours of use, those sticks did not develop "center wiggle".
Despite the one analog stick, the Dreamcast controller honestly feels amazing. Great fit in the hands, great trigger tension, perfect face buttons, joystick... I really miss Sega.
I wish they would release a replacement sticks for regular controllers just like they have done for steam deck. It will be a pain to replace them in newer harder to disassemble controller designs, but i think it would be worth it.
I think the reason they were able to do it for the Deck, is in it the sticks are fully modular, including the PCB they attach to. Meaning they could include the hall effect sensor on the small PCB that you replace alongside the stick. But in most controllers, replacing the thumbsticks means de-soldering the little stick module, but that doesn't include the hall effect sensor, which is on the PCB. Hence, hall effect replacement sticks for say the DS5, would mean replacing the PCB which the sticks are attached to, but in the DS5 that'd mean all the other guts of the controller, too.
@@MentalEdge yeah but they didn't make them modular by choice. Why would they do that? better for their profit margins to sell you a new one when drift happens. Capitalism is trash.
@@AlkaVirus You're preaching to the choir buddy. Did you take me for some anti-repair fool? I was just explaining why GuliKit is unlikely to come out with hall effect replacement kits for regular controllers, while doing one for the Deck was easy.
What's crazy to think about is that it's 2022 and Hall Effect Sensors/Gimbals have been available for so long, their pros have always been known, and there's really not many cons to them either. It's just surprising that it's taking big companies this long to switch over to them. They are superior to potentiometers in every single way. And no, they're really not that much more expensive so cost of manufacturing is not an issue.
yeah it's like wireless headphones, basically pure money printing machines. You can get cheap controllers for way less than 20 bucks so imagine how much profit there is even if you use slightly better materials in their 60-200 $ gamepads.
I had to pick apart the rotary encoder of my mouse and scrape off the oxidation from the metal contacts that were causing opposite scrolling errors. If it had an optical encoder it would pretty much last forever. Almost bought a new mouse but turned out to be fixable with some patience.
When it's saving them just 1 cent per controller, they do it. Imagine how much money they "saved"! Not to forget, that they gain more money by people buying new hardware.
It's like in the 1910s... light bulbs were indestructible, one of those is still lighting up a firefighter station in America if I recall correctly. And then, in the 20s, a group of lightbulb manufacturers, named the Phoebus cartel agreed to not sell lightbulb wich exceed xxx hours of light time before failing, intentionnaly degrading the quality of their products, to push the replacements going out of the factories. At this point in time, modern consumerism was born.
even if the manufacturers don't do this, I would've expected the companies that make modified controllers like Battle beaver, Scuff etc to do this since they're trying to make controllers that offer more and better performance. Scuff's are also known for stick drift
They also want to sell you replacement parts and new controllers, feels like a scam, even GuliKit didn't put back buttons/paddles in KingKong Pro 2, some smaller seller could theoretically destroy everyone else by making a "One size fits all" but they'd run out of money in 2-3 years when everyone has their controller.
@@RealRogerFK No problem, they start a new business after 3 years. Like someone building a House is done building, there is no point in never finishing the house and getting paid the hours of work, obsolescence is for lazy people, they should be ashamed
@@javianbrown8627 the bottom-line is that you can't "fix" stick drift, only remedy it. The only true way is to not have analog sticks in the first place
What really pissed me off is that my bootleg PS2 controller that my brother bought 17 years ago never experienced any kind of drift, so its not the technology but more the build quality, they are asking for higher prices but their quality is going downhill
PS2 also has a giant deadzone in software, which hides the electromechanical issues somewhat, and much larger stickboxes than those used today, so they do fundamentally have more endurance. They wanted the sticks to feel more responsive and controllers to be slicker, so they optimised things to the point where they barely work - and they're happy enough to cause you to buy replacements.
@@SianaGearz However one issue, ive bought 2 playstation controllers (sony) and both of them have an issue with the right stick jumping all over the place, so in games like Ace Combat you can't really look at your plane because the camera is jumping around like crazy. My old PS2 abused controller never had this issue after years and year of use.
Not sure that would work. You'd probably need to solder new chips onto the existing boards and adjust the controller bios to interpret the signals correctly. That's not a simple project.
@@JamesTHammond Those chips he demonstrated vary analog output voltage. If these HFS's output a PWM or some other digital signal, that would make sense, but this is just voltage, and the voltage is very similar to what the existing pot-based systems output. I wouldn't be surprised if the challenge is more in getting the HFS chips mounted than anything.
@@wydra9-1 same thinking i had. The voltage output possibly is just a reference to the controller cpu so it knows where the joystick is with no digital signal being sent. If that is the case, modding it into a controller is actually quite simple if these parts are available for purchase. Biggest challenge would be mouting it into the board, alignment and knowing the magnets polarity so it doesn't work backwards (push up and the game goes down). Sadly they don't sell those joystick boxes they make, only way to get them is with the controller or the switch mod :(
@@wydra9-1 I thought so too, but seeing that the Steam Deck replacements from Gulikit have chips integrated, I'm guessing there is something else involved in this.
I really really hope that this will pick up, stick drift has been a problem for me for quite some time and there is only so much I can do. Soldering on a new one not only is hard because of the soldering and dangerous (lost a controller because I screwed up) but also just finding original ones isnt as easy as one might think. these would improve controllers a lot and I wish there would be a dualshock version that has them. I wouldnt mind paying extra but not having to worry about the ONE THING that makes the controller last not that long would be such a relief
Why don't the major manufacturers use hall effect sensors instead then? Are they more expensive than the current potentiometers? Or do manufacturers like to introduce the built-in failure with potentiometers so that they can sell more controllers? I suspect it's more likely to be the latter.
I had a stick drift issue and I fixed it with 15$ locally with a service shop, it was not a big issue, I also had a broken spring and that cost around 10$ to fix, local tech guys do not charge much for these issues.
First console with those pots is ... The Sega Dreamcast !!!! It's original contrôlées domuse magnetic sensors for the analog Thumbsticks and the 2 triggers. This is a shame it has not been used from that moment in all controllers. I guess Sega had some kind of patents over them before the Dreamcast flopped :-(
No, SEGA has no related patents. It looks to me like SEGA manufactured the joystick under patents licensed from Orvitek, which would have been valid until 2010. Also nobody actually wants to make an eternal joystick? And i can instantly see some issues with this one, it won't last.
@@SianaGearz Patent or not, it was only on the Dreamcast, a console with a lots of good ideas but taken down by Sony's marketing masterplan. Its arcade counterpart is famous for his great arcade games :-) This tech might have its issues but one for the manufacturers is the long lasting ability of magnets compared to potentiometers ;-) PS2, Xbox,... They all went for resistive tech.
Excellent video! The fact is that potentiometers are ultra cheap to manufacture and little is needed to make them work well enough. You could even add an offset value in the controller itself (added via software and editable) to correct drift but manufacturers won't let you change it. That could extend the life of your controller at the cost of accuracy. Eventually the compound used for the trace inside the potentiometer will wear out and no software fix will be able to solve drift. This is not the only (or better) solution though. Rotary encoders (optical ones for example) have been around for decades and those are almost wear free. No, those don't have an "infinite" amount of "steps" (not analog) but can have a really really good resolution. Along with some clever math and software you could make them work just as fine. Ahhh but the cost .... (sarcasm). Keep doing videos like this one!
This. Also hall effect sensors CAN wear out as the magnets can demagnetize over time in extreme hot and cold situations. Also if using rare earth magnets, there are already shortages of the material required for making them. Opto/rotary encoders don’t have this issue if well sealed. Smoke alarms that use optoencoders all have useful life spans of over 10 years.
@@icebergmm Was going to mention N64 using it. Though for quick movements you could hear the gears running. Seems they could use a simpler analog scheme where the disc has a slit of varying width that progressively blocks or allows light to a sensor as it's turned. Similar to the magnet approach.
I didn't know these existed, I am getting one for sure. Thank you!!! I also noticed how very cheap inexpensive wired controllers back in the day never had stick drift (it could have possibly had these inside them) the controller would either die out or just stop functioning properly due to the cable becoming faulty.
What about discontinued controllers? I recently had to buy a PS3 controller but I couldn't a brand new original Dualshock 3, I had to buy it second hand. I wish they still supported accessories for their old consoles.
@@DoritoFD their old consoles make them even less money. Gaming companies have proven that if they could erase their consoles from existence after their life cycle they would.
I own an original Sony PS1 controller from 97. Got an adapter for it and been using it on the PC with no problems! It still works better than most modern controllers and it's built to last.
Just started having drift issues with my PS5 controller. Thanks for this video very informative and i got to try gamepad tester and see the drift on my controller in real time. I don't think the manufactures are going t fix that issue since Sony is pushing a $200 controller now and each normal controller is $76 a piece now. At their level it is about making money not the care of us
I've experienced my first drift in one of my PS5 controllers. The updated model number which was supposed to be marginally more resistant to the issue. I'd love a pseudo PNP way to swap to the hall effect sensors like for the switch. The dual sense edge not including them at such a ridiculous price point is a huge letdown.
Not only hall effect but light sensors as well. SpaceTec had a few in their 3D motion controllers that worked fairly well, though the consumer model (SpaceOrb 360) used cheap plastic in the deflection arms which eventually wore out and broke. The more expensive CAD-style orbs used metal springs which last far longer, and were very reliable.
I've been going on about this issue with the antilog modules. I used to solder brand new ones in often to deal with the issue. I really like the solution of using hall effect sensors but I still feel like the little 3D gimball mechanisms need improving too. The are far too delicate and I found the mechanisms actually caused stick drift themselves as over time they don't center themselves very well and can cause that drift regardless of the condition of the alps resistor sensors. I really think other manufactures should go above and beyond and create something that is robust and maybe even ballraced or some type of mechanism with the hall sensors.
100% agree, Hall effect sensors do not remove the possibility of stick drift. The stick not returning too centre is the problem. I suspect the hall effect sensor has a lower resolution than a potentiometer and that's why it helps with drift, Which is something you don't want.
They just need to use magnetic Hall effect sensors to eliminate the 2 of 3 types of stick drift and the only 2 1st party controllers to use hall effect sensors are the ps3 controller and the sega dreamcast controller.
@@banescar Wear on the center return spring of the stick. The part that makes your stick stiff and spring back into the center part. It can get sloppy over time or even completely fail after a hard drop
@@fgmenth Yes, it does last way longer. But if you consider it to be easily replaceable then just replace the entire stick at once...? You're already desoldering the center parts so why keep the old "sensors" (potentiometers)
So how did the original sticks in an N64 work? To me it always felt like something was stretching and I imagined some thin chords being measured somehow. Probably daft.
Controllers for flight simulators are using contactless sensors (Hall, magneto resistance): Thrustmaster Warthog in X, Y axes, T.16000M in X,Y axes, but keep pot in Z axis (twist rudder) what cause issues, same goes with Logitech X-52, X-56. VKB, VirPil, WingWing use X,Y, Z axes. Similarly, "high end" R/C controllers use contactless sensors.
Hall effect sensors are also prone to go bad . I have removed several bad hall sensors from laptop motherboards which were preventing the laptop to turn on by giving a false signal to the embedded controller that the lid is closed. . Best bet is to go for optics based solution .
I've seen more than a few myself but usually in the opposite state where the computer thinks the lid is constantly open. This is an interesting concept for both applications! I can see how a simple light sensor could be implemented for a laptop lid and could be contained within the hinge. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not sure if there are optical emitters and sensors that are small enough to replace the joystick potentiometer size that will has enough sensitivity and resolution.
optical isn't perfect either, as dust and grease can obstruct the light path. Hall is better, i think. Another almost eternal technology is capacitive.
@@victortitov1740 Use sealed enclosure to mitigate the problem of foreign objects . Also hall effect sensors can easily get affected from the altering strong magnetic fields from the nearby devices such as built-in speakers in the controllers due to space constraint .This is the reason why phones and tablets do not use hall sensors to detect phone cover as they contain strong neodynium magnets but rather rely on the proximity sensor .It is easier to shield a device from light than than from magnetic fields . Capacitive is difficult to implement because you cannot induce charge from outside or conduct charge as you normally do with your fingers as the analog sticks are normally rubber coated and creating a capacitive array with high resolution in a small 3d space would not be economically feasible .Till now optics is the best practical approach
@@maxinventer static magnetic fields from nearby magnets can be canceled in firmware. Dynamic magnetic fields can be shielded by a steel enclosure. And i highly doubt these fields are strong enough to even matter - phones have magnetometers (compass) in them and detect the magnetic field of the earth without much trouble, which is way way wayy weaker than the field of a neo magnet in close proximity to a sensor. You don't need arrays of electrodes to make a capacitive sensor - just two pieces of metal will do, as long as they are close enough together that their mutual capacitance is vastly larger than that to surroundings. Then you just measure the capacitance in analog way. Pressure sensors commonly work in this manner.
@@victortitov1740 Shielding will increase the size of the enclosure and dynamic magnetic field will always vary according to the audio signal and will require complex programming in firmware as even in 8 bit mode the ADC will have 256 steps . For capacitance based solution it will require a refresh circuit and since the minimum number of steps required is 256 in 8 bit mode it will require some serious shielding to prevent a drift in default capacitance values . I have made a dsp based on your approach in the past and the preset values tend to drift in real-time when used without shielding. Also the device will also need to pass emf and EMC test and will increase the pain of the designer . You are theoretically correct but the target of the design here is to accurately measure steps to avoid drifting and that can only be done by using higher bit resolution which will be very hard to maintain using varying charge capacitance . One typical example is when a laptop is run with an unclean power source the touchpad starts behaving erratically and goes out of calibration due to the use of a poorly shielded power supply.
They should use sealed greased pots that's what they use in (good quality ones anyway) R/C servos for the feedback pots (the thing that tells the servo what position it's at). The lubrication prevents the tracks from wearing down and it's sealed so dirt can't get in. I mean it will eventually go bad but I have R/C equipment made in the late 80's that still works just fine.
As many of us have said though... we've experienced drift because the springs wear out and the control stick sticks in a given direction. I've never worn a controller to the point the sensors wear out, but the springs do where the stick is sloppy and no longer returns to home. I mean is this an improvement? Sure... I'd love to see better springs though.
Yes. I have fixed a few controllers by replacing the sticks with some cheap ones, but keeping the original potentiometers because they're better quality and there's nothing wrong with them. My problem is always the mechanical part, the potentiometers are always fine.
Indeed this also strikes me. The Dreamcast and flight sticks last forever because they ditch the XY splitter assembly and directly read the position of the magnet with 4 Hall sensors underneath, and do the axis transformation digitally. The lack of mechanical splitter allows them to put a large spring wrapping around the assembly which barely moves in use and thus doesn't degrade with time. Another problem in ALPS style sticks is wear in the joints of the XY splitter, again not a problem in prior existing Hall sticks. This assembly reintroduces problems of the ALPS style stick. Potentiometer lifetime is about as long as 3 mechanical assembly lifetimes on the Xbox360 pad, PS2 pad and several others. I only do old stuff but i know my way around it. I bet these guys invented a worse Hall stick in order to be able to patent it; the claimed usefulness would be drop-in compatibility (in a variant with trimmable opamps for example) against existing ALPS style sticks. Apropos interesting patents: Allegro has one which ditches the spring and uses a magnet instead, considering there is already a magnet dangling from the bottom of the stick. I'm looking at that and thinking: finally a patent that... while i dislike patents, this is specifically the kind of smart the patent system was invented for! Like you look at this and think wow, it's elegant and simple and nobody thought of this before?
yep, my controller is so worn out that when i push up or down on the analog stick, it stuck that way. I don't think hall effect sensor can fix this issue at all :)
PS3 controllers used hall effect sensors as well according to Ben Heck. They also sometimes suffered from drift, but maybe to a much lesser degree than other consoles. Another reason for drift being increasingly more common may be that in the strive for "precision", game and console makes are minimizing the dead zone, making the software less tolerant for hardware wear. :(
The biggest issue I've had with controllers (apart from joycons lol), are simply the mechanical bits wearing out rather than drift, leading to sloppy sticks. Honestly I think just replaceable stick boxes are more of a solution that covers all failures, rather than stick technology.
@@SkulsterDulster as I said these sticks will fail over time also, the plastic gates will simply wear down over time and become sloppy. Having the sticks be socketed instead of soldered would make either type of stick replaceable should they fail.
A pro controller from both Sony and MS that lets users open the controller to replace broken parts at a cost of $200 would probably be worth it since you pay a high cost of front but the controller would last more than 2 console generations with heavy use.
As an RC pilot for over 17 years now, I can tell you the following: There are good and bad potentiometers. I'va had good radio transmitters, with metal encased, internally lubricated pots and bad radio transmitters with plastic pots and flimsy PCBs, way to soft contact pads and just overall poor performance. One of my oldest radios is over 15 years old now, a Futaba 7C (if you want to look it up) and I have never had to callibrate the sticks since I purchased the radio. I also have a Futaba T14SG from 2014 and it has gone through countless hours of 3D flying (agressive stick movements) and it doesn't have any drift. out of curiosity, I've had a look inside both of these radios and my conclusion is that the most important thing in terms of joystick drift is not the wear on the potentiometers, but rather the the stick centering strenght, i.e. the quality of the spring and centre stick mechanism, which determines how well the sticks centre over time. If have a little bit of play, the stick will not centre properly, that's it. Joystick controllers have the issue that they use very soft springs and nylon guides to keep the sticks where they are supposed to be, and that is a huge problem because those wear out over time. If the sticks get soft on an RC radio, you have the option to replace the springs and adjust the centre position mechanically (f it has even shifted). Then you recallibrate the sticks and you are done for the next 10-15 years. I've also had Hall Gimbals on three of my more modern radios and I can't tell the difference apart from the resistance that you feel adjusting the sticks to be soft. Soft sticks with pots have some residual internal friction and dampening due to the internal lubrication. I think hall sensor joysticks will have the same problem as regular joysticks because the main centering mechanism will start to wear eventually, weaken and get wobbly over time and simply fail at some point. What manufacturers need to do is to improve the construction quality by increasing the rigidiry and the toughness of the materials used for the gimbal mechanism (and I mean both of these terms by their engineering or metrial science definition). Whether you then have potentiometers or hall effect sensors will make absolutely no difference at all. Most likely, this has not been done due to obvious manufacturing cost implications.
You can use Hall effect sensors and it won't fix joystick drift permanently. You still have the OTHER kind of thumbstick drift seen most on stuff like the PSP and Index controllers, and old arcade units and a Thrustmaster T-16000m I had, where the springs wear out so the stick physically slides to a side when not in use. Doesn't matter how reliable the sensors are if the sticks themselves drift. The T-16000m especially already used Hall effect sensors and STILL experienced drift.
The Xbox controllers triggers use the same technology I would expect the next version of the elite controller to use these for the joysticks as well I'm tired of soldering on new potentiometers every 3 months for my controller
The worst thing is that Microsoft (and I guess Sony etc) uses Hall sensors in the Xbox One controllers, but only in the triggers. This is because the other benefit of Hall-effect sensors is that they have virtually no dead zones. They react immediately and predictably to inputs unlike traditional potentiometers, which makes them great for trigger actions like snappy shooting and progressive acceleration.
Although it may be because I'm a PC gamer first, I don't think I've ever had drift issues so much as the spring that centers the stick wearing down to the point that there's a large enough freely moveable space in the middle with no resistance. That is the only thing I've ever really had to adjust deadzones for for the most part.
It's funny that the N64 had a clever LED-photosensor setup with no electrical contact points either. Their issue was that they buggered up the mechanical contact points though so the physical stick would wear down and not hold centre. Zero drift, but after a while it wouldn't pull itself to centre anymore, you had to hold the limp stick manually. If hall effects are expensive, I reckon repackaging the photoreceptor setup into this formfactor with the superior gimbal setup we have these days would be the best of both worlds and super cheap.
Stick drift can easily be caused by dirt in the pots and can easily be cleaned with ipa cleaner ! I fix roughly 20 a day at work the dirt or fragments is usually caused buy grinding metal on the top of the sticks depending on the pad !
Sometimes you can mitigate a little bit of drift depending on which of the axis is affected, what action is required, and if the game or software supports it. 1. By adjusting the deadzones, or 2. for example when it affects running of the character, to map that action to another button if possible. I've had to do it in a few occasions. It's not a solution, just postponing the inevitable, but you can still keep using it until you can fix it properly.
Adjusting deadzones and re-mapping buttons delays or masks the problem. Hall-Effect or Optical sensors are better and longer lasting. The N64 controller uses an optical sensor and the thing that wears out is the analog stick itself grinding against itself, not the sensor. But because the stick and sensor are one unit, you just replace it. I had to replace it in my N64 very early on, just about 2 years after the n64 launched. Knowing what the actual failure is, using a little dab of lithium grease to prevent the plastic-on-plastic contact grinding itself into powder - that same controller still works to this day for my kids.
A simple solution without having to change hardware for the current existing hardware would be just to simply allow dead zone adjustments on every console on a per controller basis. Calibration for full motion and then a fully adjustable middle dead zone would help immensely. A large middle dead zone would eventually become a problem, but for minor to even somewhat drastic drift, it could cancel it out. It's amazing that dead zone settings aren't already a thing on all consoles by now.
while this videos shows a part of the problem i feel there is more to it than just the potentiometers. i have fixed a lot of controller and one thing i noticed besides damaged potentiometers is a loose center spring. most of the sticks have a hard time staying in the middle positions because of old worn out springs. they start to have some play in the center position. so a hall sensor would also pick up this slack.
Thanks for the cool vid. Very informative. So why aren't manufacturers using this tech already? what's the downside of it? Are they purposely trying to build in, obsolescence in this case? I mean if they did like you guys said in another video, at least make the thumb sticks hardware, replaceable, that would be a great thing?
This is an interesting question and as others have guessed it may simply come down to cost but it's difficult to know without further investigation. Our goal was to identify the problem and potential solutions and you are absolutely right, making modular thumbsticks would be one solution. The Steam Deck has done just that.
Planned obsolescence is my guess honestly, it makes no sense to keep using potentiometers when HES are so much more reliable and not that much more expensive to manufacture.
The downside is, you could still be playing your PS2 20 years later, instead of buying Sony's new console. This is bad for business. They would rather force you to buy the newest console, and pay for all your old games again!
Awesome video. I first learned about the difference in controllers when I learned about the user-maintainability of the Steam Deck and the Hall-effect replacement sticks available for it. Just a little more expensive but a *lot* better.
As a flight and racing simmer, I know hall sensor from like 2008, but now it's almost norm (along with some optics senor some where and force cell is another story then...) I can't believe it's not yet in game controller yet... if they decide not, Good news is, with some 3D print part it's very easy to convert one to hall. I have done one for an old throttle quadrant.
I think Nintendo would prefer you buy a new Switch every 4 months since that makes them the most money. Why would they stop if people don't stop buying them?
A very similar thing happened in the DJ world. Originally, all DJ mixers used contact faders where a couple of brushes would move over two carbon tracks as the fader was moved. The carbon tracks could wear out, and dust/grime getting inside a fader could affect the contact between the brushes and tracks. That would lead to the sound bleeding or crackling - not good. Now many DJ mixers use non-contact faders that use optical or magnetic technology, eliminating the issues that contact faders had. I think whether companies use these new stick modules will come down to cost more than anything. I don't really buy into the "they want them to break so you have to buy new ones" argument, even though there is some merit to that, cos I think ultimately, they would prefer the consumer to have a better time with their products, have fewer customer service contacts regarding broken controllers, and create less waste. I would like them to use higher quality components all round tbh, cos I love the feel and features of MS's Elite controllers, for example, but I have had a bunch of technical issues with both the OG and Series 2 versions.
I'm looking forward to getting the Gulikit thumbsticks for my Steam Deck as they're using magnets too. Though even hall effect sensors drift eventually.
So, the issue outlined here can also be caused in part by the by the joystick's centering mechanism wearing down, there is a lot of plastic on plastic contact in there, and over time that will cause the stick to not center and feeling rather loose. You can currently buy joystick components that function and fit the same as the plastic ones, but they are all metal, which lasts a lot longer and feels a tad snappier. I've refurbished a lot of xbox 360 wireless controllers with these parts. I started doing this when I noticedy twenty year old well loved Saitek controller had almost no joystick wear, while my significantly newer 360 controllers had so much wear it was unusable, then I popped them open and noticed the difference.
If you remove the circuit board that contains the hall effects sensors and then demagnetize it. It will fix the problem of the sensors becoming magnetized over time due to their proximity to the magnets.
The steam deck uses Hall effect sensor in the analog sticks. A way to make Hall effect analog stick cheap to manufacture is to take the design from the Sega dreamcast integrate the Hall effect ADC into the main I/O chip, integrate the top housing of the joysticks in to the top body of the controller, and use a smaller spring to further shave down costs.
No, the Steam Deck does not use Hall effect analog sticks by default. But GuliKit, the manufacturer of the gamepad shown in this video, sells Hall effect analog sticks for the Steam Deck as replacements.
Yeah my Xbox series controller started drifting after a half year of regular use, never had drifting issues before i just thought it would only happen if you carry your switch for example in your pockets or something or in a backpack but just playing games is enough to cause drifting.
This is nice! But my question is, can I just replace my old - non hall effect sensors with hall sensors on old controllers? I think if we can match the voltages it should be possible since the form factors are almost identical.
iirc the guys from Linus Tech Tips upgraded them for the Steam Deck recently and it was awesome! I'd love to see more custom / third party controllers using this tech since the major platforms will likely prefer the increased sales from their designed obsolescence
It is economics bro.... a cheap swipe of carbon on a Mylar sheet and a slider makes a potentiometer and a predictable fail point where the player complains to mommy and purchases a new controller. They have less than zero care about longevity but focus on the bottom line. Great video and the time it takes to conceptualize, create and edit these are appreciated very much sir.
I've always wondered why optical encoders haven't been adopted. So much professional music hardware is covered in optical knobs. Hell it's how pretty much every mouse works now, so it's not like we're lacking the tiny precision power efficient integration.
Optical encoder happened, that's how the N64 stick worked! Honestly it's terrible, the splitter to translate the XY movement into separate X and Y wasn't well made due to unsuitable material choice (ABS - not enough abrasion resistance due to flake grafting), there was an attempt at gearing which wasn't that well conceived either, and there were only like a couple dozen steps of precision across the movement range, like maybe 64 tops. Which pro music hardware has optical knobs? I don't deal with stuff that costs above a grand, but i haven't seen anything, all purely electrical contact based so far, sealed oil type though, nice enough to last a lifetime. Except DJ controller platters, those are always optical.
@@SianaGearz literally hundreds of devices and it's not just limited to audio hardware. pretty much anything with a precision knob that spins forever. thanks to optical mouse technology, modern optical encoders have evolved to be incredibly accurate and cheap.
@@placebomessiah Not "literally anything", lots of indent-free contact rotary incremental encoders, they're the standard solution really. Feel and work fine, when well made, and even in middling music gear, they've got some quality behind them. Naturally not forever unlike optical. Optical devices have a flaw, they need to not accumulate dust, and at small sizes they need to be fully shielded, which is way more difficult than it seems; this isn't the case with mechanical ones, the oil pressure just doesn't let any dust come in so the seal can be fairly loose and they'll still run for a couple decades. Making a tight seal is a near impossibility since you want that shaft to rotate easily. Or like DJ turntables there there is often just the bare minimum of shielding but the optical gaps for rim sensing are so generous that they just won't get clogged up in a reasonable time. I mean obviously people still manage to clog them up sometimes. Another interesting issue is in the optical absolute encoder crossfader Behringer made for some of their higher end DJ mixers, which is nice enough, should last an eternity... unless it happens to be used near a fog machine, where it will temporarily glitch out. Not great for the intended usecase. Also nothing to do with optical mice necessarily. You remember ball mice? They split the ball motion onto two shafts which were read by optical incremental encoders. That's still how incremental optical encoders work, not with array imagers and DSPs that optical mice use. They didn't reach very high step counts, unlike possible with sealed optical encoders, though those have a considerable cost to them.
Is this possible with the size of the Joy-Cons though? I feel like the reason Nintendo has been trying to bury the issue is because they don't want to redesign the joy-con to be larger and thicker to accommodate a larger stick.
Hall effect won't really eliminate stick drift, because a lot of the times stick drift is due to the centering mechanism getting sloppy/worn out over time (too much plastic in the mechanism, and quite often the spring used to create tension to return the thumbstick to center loses it's strength to be able to return the thumbstick back to center). Hall effect will eliminate dirty potentiometer issues like erratic movement in game during when you're moving the thumbstick (see Atari 2600 paddle controller dirty potentiometer issue), but HE won't really cure stick drift as the thumbstick usually still has a tight connection to the potentiometer. The plastics used in the centering mechanism will get worn down, and when wearing down it'll also produce a fine plastic powder that coats everything inside the centering mechanism, not only will it cause the drift issue as well it can also make the thumbstick is harder to move smoothly.
As a radio control enthusiast and flight sim pilot, I can say that you are wrong. the plastics used in most game controllers as well as R/C and flight sticks are very durable and springs can typically be replaced, so long as the items are well cared for and not dropped a lot. For my R/C helicopters, I used the same radio for ten years (Spektrum DX7) and didn't bother with an upgrade (Spektrum DX8e) until I got my first drone and found out that my software wouldn't work with it. My sim controllers had other components fail (external wiring) LONG before the axis sensors did (Logitech X56). As of this comment, I currently have over 2200 hours on MSFS 2020 and DCS with my Thrustmaster T16000 flight controls. I will say that I need to get some powdered graphite to lube the throttle and rudder pedals as they suffer from way too much friction. In the game controller (D-pad type) arena, when the pots start to wear down, the signal gets erratic and true center can be harder to define without adjusting deadzones. Yes, the axis still has a tight connection to the pot but the pot is too worn to be accurate. This is where Hall effect is superior. Hall effect does not need deadzones as it doesn't wear out like pots. you instead adjust the sensitivity with expo curves and you get 100% control for a VERY long time. In closing, don't sell hall effect short, you'd be surprised at the performance gains that you can achieve with it.
@@wedgie502 yeah here let's compare materials in an RC system vs a cheap controller to a game system........... Let me ask how many game console controllers have you worked on? I've worked on quite a few, and each one that has stick drift issues is due to the return mechanism being worn down, and no longer able to return the thumbstick back to center, not the POTS. You're also confusing POT failure (due to dirt in the POT or the contact area in the POT being damaged) to actual stick drift.
@@madmax2069 what happens when two things rub together? you get friction and erosion, this is why modern pots fail, there is the dirt that you are referring to. also, if you watched this video, they show what a worn pot looks like with the grove worn into it. as far as my experience with game controllers, I'm a genx that has had almost every generation of console starting with Pong. Yes, I even did some home repair on my Atari 2600 controllers. Modern pots are wear items that usually wear out very quickly these days. This is mainly due to miniaturization to make game controllers more compact and overall cheaper to manufacture. also, the "stick drift" that is the issue in this video is not due to mechanical failure, it is due to, can you guess, pot failure that the software reads as movement due to erratic signal. watch the video before replying again. EDIT: your original post states the HE wont cure stick drift due to a tight connection to the potentiometer. HE DOESN'T have potentiometers, thats why it fixes it.
Purchased new controller 1/14/23. After the one that came with the PS5 lasted just over a month I purchased the extra warranty, and I'm glad I did. The new controller did not even make it a month. Both controllers had exact same issue, erratic right thumb stick. Started out jerking (not drifting) to the left and very soon after was in continuous left.
as a engineer we know not to use pot or buy controllers that use them but these companies love them so u keep buying the new pro controllers from them , it make them millions and the fan bois line up for it
I'm not a gamer so hadn't come across this until someone brought a controller to a Repair Café I was fixing at with this issue - I gave it a clean but not sure if that helped or not in the end as he didn't have the console - this was a useful insight into the solution - kind of reminds me of why old fashioned 'ball' mice were replaced with optical mice over time!
After watching the video, I have two questions. 1. This problem hasn't arisen until recently; how did past controllers have far better potentiometer quality when compared to today's controllers? 2. Wouldn't Hall Effect Sensors add latency as they output an analog signal that needs conversion to a digital signal?
1. They didn't. Potentiometer based sensors have always had the same drift issues, for example as someone who only played Playstation at friends' house I don't think I've ever used a PS1 or PS2 dualshock controller that didn't have really bad drift. There are multiple reasons why it's perceived to be more of a problem now than before: You might not have run into the problem yourself on older controllers; that's just random chance. The volume of failure has gone up because there are way controllers out there being used, the failures show up sooner because spend more time gaming and modern games rely more on thumbstick controls than old games; it doesn't mean the quality of the sensors have gotten worse. It's much easier to come across stories of failed sticks now than before because of modern social media. Older games often had low precision input (e.g. only two fixed walking and running speeds) and large deadzones which hid the drift. Finally, joysticks other than thumbsticks, with other types of sensors, were more popular, so drift wasn't something people were that aware of as a problem. 2. Pots also output an analog signal. There's no difference.
@@Berengal Thanks! Your points gave me a new perspective and helped me learn a few things today. However, I still can't help but wonder if the quality of potentiometers in controllers truly hasn't changed for the worse, especially when compared to the Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons. Otherwise, when I think about it, yeah, I didn't have as much time to play video games in the past compared to now (let alone even afford it), so maybe you're right. I quickly read that there were analog and digital potentiometers without actually understanding what they were; it makes sense now.
@@TheRacingDevon it has to. I’ve had gamecube controllers with still perfect joysticks after 10 years of use while I’ve had 3 modern controllers busted in 3 years. 1 joycon, 1 nsw pro controller and 1 xbox series controller. Also my xbox one controller is now drifting but that lasted almost 10 years since I got it in 2013. It seems modern joysticks are not as durable as they used to be, even if they are using the same tech
Hall effect sensors were in controllers ages ago. Sega used them on the Saturn and Dreamcast, and Sony actually used them in some early Sixaxis models, as in the very first PS3 controllers that had no rumble. I honestly think they simply didn't catch on because there is more money in selling controllers that will definitely break much easier, and the issue would've kept going mostly ignored if Nintendo hadn't pushed it as far as they did with the switch, making one of the most expensive 1st party controllers ever and also one of the most shoddily put together.
What is very funny is that Nintendo's first analogue controller (n64) used optical sensors and not resistive pots. If only they had proper bearing surface instead of plastic on plastic.
So far I’ve not had a single controller having drift. However, one thing I never do is never add pressure to the stick while turning. And I have my thumb on the outer edges, not laying flat in the middle Center of the stick like many people do.
Reminder: We had a Solution with the PS3 - but everyone flamed and bashed that Controller, didn't let a good hair on it or talk positively about the PS3 controller in any ways. So its OUR fault for that!
Since 2006... To 2017 on the PS3 as other mentions. This is not new tech, and has been used on a major console. The question one should ask is why did Sony change back to resistive? Cost? Other types of wear? susceptibility to other magnetic fields like it's own second magnet next to it? Non-linear effects? Inconsistent field strength of production magnets that might necessitate more calibration which is highly labour intensive.
Definitely not cost. Hall sensors are not expensive. Microsoft switched the triggers from potentiometers to hall sensors when going from 360 => xbox one. I suspect the reason is probably tied to why all the manufacturers making "crappy" thumbsticks have no problem giving you durability testing results, while the guys making the ones that supposedly never go bad won't. There is probably some engineering reason why potentiometers are favored over hall sensors in thumbstick applications. I suspect once these have been out in the wild and start accumulating some wear and tear we will get a better sense of why that is.
@@nerdstrangler4804 I can see two issues in this Hall design. That it retains the deformation prone tiny return spring and the wear-prone splitter assembly, both of which are not a problem in other Hall sticks but are problems in potentiometer based sticks. I don't think it will last. Dreamcast used Hall but it looks like they puzzled around a bit with suppressing interference, such as with screw placement and choice, and relative placement of different Hall controls such that they don't interfere with each other. It might be one of several reasons why it's kind of an oddball controller by look and feel. On the flip side that Hall hardware in that one actually lasts forever; great application of force management, minimal spring deformation, correct lubrication, no abrasion whatsoever. The lubricant will decay but you just replace it and you're good again for the next 10+ years.
I can think of a few reasons why the analog potentiometer is still the standard in gaming. Apart from the cost and availability of components, one thing that springs to mind as an issue is the effect of rumble motors. These operate by generating a magnetic field, and the controller would need to be designed from the ground up such that the effects of having the rumble motor running would not be detrimental to the accuracy of the stick. Whether that’s through greater physical distance between the sensor and the motor, such that it’s not affected, or by compensating in software, it’s an extra design consideration that the analog devices just don’t have. Another issue, specific to the Joy-Con at this point, is the physical throw distance. Joy-Cons use very low sticks, by which I mean the point on which they pivot in both the X and Y directions is a lot closer to the thumb than it is on other joystick designs. This means it’s harder to package the sensor in the joystick unit, and to have enough physical movement of the magnet mounted to the joystick to be able to affect the Hall sensor enough to get the accuracy wanted in the output voltage. Even with all these things taken into account, the centering effect of the stick is only as good as the physical mechanism on which it relies. If the spring on which the joystick rides fails, it’s the same problem whether your stick is using magnets or resistors to read its value. This is also another argument towards the potentiometer-based device; it’s available as a single unit which incorporates a standardised upright. A Hall-based solution requires engineering the physical action of the stick separately from the sensor mechanism, raising the design complexity. I do find it worth noting that certain current-gen controllers do use Hall effect as a matter of course, specifically in the analog triggers on the Xbox controller; and these have their own vibration motors in close proximity. I suspect they are using software compensation.
@@iFixitYourself In terms of references, I don’t have any documents; this is speculation on my part regarding reasons why Hall effect isn’t the standard. Most of this actually comes from my experience in sim-racing hardware. I have a Thrustmaster T-LCM set of pedals, which use a load cell to detect braking force, and Hall effect sensors to monitor the acceleration and clutch pedals; the arms of the pedals are made of ferrous metal. However, when I tried to mount vibration motors (the same type as used in 360 controllers) which were connected to a separate device for control, I found that the interference from the motors being activated would cause the accelerator pedal to stop responding. Since they’re separate devices, and the pedals are effectively a “black box” in that I can’t alter the firmware of them, it’s not possible to apply the software compensation I mentioned. However, I believe that other pedal sets which do have motors integrated as an option are not affected in the same way; whether that is through software (ignoring readings when the motor is known to be active, for example; if the motor is being driven by PWM, it may also be possible to take readings when the motor is off) or physical separation; I haven’t used these, so I can’t tell either way. It may be worth repeating the experiment shown on the Gulikit controller while holding a small motor (driven from another device, such as an Arduino) nearby, and see how it reacts when the motor is both on and off. The rest of the effects I mentioned are speculation on my part; the physical design of the joysticks on the Joy-Cons are known to be small packages, as can be seen from replacement parts, while the spring argument is basically saying that it’s easier to design the whole controller if the functionality of center return is already provided by the joystick module, rather than adding it in separately. I have no experience in industrial electronic design, these are all speculation on my part as to reasons why, partially based on my own experience. I also want to note that the PS5 adapter triggers still use potentiometers to determine their position; since they have motors in very close proximity, it may not be possible for them to be substituted with Hall sensors in the manner that the Xbox triggers use.
Dreamcast had an interesting quirk that a number of screws in the controller anywhere around the Hall stick had to be out of NF metal, something bronze like. I think they puzzled around with screw placement and overall construction a little to make it work, it sure makes that impression. Indeed the rumble motor was VERY far from any Hall hardware but i don't know whether that has anything to do with that or whether it just worked out like that. I could certainly create some interference nearby and check next time i break out the Dreamcast. Besides Hall stick the triggers are also Hall.
The 4 screws were installed so tight at the factory one stripped.It’s also happened with other Chinese products.They using impact drivers or what? Glue maybe?
That's a misleading, clickbaity title. It should be more like "How manufacturers can fix the drift issue permanently." Oftentimes you can't even fix drift by swapping the part as controllers are calibrated at the factory and there's no way for the consumer to re-calibrate it after swapping out parts.
Soo....the video doesn't show how to fix joystick drift on your controller permanently. Clickbaity title. If you want to know how to REALLY fix your controller, watch LinusTechTips video on this subject.
Okay, firstly thanks for highlighting this issue! Second, Hall Effect Joystick Sensors are NOT the "End Game" solution to fixing the problem. But they are a positive step in the right direction. Just like any other piece if hardware you need to have it calibrated properly out of the box and in the past 6-Months I've seen a wealth of replacement Hall Effect Joystick Sensor products arrive on to the market, but unfortunately a trait with them has been that some of them have notably bad calibration out of the box meaning that the end result can still be a very poor tracking experience.
I mean, that's kinda the point of calibrating your controllers after replacing the joystick assembly. I just replaced my joycons joysticks with hall effect joysticks and yeah they needed recalibration but that takes less than a minute to do and after that they work fantastically.
@@Enclave. I meant in regards to firmware, the actual firmware inside on the micro controller baked into the joysticks, they are REALLY POORLY calibrated in the way they react to input such that no amount of built-in device level adjustments can positively counteract the inaccurate readings.
@@longnamedude3947 Ah, gotcha. When I hear calibration I immediately think of people who don't know you need to calibrate your joysticks any time you replace the assembly.
I thought hall sensors were some fancy customization to a controller for try hard gamers but I see it’s just a better tech that lasts longer, thank for the clarification
I’m sure the reason for buying new controllers every 4 months due it’s cheap quality is no coincidence. Planned obsolescence, they’ll (Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo) will never pick up this solution and if they were offered too they would bury that opportunity a new grave due to greed, great video btw!
I have the Gulikit Zen pro and can tell you it feels hella diffrent then a standerd controller. And reacts a lot diffrently. For anyone wondering, the King Kong 2 is the Zen Pro they just renamed it.
Had this controller but at some point started to get troubles with few face buttons and right shoulder button. Now I wonder how soon other manufacturers will adopt hall sensor sticks and triggers in their products so we can choose between many good alternatives..
That the value at the center point varies is completly normal and is mitigated by a dead zone in software. This technology has been used for decades and was always a fine solution. Only a small, loud minority is complaining about "stick drift". I have never seen it in person.
This is a great step in the right direction, but it still drifts backawards in the wrong. See the problem is that this design doesn't give the user any customizable options. If you wanted to mod the spring tension you'd have to run through the trouble of desoldering the thumbstick potentially causing damage to the circuit board in the process if you mess up just once. The right way to go would be like Paradise Arcade's Majenta Joystick. Design a thumbstick that screws in and out for easy access and gives the user the ability to swap out the spring or any other component. This is a nice step forward but not in the direction I'd like it.
Probably not. The power supply, DAC and/or software also play their part in the chain, so they need updating (to their circuitry) as well. These sensors are not drop-in replacements for potentiometers (as far as I know)
@@erwinmulder1338 shame. I doubt xbox or Sony will want to use hall effect sticks because they'd last too long, but I've never got along well with 3rd party controllers.
Just stopping by to remind everyone that Hall effect sensors are not new technology. They were used for the analog sticks for the SEGA Saturn in 1996 and the Dreamcast in 1999. Manufacturers don't use them today because they would rather your controller wear out so you have to buy a new one.
Jeeze, I wish SEGA still does hardware today aw.
Dreamcast was wonderful
@@ShockingPikachu I think I heard that the N64 used an optical sensor, which I guess would make it more comparable to a mouse
Designed obsolescence. The real cancer of the gaming industry
@@Jihadbearzwithgunz of the industry in general
As an FPV hobbyist, THANK YOU for making a video (albeit a short one) about hall gimbals. There is literally no downside in using these over potentiometers besides the slight increase in complexity and tiny increase in price. It's so worth the added consistency and longevity and it baffles me that potentiometers are still the norm in expensive video game controllers.
one downside is that someone could wirelessly interfere with a hall effect transducer from a distance
@@placebomessiah Sounds more like a inconvenience than a downside.
@@placebomessiah If someone wanted to interfere with your input, I imagine it would be more practical to jam the radio signal. And magnets are not very effective over long distances so it would it would probably have to be a pretty powerful magnet.
@@jackwoodhead nah just a low frequency oscillating field within a few feet is enough to drift a precision hall sensor. Jamming bluetooth is harder
If possible, itd be cool if higher end controllers that might include these hall sensors in the future have a magnetic interference shield
If I know what they are doing with the whole "Planned obsolescence" thing then I know they won't actually implement these features on newer controllers or designs, and will continue to create unnecessary E-Waste, even though these Hall effect sensors are better in literally every way.
Don't forget there are no original (good) replacement parts. Back in the day I tried to fix my Xbox 360 controller and the replacement stick couldn't do a smooth circle anymore, only a square with rounded corners.
@@LEXXIUS yeah I have 3 Xbox original controllers which have stick drift but are perfectly fine otherwise, but it makes them completely unusable because I do not have any soldering skills, or equipment to fix them, When I used to play PS3 a long time ago, stick drift was never a problem for me and to me it just feels like they purposely switched to carbon based potentiometers in the PS4 and PS5 controllers just to make more people buy a lot of them more often.
@@shepshepson nope. The PS3 also used carbon-based potentiometers. Sony and every other console manufacturer switched to Alps potentiometers since they thought the magnets may interfere with the wireless signal.
@@BurritoKingdom really? Man that stinks, because I opened up my own ps3 controller to find some hall effect sensors in them
@@BurritoKingdom ps1, ps2 and sixaxis controllers use them but dualshock 3's don't.
this problem had already been solved in the 90s. the sega saturn analog pad, and the dreampad both used hall effect tracked joysticks, using 4 board mounted hall effect sensors, and a single magnet in the base of the joystick. the design was pretty ingenious, because the centering mechanism was practically impervious to mechanical wear too. even after thousands of hours of use, those sticks did not develop "center wiggle".
Despite the one analog stick, the Dreamcast controller honestly feels amazing. Great fit in the hands, great trigger tension, perfect face buttons, joystick... I really miss Sega.
iirc the n64 controller also used similar tech for their analog stick
PlayStation controllers also had it back in the day.
@@larryfoulke6196
The Nintendo 64 used a optical encoder just like an old computer mouse with the ball on the bottom.
I wish they would release a replacement sticks for regular controllers just like they have done for steam deck. It will be a pain to replace them in newer harder to disassemble controller designs, but i think it would be worth it.
I think the reason they were able to do it for the Deck, is in it the sticks are fully modular, including the PCB they attach to. Meaning they could include the hall effect sensor on the small PCB that you replace alongside the stick. But in most controllers, replacing the thumbsticks means de-soldering the little stick module, but that doesn't include the hall effect sensor, which is on the PCB.
Hence, hall effect replacement sticks for say the DS5, would mean replacing the PCB which the sticks are attached to, but in the DS5 that'd mean all the other guts of the controller, too.
they seem to be working on ones for the switch, theres a photo pinned on their twitter
@@MentalEdge yeah but they didn't make them modular by choice. Why would they do that? better for their profit margins to sell you a new one when drift happens. Capitalism is trash.
@@AlkaVirus You're preaching to the choir buddy. Did you take me for some anti-repair fool? I was just explaining why GuliKit is unlikely to come out with hall effect replacement kits for regular controllers, while doing one for the Deck was easy.
@@sadiesm switch are also modular tho
What's crazy to think about is that it's 2022 and Hall Effect Sensors/Gimbals have been available for so long, their pros have always been known, and there's really not many cons to them either. It's just surprising that it's taking big companies this long to switch over to them. They are superior to potentiometers in every single way.
And no, they're really not that much more expensive so cost of manufacturing is not an issue.
the reason they wont switch is because gotta get that extra profit from people buying replacement controllers
yeah it's like wireless headphones, basically pure money printing machines. You can get cheap controllers for way less than 20 bucks so imagine how much profit there is even if you use slightly better materials in their 60-200 $ gamepads.
I had to pick apart the rotary encoder of my mouse and scrape off the oxidation from the metal contacts that were causing opposite scrolling errors. If it had an optical encoder it would pretty much last forever. Almost bought a new mouse but turned out to be fixable with some patience.
When it's saving them just 1 cent per controller, they do it. Imagine how much money they "saved"! Not to forget, that they gain more money by people buying new hardware.
It's like in the 1910s... light bulbs were indestructible, one of those is still lighting up a firefighter station in America if I recall correctly. And then, in the 20s, a group of lightbulb manufacturers, named the Phoebus cartel agreed to not sell lightbulb wich exceed xxx hours of light time before failing, intentionnaly degrading the quality of their products, to push the replacements going out of the factories. At this point in time, modern consumerism was born.
even if the manufacturers don't do this, I would've expected the companies that make modified controllers like Battle beaver, Scuff etc to do this since they're trying to make controllers that offer more and better performance. Scuff's are also known for stick drift
They also want to sell you replacement parts and new controllers, feels like a scam, even GuliKit didn't put back buttons/paddles in KingKong Pro 2, some smaller seller could theoretically destroy everyone else by making a "One size fits all" but they'd run out of money in 2-3 years when everyone has their controller.
@@RealRogerFK No problem, they start a new business after 3 years. Like someone building a House is done building, there is no point in never finishing the house and getting paid the hours of work, obsolescence is for lazy people, they should be ashamed
dont scuff just modify a oem controller?
@@jordanwardle11 that's what I did to my controller using parts from Extreme rate. But that doesn't fix the stick drift issues
@@javianbrown8627 the bottom-line is that you can't "fix" stick drift, only remedy it. The only true way is to not have analog sticks in the first place
What really pissed me off is that my bootleg PS2 controller that my brother bought 17 years ago never experienced any kind of drift, so its not the technology but more the build quality, they are asking for higher prices but their quality is going downhill
PS2 also has a giant deadzone in software, which hides the electromechanical issues somewhat, and much larger stickboxes than those used today, so they do fundamentally have more endurance. They wanted the sticks to feel more responsive and controllers to be slicker, so they optimised things to the point where they barely work - and they're happy enough to cause you to buy replacements.
@@SianaGearz However one issue, ive bought 2 playstation controllers (sony) and both of them have an issue with the right stick jumping all over the place, so in games like Ace Combat you can't really look at your plane because the camera is jumping around like crazy. My old PS2 abused controller never had this issue after years and year of use.
It would be cool if either you guys or gulikit could release hall sensor sticks as replacement kits for some of the most popular controllers
Not sure that would work. You'd probably need to solder new chips onto the existing boards and adjust the controller bios to interpret the signals correctly. That's not a simple project.
@@JamesTHammond They sell replacements for the steam deck sticks at least
@@JamesTHammond Those chips he demonstrated vary analog output voltage. If these HFS's output a PWM or some other digital signal, that would make sense, but this is just voltage, and the voltage is very similar to what the existing pot-based systems output. I wouldn't be surprised if the challenge is more in getting the HFS chips mounted than anything.
@@wydra9-1 same thinking i had. The voltage output possibly is just a reference to the controller cpu so it knows where the joystick is with no digital signal being sent.
If that is the case, modding it into a controller is actually quite simple if these parts are available for purchase. Biggest challenge would be mouting it into the board, alignment and knowing the magnets polarity so it doesn't work backwards (push up and the game goes down). Sadly they don't sell those joystick boxes they make, only way to get them is with the controller or the switch mod :(
@@wydra9-1 I thought so too, but seeing that the Steam Deck replacements from Gulikit have chips integrated, I'm guessing there is something else involved in this.
I really really hope that this will pick up, stick drift has been a problem for me for quite some time and there is only so much I can do. Soldering on a new one not only is hard because of the soldering and dangerous (lost a controller because I screwed up) but also just finding original ones isnt as easy as one might think. these would improve controllers a lot and I wish there would be a dualshock version that has them. I wouldnt mind paying extra but not having to worry about the ONE THING that makes the controller last not that long would be such a relief
Why don't the major manufacturers use hall effect sensors instead then? Are they more expensive than the current potentiometers? Or do manufacturers like to introduce the built-in failure with potentiometers so that they can sell more controllers? I suspect it's more likely to be the latter.
It's both. Potentiometers are dirt cheap so it increases their profits per controller, and since they break it means they sell more of them.
Mass production. Both MS and Nintendo are reporting controller shortage, not sure about Sony.
It's all about money really, they enjoy selling controllers, pretty sure they make nice profits from them
Wouldn't be surprised if stick drift is planned obsolescence to make you buy more controllers.
Fr
it is 100%
I think it's a happy accident.
Well, thats the reason bro, imagine how less controllers they would sell if the controllers more durable
I had a stick drift issue and I fixed it with 15$ locally with a service shop, it was not a big issue, I also had a broken spring and that cost around 10$ to fix, local tech guys do not charge much for these issues.
First console with those pots is ... The Sega Dreamcast !!!! It's original contrôlées domuse magnetic sensors for the analog Thumbsticks and the 2 triggers.
This is a shame it has not been used from that moment in all controllers. I guess Sega had some kind of patents over them before the Dreamcast flopped :-(
No, SEGA has no related patents. It looks to me like SEGA manufactured the joystick under patents licensed from Orvitek, which would have been valid until 2010.
Also nobody actually wants to make an eternal joystick? And i can instantly see some issues with this one, it won't last.
@@SianaGearz Patent or not, it was only on the Dreamcast, a console with a lots of good ideas but taken down by Sony's marketing masterplan.
Its arcade counterpart is famous for his great arcade games :-)
This tech might have its issues but one for the manufacturers is the long lasting ability of magnets compared to potentiometers ;-)
PS2, Xbox,... They all went for resistive tech.
@ZaHandle they'll only make ones that last if they can charge people a subscription to use it
You enunciate your words so well. It's a joy to hear you explain things
Excellent video! The fact is that potentiometers are ultra cheap to manufacture and little is needed to make them work well enough. You could even add an offset value in the controller itself (added via software and editable) to correct drift but manufacturers won't let you change it. That could extend the life of your controller at the cost of accuracy. Eventually the compound used for the trace inside the potentiometer will wear out and no software fix will be able to solve drift. This is not the only (or better) solution though. Rotary encoders (optical ones for example) have been around for decades and those are almost wear free. No, those don't have an "infinite" amount of "steps" (not analog) but can have a really really good resolution. Along with some clever math and software you could make them work just as fine. Ahhh but the cost .... (sarcasm). Keep doing videos like this one!
This. Also hall effect sensors CAN wear out as the magnets can demagnetize over time in extreme hot and cold situations. Also if using rare earth magnets, there are already shortages of the material required for making them. Opto/rotary encoders don’t have this issue if well sealed. Smoke alarms that use optoencoders all have useful life spans of over 10 years.
It's a shame Nintendo only used optical rotary encoders on the N64.
@@icebergmm Was going to mention N64 using it. Though for quick movements you could hear the gears running.
Seems they could use a simpler analog scheme where the disc has a slit of varying width that progressively blocks or allows light to a sensor as it's turned. Similar to the magnet approach.
@@gblargg there are fully analog optical mech keyboard switches that are smaller and more reliable than the n64 controller that could be used.
@@pratikpramanik7782 N64 joystick was optical. The buttons were standard dome switches.
I didn't know these existed, I am getting one for sure. Thank you!!! I also noticed how very cheap inexpensive wired controllers back in the day never had stick drift (it could have possibly had these inside them) the controller would either die out or just stop functioning properly due to the cable becoming faulty.
they won't do that because they want you to buy new controllers
What about discontinued controllers? I recently had to buy a PS3 controller but I couldn't a brand new original Dualshock 3, I had to buy it second hand. I wish they still supported accessories for their old consoles.
@@DoritoFD their old consoles make them even less money. Gaming companies have proven that if they could erase their consoles from existence after their life cycle they would.
I own an original Sony PS1 controller from 97. Got an adapter for it and been using it on the PC with no problems! It still works better than most modern controllers and it's built to last.
Hall effect sensors are also used in earbud cases ! That's how they turn a small light on, or start pairing when the magnetic lid gets openned
wouldn't a simple magnetic switch be used for that?
Just started having drift issues with my PS5 controller. Thanks for this video very informative and i got to try gamepad tester and see the drift on my controller in real time. I don't think the manufactures are going t fix that issue since Sony is pushing a $200 controller now and each normal controller is $76 a piece now. At their level it is about making money not the care of us
I've experienced my first drift in one of my PS5 controllers. The updated model number which was supposed to be marginally more resistant to the issue. I'd love a pseudo PNP way to swap to the hall effect sensors like for the switch. The dual sense edge not including them at such a ridiculous price point is a huge letdown.
Me who's ps1 dualshock isn't drifting even after 20 years: wow...
Lmao, single player gamers. Of course you don't notice stick drift, you don't need precise movement to play archaic, non multiplayer games
@@JakeobE you will absolutely notice single player or not
My XBOX ONE controller would drift no matter the game, or even the XBOX panel sometimes
@@satsumagt5284 same here for ps4
@@irishbattletoster9265 Man, these companies can really just F off for not using more reliable components
Not only hall effect but light sensors as well. SpaceTec had a few in their 3D motion controllers that worked fairly well, though the consumer model (SpaceOrb 360) used cheap plastic in the deflection arms which eventually wore out and broke. The more expensive CAD-style orbs used metal springs which last far longer, and were very reliable.
I've been going on about this issue with the antilog modules. I used to solder brand new ones in often to deal with the issue. I really like the solution of using hall effect sensors but I still feel like the little 3D gimball mechanisms need improving too. The are far too delicate and I found the mechanisms actually caused stick drift themselves as over time they don't center themselves very well and can cause that drift regardless of the condition of the alps resistor sensors. I really think other manufactures should go above and beyond and create something that is robust and maybe even ballraced or some type of mechanism with the hall sensors.
100% agree, Hall effect sensors do not remove the possibility of stick drift. The stick not returning too centre is the problem. I suspect the hall effect sensor has a lower resolution than a potentiometer and that's why it helps with drift, Which is something you don't want.
They just need to use magnetic Hall effect sensors to eliminate the 2 of 3 types of stick drift and the only 2 1st party controllers to use hall effect sensors are the ps3 controller and the sega dreamcast controller.
What would be the third type of drift?
@@banescar Wear on the center return spring of the stick. The part that makes your stick stiff and spring back into the center part. It can get sloppy over time or even completely fail after a hard drop
@@neotil at least this lasts way longer and if it ever fails it's extremely easy to replace
@@fgmenth Yes, it does last way longer. But if you consider it to be easily replaceable then just replace the entire stick at once...? You're already desoldering the center parts so why keep the old "sensors" (potentiometers)
So how did the original sticks in an N64 work? To me it always felt like something was stretching and I imagined some thin chords being measured somehow. Probably daft.
Controllers for flight simulators are using contactless sensors (Hall, magneto resistance):
Thrustmaster Warthog in X, Y axes, T.16000M in X,Y axes, but keep pot in Z axis (twist rudder) what cause issues, same goes with Logitech X-52, X-56.
VKB, VirPil, WingWing use X,Y, Z axes.
Similarly, "high end" R/C controllers use contactless sensors.
Hall effect sensors are also prone to go bad . I have removed several bad hall sensors from laptop motherboards which were preventing the laptop to turn on by giving a false signal to the embedded controller that the lid is closed. . Best bet is to go for optics based solution .
I've seen more than a few myself but usually in the opposite state where the computer thinks the lid is constantly open. This is an interesting concept for both applications! I can see how a simple light sensor could be implemented for a laptop lid and could be contained within the hinge.
I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not sure if there are optical emitters and sensors that are small enough to replace the joystick potentiometer size that will has enough sensitivity and resolution.
optical isn't perfect either, as dust and grease can obstruct the light path. Hall is better, i think. Another almost eternal technology is capacitive.
@@victortitov1740 Use sealed enclosure to mitigate the problem of foreign objects . Also hall effect sensors can easily get affected from the altering strong magnetic fields from the nearby devices such as built-in speakers in the controllers due to space constraint .This is the reason why phones and tablets do not use hall sensors to detect phone cover as they contain strong neodynium magnets but rather rely on the proximity sensor .It is easier to shield a device from light than than from magnetic fields . Capacitive is difficult to implement because you cannot induce charge from outside or conduct charge as you normally do with your fingers as the analog sticks are normally rubber coated and creating a capacitive array with high resolution in a small 3d space would not be economically feasible .Till now optics is the best practical approach
@@maxinventer static magnetic fields from nearby magnets can be canceled in firmware. Dynamic magnetic fields can be shielded by a steel enclosure. And i highly doubt these fields are strong enough to even matter - phones have magnetometers (compass) in them and detect the magnetic field of the earth without much trouble, which is way way wayy weaker than the field of a neo magnet in close proximity to a sensor.
You don't need arrays of electrodes to make a capacitive sensor - just two pieces of metal will do, as long as they are close enough together that their mutual capacitance is vastly larger than that to surroundings. Then you just measure the capacitance in analog way. Pressure sensors commonly work in this manner.
@@victortitov1740 Shielding will increase the size of the enclosure and dynamic magnetic field will always vary according to the audio signal and will require complex programming in firmware as even in 8 bit mode the ADC will have 256 steps . For capacitance based solution it will require a refresh circuit and since the minimum number of steps required is 256 in 8 bit mode it will require some serious shielding to prevent a drift in default capacitance values . I have made a dsp based on your approach in the past and the preset values tend to drift in real-time when used without shielding. Also the device will also need to pass emf and EMC test and will increase the pain of the designer . You are theoretically correct but the target of the design here is to accurately measure steps to avoid drifting and that can only be done by using higher bit resolution which will be very hard to maintain using varying charge capacitance . One typical example is when a laptop is run with an unclean power source the touchpad starts behaving erratically and goes out of calibration due to the use of a poorly shielded power supply.
They should use sealed greased pots that's what they use in (good quality ones anyway) R/C servos for the feedback pots (the thing that tells the servo what position it's at). The lubrication prevents the tracks from wearing down and it's sealed so dirt can't get in. I mean it will eventually go bad but I have R/C equipment made in the late 80's that still works just fine.
As many of us have said though... we've experienced drift because the springs wear out and the control stick sticks in a given direction. I've never worn a controller to the point the sensors wear out, but the springs do where the stick is sloppy and no longer returns to home.
I mean is this an improvement? Sure... I'd love to see better springs though.
Yes. I have fixed a few controllers by replacing the sticks with some cheap ones, but keeping the original potentiometers because they're better quality and there's nothing wrong with them. My problem is always the mechanical part, the potentiometers are always fine.
@@rafaelgsbr my potentiometers are busted after just 3 months of use on an xbox controller..
Indeed this also strikes me. The Dreamcast and flight sticks last forever because they ditch the XY splitter assembly and directly read the position of the magnet with 4 Hall sensors underneath, and do the axis transformation digitally. The lack of mechanical splitter allows them to put a large spring wrapping around the assembly which barely moves in use and thus doesn't degrade with time. Another problem in ALPS style sticks is wear in the joints of the XY splitter, again not a problem in prior existing Hall sticks. This assembly reintroduces problems of the ALPS style stick.
Potentiometer lifetime is about as long as 3 mechanical assembly lifetimes on the Xbox360 pad, PS2 pad and several others. I only do old stuff but i know my way around it.
I bet these guys invented a worse Hall stick in order to be able to patent it; the claimed usefulness would be drop-in compatibility (in a variant with trimmable opamps for example) against existing ALPS style sticks.
Apropos interesting patents: Allegro has one which ditches the spring and uses a magnet instead, considering there is already a magnet dangling from the bottom of the stick. I'm looking at that and thinking: finally a patent that... while i dislike patents, this is specifically the kind of smart the patent system was invented for! Like you look at this and think wow, it's elegant and simple and nobody thought of this before?
yep, my controller is so worn out that when i push up or down on the analog stick, it stuck that way. I don't think hall effect sensor can fix this issue at all :)
PS3 controllers used hall effect sensors as well according to Ben Heck. They also sometimes suffered from drift, but maybe to a much lesser degree than other consoles. Another reason for drift being increasingly more common may be that in the strive for "precision", game and console makes are minimizing the dead zone, making the software less tolerant for hardware wear. :(
Not all ps 3 controllers had Hall effect sticks
Thanks for the explainer! I’ve still never had stick drift in all these years though, I feel like I’m the only one but.
The biggest issue I've had with controllers (apart from joycons lol), are simply the mechanical bits wearing out rather than drift, leading to sloppy sticks. Honestly I think just replaceable stick boxes are more of a solution that covers all failures, rather than stick technology.
Youre saying replaceable is better than something that fixes the problem so replacements arent needed?
@@SkulsterDulster as I said these sticks will fail over time also, the plastic gates will simply wear down over time and become sloppy. Having the sticks be socketed instead of soldered would make either type of stick replaceable should they fail.
@@robinrai4973 Makes sense, I agree.
So is it possible to get these new sensors and solder them to existing controllers, calibrate them and make them work?
A pro controller from both Sony and MS that lets users open the controller to replace broken parts at a cost of $200 would probably be worth it since you pay a high cost of front but the controller would last more than 2 console generations with heavy use.
As an RC pilot for over 17 years now, I can tell you the following:
There are good and bad potentiometers. I'va had good radio transmitters, with metal encased, internally lubricated pots and bad radio transmitters with plastic pots and flimsy PCBs, way to soft contact pads and just overall poor performance. One of my oldest radios is over 15 years old now, a Futaba 7C (if you want to look it up) and I have never had to callibrate the sticks since I purchased the radio. I also have a Futaba T14SG from 2014 and it has gone through countless hours of 3D flying (agressive stick movements) and it doesn't have any drift. out of curiosity, I've had a look inside both of these radios and my conclusion is that the most important thing in terms of joystick drift is not the wear on the potentiometers, but rather the the stick centering strenght, i.e. the quality of the spring and centre stick mechanism, which determines how well the sticks centre over time. If have a little bit of play, the stick will not centre properly, that's it. Joystick controllers have the issue that they use very soft springs and nylon guides to keep the sticks where they are supposed to be, and that is a huge problem because those wear out over time. If the sticks get soft on an RC radio, you have the option to replace the springs and adjust the centre position mechanically (f it has even shifted). Then you recallibrate the sticks and you are done for the next 10-15 years. I've also had Hall Gimbals on three of my more modern radios and I can't tell the difference apart from the resistance that you feel adjusting the sticks to be soft. Soft sticks with pots have some residual internal friction and dampening due to the internal lubrication. I think hall sensor joysticks will have the same problem as regular joysticks because the main centering mechanism will start to wear eventually, weaken and get wobbly over time and simply fail at some point. What manufacturers need to do is to improve the construction quality by increasing the rigidiry and the toughness of the materials used for the gimbal mechanism (and I mean both of these terms by their engineering or metrial science definition). Whether you then have potentiometers or hall effect sensors will make absolutely no difference at all. Most likely, this has not been done due to obvious manufacturing cost implications.
The issue imo isn't potetiometers but really really cheap potentiometers
You guys should do more videos like this. Very informative and well made.
You can use Hall effect sensors and it won't fix joystick drift permanently. You still have the OTHER kind of thumbstick drift seen most on stuff like the PSP and Index controllers, and old arcade units and a Thrustmaster T-16000m I had, where the springs wear out so the stick physically slides to a side when not in use. Doesn't matter how reliable the sensors are if the sticks themselves drift. The T-16000m especially already used Hall effect sensors and STILL experienced drift.
The Xbox controllers triggers use the same technology I would expect the next version of the elite controller to use these for the joysticks as well I'm tired of soldering on new potentiometers every 3 months for my controller
The worst thing is that Microsoft (and I guess Sony etc) uses Hall sensors in the Xbox One controllers, but only in the triggers. This is because the other benefit of Hall-effect sensors is that they have virtually no dead zones. They react immediately and predictably to inputs unlike traditional potentiometers, which makes them great for trigger actions like snappy shooting and progressive acceleration.
Although it may be because I'm a PC gamer first, I don't think I've ever had drift issues so much as the spring that centers the stick wearing down to the point that there's a large enough freely moveable space in the middle with no resistance. That is the only thing I've ever really had to adjust deadzones for for the most part.
It's funny that the N64 had a clever LED-photosensor setup with no electrical contact points either. Their issue was that they buggered up the mechanical contact points though so the physical stick would wear down and not hold centre.
Zero drift, but after a while it wouldn't pull itself to centre anymore, you had to hold the limp stick manually. If hall effects are expensive, I reckon repackaging the photoreceptor setup into this formfactor with the superior gimbal setup we have these days would be the best of both worlds and super cheap.
They can do it by looking at the original Dualshock 3 and dreamcast and saturn controllers. They use halleffect instead or cheap potentiometers
The Dualshock 3 use hall sensors? Or was Six Axis controller that doesn't has rumble?
@@GenesHand Dualshock 3 model CECHZC2U (maybe some other models), has hall-effect, yes.
OG Xbox as well
@@edwardtan1354 Nah the Duke has standard potentiometer ALPS sticks, same as PS1 Dualshock.
@@SianaGearz so maybe it was the 360? since IIRC Ben actually salvaged 1 analog stick from an Xbox controller and that had magnets in it
Stick drift can easily be caused by dirt in the pots and can easily be cleaned with ipa cleaner ! I fix roughly 20 a day at work the dirt or fragments is usually caused buy grinding metal on the top of the sticks depending on the pad !
Sometimes you can mitigate a little bit of drift depending on which of the axis is affected, what action is required, and if the game or software supports it.
1. By adjusting the deadzones, or 2. for example when it affects running of the character, to map that action to another button if possible. I've had to do it in a few occasions.
It's not a solution, just postponing the inevitable, but you can still keep using it until you can fix it properly.
Adjusting deadzones and re-mapping buttons delays or masks the problem.
Hall-Effect or Optical sensors are better and longer lasting.
The N64 controller uses an optical sensor and the thing that wears out is the analog stick itself grinding against itself, not the sensor. But because the stick and sensor are one unit, you just replace it. I had to replace it in my N64 very early on, just about 2 years after the n64 launched. Knowing what the actual failure is, using a little dab of lithium grease to prevent the plastic-on-plastic contact grinding itself into powder - that same controller still works to this day for my kids.
Did you try replacing potentiometers on controllers with hall sensors? Or are there any bolt on replacements?
A simple solution without having to change hardware for the current existing hardware would be just to simply allow dead zone adjustments on every console on a per controller basis. Calibration for full motion and then a fully adjustable middle dead zone would help immensely. A large middle dead zone would eventually become a problem, but for minor to even somewhat drastic drift, it could cancel it out. It's amazing that dead zone settings aren't already a thing on all consoles by now.
while this videos shows a part of the problem i feel there is more to it than just the potentiometers. i have fixed a lot of controller and one thing i noticed besides damaged potentiometers is a loose center spring. most of the sticks have a hard time staying in the middle positions because of old worn out springs. they start to have some play in the center position. so a hall sensor would also pick up this slack.
Thanks for the cool vid. Very informative.
So why aren't manufacturers using this tech already? what's the downside of it?
Are they purposely trying to build in, obsolescence in this case?
I mean if they did like you guys said in another video, at least make the thumb sticks hardware, replaceable, that would be a great thing?
This is an interesting question and as others have guessed it may simply come down to cost but it's difficult to know without further investigation.
Our goal was to identify the problem and potential solutions and you are absolutely right, making modular thumbsticks would be one solution. The Steam Deck has done just that.
Planned obsolescence is my guess honestly, it makes no sense to keep using potentiometers when HES are so much more reliable and not that much more expensive to manufacture.
Potentiometers are as cheap as dirt so I think that's the main reason, the obsolescence is a byproduct.
The downside is, you could still be playing your PS2 20 years later, instead of buying Sony's new console.
This is bad for business. They would rather force you to buy the newest console, and pay for all your old games again!
sensors have nothing to do with drift, the problem is in the centering mechanism which has a backlash and it grows over time
Awesome video. I first learned about the difference in controllers when I learned about the user-maintainability of the Steam Deck and the Hall-effect replacement sticks available for it. Just a little more expensive but a *lot* better.
As a flight and racing simmer, I know hall sensor from like 2008, but now it's almost norm (along with some optics senor some where and force cell is another story then...)
I can't believe it's not yet in game controller yet... if they decide not, Good news is, with some 3D print part it's very easy to convert one to hall. I have done one for an old throttle quadrant.
I think Nintendo would prefer you buy a new Switch every 4 months since that makes them the most money. Why would they stop if people don't stop buying them?
I appreciate how this good fellow pronounces his t's so clearly.
A very similar thing happened in the DJ world. Originally, all DJ mixers used contact faders where a couple of brushes would move over two carbon tracks as the fader was moved. The carbon tracks could wear out, and dust/grime getting inside a fader could affect the contact between the brushes and tracks. That would lead to the sound bleeding or crackling - not good.
Now many DJ mixers use non-contact faders that use optical or magnetic technology, eliminating the issues that contact faders had.
I think whether companies use these new stick modules will come down to cost more than anything. I don't really buy into the "they want them to break so you have to buy new ones" argument, even though there is some merit to that, cos I think ultimately, they would prefer the consumer to have a better time with their products, have fewer customer service contacts regarding broken controllers, and create less waste. I would like them to use higher quality components all round tbh, cos I love the feel and features of MS's Elite controllers, for example, but I have had a bunch of technical issues with both the OG and Series 2 versions.
Rane 🤘
I'm looking forward to getting the Gulikit thumbsticks for my Steam Deck as they're using magnets too.
Though even hall effect sensors drift eventually.
Long story short: The solution is using magnetic hall effect sensors which don't wear out.
So, the issue outlined here can also be caused in part by the by the joystick's centering mechanism wearing down, there is a lot of plastic on plastic contact in there, and over time that will cause the stick to not center and feeling rather loose. You can currently buy joystick components that function and fit the same as the plastic ones, but they are all metal, which lasts a lot longer and feels a tad snappier. I've refurbished a lot of xbox 360 wireless controllers with these parts.
I started doing this when I noticedy twenty year old well loved Saitek controller had almost no joystick wear, while my significantly newer 360 controllers had so much wear it was unusable, then I popped them open and noticed the difference.
If you remove the circuit board that contains the hall effects sensors and then demagnetize it. It will fix the problem of the sensors becoming magnetized over time due to their proximity to the magnets.
The steam deck uses Hall effect sensor in the analog sticks. A way to make Hall effect analog stick cheap to manufacture is to take the design from the Sega dreamcast integrate the Hall effect ADC into the main I/O chip, integrate the top housing of the joysticks in to the top body of the controller, and use a smaller spring to further shave down costs.
No, the Steam Deck does not use Hall effect analog sticks by default. But GuliKit, the manufacturer of the gamepad shown in this video, sells Hall effect analog sticks for the Steam Deck as replacements.
Yeah my Xbox series controller started drifting after a half year of regular use, never had drifting issues before i just thought it would only happen if you carry your switch for example in your pockets or something or in a backpack but just playing games is enough to cause drifting.
This is nice! But my question is, can I just replace my old - non hall effect sensors with hall sensors on old controllers? I think if we can match the voltages it should be possible since the form factors are almost identical.
iirc the guys from Linus Tech Tips upgraded them for the Steam Deck recently and it was awesome!
I'd love to see more custom / third party controllers using this tech since the major platforms will likely prefer the increased sales from their designed obsolescence
Me too. But the only off the shelf ones readily available I know are ps3 controller replacements, which use 4 pins
It is economics bro.... a cheap swipe of carbon on a Mylar sheet and a slider makes a potentiometer and a predictable fail point where the player complains to mommy and purchases a new controller. They have less than zero care about longevity but focus on the bottom line.
Great video and the time it takes to conceptualize, create and edit these are appreciated very much sir.
And yet the big guys won't do it.
The cost still outweighs projected lifetime.
Didn't the dreamcast used hall effect sensors for the thumbstick?
I've always wondered why optical encoders haven't been adopted. So much professional music hardware is covered in optical knobs. Hell it's how pretty much every mouse works now, so it's not like we're lacking the tiny precision power efficient integration.
They simply cost more.
Optical encoder happened, that's how the N64 stick worked! Honestly it's terrible, the splitter to translate the XY movement into separate X and Y wasn't well made due to unsuitable material choice (ABS - not enough abrasion resistance due to flake grafting), there was an attempt at gearing which wasn't that well conceived either, and there were only like a couple dozen steps of precision across the movement range, like maybe 64 tops.
Which pro music hardware has optical knobs? I don't deal with stuff that costs above a grand, but i haven't seen anything, all purely electrical contact based so far, sealed oil type though, nice enough to last a lifetime. Except DJ controller platters, those are always optical.
@@SianaGearz literally hundreds of devices and it's not just limited to audio hardware. pretty much anything with a precision knob that spins forever. thanks to optical mouse technology, modern optical encoders have evolved to be incredibly accurate and cheap.
@@placebomessiah Not "literally anything", lots of indent-free contact rotary incremental encoders, they're the standard solution really. Feel and work fine, when well made, and even in middling music gear, they've got some quality behind them. Naturally not forever unlike optical. Optical devices have a flaw, they need to not accumulate dust, and at small sizes they need to be fully shielded, which is way more difficult than it seems; this isn't the case with mechanical ones, the oil pressure just doesn't let any dust come in so the seal can be fairly loose and they'll still run for a couple decades. Making a tight seal is a near impossibility since you want that shaft to rotate easily.
Or like DJ turntables there there is often just the bare minimum of shielding but the optical gaps for rim sensing are so generous that they just won't get clogged up in a reasonable time. I mean obviously people still manage to clog them up sometimes. Another interesting issue is in the optical absolute encoder crossfader Behringer made for some of their higher end DJ mixers, which is nice enough, should last an eternity... unless it happens to be used near a fog machine, where it will temporarily glitch out. Not great for the intended usecase.
Also nothing to do with optical mice necessarily. You remember ball mice? They split the ball motion onto two shafts which were read by optical incremental encoders. That's still how incremental optical encoders work, not with array imagers and DSPs that optical mice use. They didn't reach very high step counts, unlike possible with sealed optical encoders, though those have a considerable cost to them.
@@Aikano9 My optical mouse cost me $15. I doubt that majority of that $15 is the optical sensor.
Is this possible with the size of the Joy-Cons though? I feel like the reason Nintendo has been trying to bury the issue is because they don't want to redesign the joy-con to be larger and thicker to accommodate a larger stick.
With joycons, it has been shown that you can at least mitigate the issue by placing a piece of card under the stick. It's mostly a fit and wear issue.
This is industrial design at its worse. I keep returning controllers to get replacements. Seems hugely wasteful.
Hall effect won't really eliminate stick drift, because a lot of the times stick drift is due to the centering mechanism getting sloppy/worn out over time (too much plastic in the mechanism, and quite often the spring used to create tension to return the thumbstick to center loses it's strength to be able to return the thumbstick back to center).
Hall effect will eliminate dirty potentiometer issues like erratic movement in game during when you're moving the thumbstick (see Atari 2600 paddle controller dirty potentiometer issue), but HE won't really cure stick drift as the thumbstick usually still has a tight connection to the potentiometer.
The plastics used in the centering mechanism will get worn down, and when wearing down it'll also produce a fine plastic powder that coats everything inside the centering mechanism, not only will it cause the drift issue as well it can also make the thumbstick is harder to move smoothly.
As a radio control enthusiast and flight sim pilot, I can say that you are wrong. the plastics used in most game controllers as well as R/C and flight sticks are very durable and springs can typically be replaced, so long as the items are well cared for and not dropped a lot. For my R/C helicopters, I used the same radio for ten years (Spektrum DX7) and didn't bother with an upgrade (Spektrum DX8e) until I got my first drone and found out that my software wouldn't work with it. My sim controllers had other components fail (external wiring) LONG before the axis sensors did (Logitech X56). As of this comment, I currently have over 2200 hours on MSFS 2020 and DCS with my Thrustmaster T16000 flight controls. I will say that I need to get some powdered graphite to lube the throttle and rudder pedals as they suffer from way too much friction. In the game controller (D-pad type) arena, when the pots start to wear down, the signal gets erratic and true center can be harder to define without adjusting deadzones. Yes, the axis still has a tight connection to the pot but the pot is too worn to be accurate. This is where Hall effect is superior. Hall effect does not need deadzones as it doesn't wear out like pots. you instead adjust the sensitivity with expo curves and you get 100% control for a VERY long time. In closing, don't sell hall effect short, you'd be surprised at the performance gains that you can achieve with it.
@@wedgie502 yeah here let's compare materials in an RC system vs a cheap controller to a game system...........
Let me ask how many game console controllers have you worked on?
I've worked on quite a few, and each one that has stick drift issues is due to the return mechanism being worn down, and no longer able to return the thumbstick back to center, not the POTS.
You're also confusing POT failure (due to dirt in the POT or the contact area in the POT being damaged) to actual stick drift.
@@madmax2069 what happens when two things rub together? you get friction and erosion, this is why modern pots fail, there is the dirt that you are referring to. also, if you watched this video, they show what a worn pot looks like with the grove worn into it. as far as my experience with game controllers, I'm a genx that has had almost every generation of console starting with Pong. Yes, I even did some home repair on my Atari 2600 controllers. Modern pots are wear items that usually wear out very quickly these days. This is mainly due to miniaturization to make game controllers more compact and overall cheaper to manufacture. also, the "stick drift" that is the issue in this video is not due to mechanical failure, it is due to, can you guess, pot failure that the software reads as movement due to erratic signal. watch the video before replying again.
EDIT: your original post states the HE wont cure stick drift due to a tight connection to the potentiometer. HE DOESN'T have potentiometers, thats why it fixes it.
Purchased new controller 1/14/23. After the one that came with the PS5 lasted just over a month I purchased the extra warranty, and I'm glad I did. The new controller did not even make it a month. Both controllers had exact same issue, erratic right thumb stick. Started out jerking (not drifting) to the left and very soon after was in continuous left.
How to fix stick drift on PS5.......buy a third party switch controller.
as a engineer we know not to use pot or buy controllers that use them
but these companies love them so u keep buying the new pro controllers from them , it make them millions and the fan bois line up for it
We need to push this out there! Companies should not get away with this.
I'm not a gamer so hadn't come across this until someone brought a controller to a Repair Café I was fixing at with this issue - I gave it a clean but not sure if that helped or not in the end as he didn't have the console - this was a useful insight into the solution - kind of reminds me of why old fashioned 'ball' mice were replaced with optical mice over time!
After watching the video, I have two questions.
1. This problem hasn't arisen until recently; how did past controllers have far better potentiometer quality when compared to today's controllers?
2. Wouldn't Hall Effect Sensors add latency as they output an analog signal that needs conversion to a digital signal?
1. They didn't. Potentiometer based sensors have always had the same drift issues, for example as someone who only played Playstation at friends' house I don't think I've ever used a PS1 or PS2 dualshock controller that didn't have really bad drift. There are multiple reasons why it's perceived to be more of a problem now than before: You might not have run into the problem yourself on older controllers; that's just random chance. The volume of failure has gone up because there are way controllers out there being used, the failures show up sooner because spend more time gaming and modern games rely more on thumbstick controls than old games; it doesn't mean the quality of the sensors have gotten worse. It's much easier to come across stories of failed sticks now than before because of modern social media. Older games often had low precision input (e.g. only two fixed walking and running speeds) and large deadzones which hid the drift. Finally, joysticks other than thumbsticks, with other types of sensors, were more popular, so drift wasn't something people were that aware of as a problem.
2. Pots also output an analog signal. There's no difference.
@@Berengal Thanks! Your points gave me a new perspective and helped me learn a few things today. However, I still can't help but wonder if the quality of potentiometers in controllers truly hasn't changed for the worse, especially when compared to the Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons. Otherwise, when I think about it, yeah, I didn't have as much time to play video games in the past compared to now (let alone even afford it), so maybe you're right. I quickly read that there were analog and digital potentiometers without actually understanding what they were; it makes sense now.
@@TheRacingDevon it has to. I’ve had gamecube controllers with still perfect joysticks after 10 years of use while I’ve had 3 modern controllers busted in 3 years. 1 joycon, 1 nsw pro controller and 1 xbox series controller. Also my xbox one controller is now drifting but that lasted almost 10 years since I got it in 2013. It seems modern joysticks are not as durable as they used to be, even if they are using the same tech
Hall effect sensors were in controllers ages ago. Sega used them on the Saturn and Dreamcast, and Sony actually used them in some early Sixaxis models, as in the very first PS3 controllers that had no rumble. I honestly think they simply didn't catch on because there is more money in selling controllers that will definitely break much easier, and the issue would've kept going mostly ignored if Nintendo hadn't pushed it as far as they did with the switch, making one of the most expensive 1st party controllers ever and also one of the most shoddily put together.
What is very funny is that Nintendo's first analogue controller (n64) used optical sensors and not resistive pots. If only they had proper bearing surface instead of plastic on plastic.
Can I install hall effect joysticks in my PS5 controller??
So far I’ve not had a single controller having drift. However, one thing I never do is never add pressure to the stick while turning. And I have my thumb on the outer edges, not laying flat in the middle Center of the stick like many people do.
It’s not just up to manufacturers to adopt this, it’s up to us as consumers.
Reminder: We had a Solution with the PS3 - but everyone flamed and bashed that Controller, didn't let a good hair on it or talk positively about the PS3 controller in any ways.
So its OUR fault for that!
Since 2006... To 2017 on the PS3 as other mentions. This is not new tech, and has been used on a major console. The question one should ask is why did Sony change back to resistive? Cost? Other types of wear? susceptibility to other magnetic fields like it's own second magnet next to it? Non-linear effects? Inconsistent field strength of production magnets that might necessitate more calibration which is highly labour intensive.
Definitely not cost. Hall sensors are not expensive. Microsoft switched the triggers from potentiometers to hall sensors when going from 360 => xbox one.
I suspect the reason is probably tied to why all the manufacturers making "crappy" thumbsticks have no problem giving you durability testing results, while the guys making the ones that supposedly never go bad won't. There is probably some engineering reason why potentiometers are favored over hall sensors in thumbstick applications. I suspect once these have been out in the wild and start accumulating some wear and tear we will get a better sense of why that is.
@@nerdstrangler4804 I can see two issues in this Hall design. That it retains the deformation prone tiny return spring and the wear-prone splitter assembly, both of which are not a problem in other Hall sticks but are problems in potentiometer based sticks. I don't think it will last.
Dreamcast used Hall but it looks like they puzzled around a bit with suppressing interference, such as with screw placement and choice, and relative placement of different Hall controls such that they don't interfere with each other. It might be one of several reasons why it's kind of an oddball controller by look and feel. On the flip side that Hall hardware in that one actually lasts forever; great application of force management, minimal spring deformation, correct lubrication, no abrasion whatsoever. The lubricant will decay but you just replace it and you're good again for the next 10+ years.
planned obsolescence
I believe that the original Microsoft Sidewinder force feedback pc joystick used a single multi axis hall effect sensor on the X and y axis inputs.
I can think of a few reasons why the analog potentiometer is still the standard in gaming. Apart from the cost and availability of components, one thing that springs to mind as an issue is the effect of rumble motors. These operate by generating a magnetic field, and the controller would need to be designed from the ground up such that the effects of having the rumble motor running would not be detrimental to the accuracy of the stick. Whether that’s through greater physical distance between the sensor and the motor, such that it’s not affected, or by compensating in software, it’s an extra design consideration that the analog devices just don’t have.
Another issue, specific to the Joy-Con at this point, is the physical throw distance. Joy-Cons use very low sticks, by which I mean the point on which they pivot in both the X and Y directions is a lot closer to the thumb than it is on other joystick designs. This means it’s harder to package the sensor in the joystick unit, and to have enough physical movement of the magnet mounted to the joystick to be able to affect the Hall sensor enough to get the accuracy wanted in the output voltage.
Even with all these things taken into account, the centering effect of the stick is only as good as the physical mechanism on which it relies. If the spring on which the joystick rides fails, it’s the same problem whether your stick is using magnets or resistors to read its value. This is also another argument towards the potentiometer-based device; it’s available as a single unit which incorporates a standardised upright. A Hall-based solution requires engineering the physical action of the stick separately from the sensor mechanism, raising the design complexity.
I do find it worth noting that certain current-gen controllers do use Hall effect as a matter of course, specifically in the analog triggers on the Xbox controller; and these have their own vibration motors in close proximity. I suspect they are using software compensation.
This is interesting! I'll certainly read up on this and see how Gulikit approached the problem. Do you have any references for this information?
@@iFixitYourself In terms of references, I don’t have any documents; this is speculation on my part regarding reasons why Hall effect isn’t the standard. Most of this actually comes from my experience in sim-racing hardware. I have a Thrustmaster T-LCM set of pedals, which use a load cell to detect braking force, and Hall effect sensors to monitor the acceleration and clutch pedals; the arms of the pedals are made of ferrous metal. However, when I tried to mount vibration motors (the same type as used in 360 controllers) which were connected to a separate device for control, I found that the interference from the motors being activated would cause the accelerator pedal to stop responding. Since they’re separate devices, and the pedals are effectively a “black box” in that I can’t alter the firmware of them, it’s not possible to apply the software compensation I mentioned. However, I believe that other pedal sets which do have motors integrated as an option are not affected in the same way; whether that is through software (ignoring readings when the motor is known to be active, for example; if the motor is being driven by PWM, it may also be possible to take readings when the motor is off) or physical separation; I haven’t used these, so I can’t tell either way. It may be worth repeating the experiment shown on the Gulikit controller while holding a small motor (driven from another device, such as an Arduino) nearby, and see how it reacts when the motor is both on and off.
The rest of the effects I mentioned are speculation on my part; the physical design of the joysticks on the Joy-Cons are known to be small packages, as can be seen from replacement parts, while the spring argument is basically saying that it’s easier to design the whole controller if the functionality of center return is already provided by the joystick module, rather than adding it in separately.
I have no experience in industrial electronic design, these are all speculation on my part as to reasons why, partially based on my own experience. I also want to note that the PS5 adapter triggers still use potentiometers to determine their position; since they have motors in very close proximity, it may not be possible for them to be substituted with Hall sensors in the manner that the Xbox triggers use.
Dreamcast had an interesting quirk that a number of screws in the controller anywhere around the Hall stick had to be out of NF metal, something bronze like. I think they puzzled around with screw placement and overall construction a little to make it work, it sure makes that impression.
Indeed the rumble motor was VERY far from any Hall hardware but i don't know whether that has anything to do with that or whether it just worked out like that. I could certainly create some interference nearby and check next time i break out the Dreamcast. Besides Hall stick the triggers are also Hall.
The 4 screws were installed so tight at the factory one stripped.It’s also happened with other Chinese products.They using impact drivers or what? Glue maybe?
That's a misleading, clickbaity title. It should be more like "How manufacturers can fix the drift issue permanently."
Oftentimes you can't even fix drift by swapping the part as controllers are calibrated at the factory and there's no way for the consumer to re-calibrate it after swapping out parts.
@karm42yn Yes, but this is iFixit. Not theyFixit
@@sadbucket Yes, but this is iFixit. Not theyFixit.
I noticed that older controllers eg Xbox 360 , Ps3 don’t drift and I’ve seen really chewed up controllers of that gen and no drift at all
Soo....the video doesn't show how to fix joystick drift on your controller permanently. Clickbaity title. If you want to know how to REALLY fix your controller, watch LinusTechTips video on this subject.
It does show how to fix it permanently, with these magnetic sensors. Though yes, it doesn't show YOU how to fix YOUR controller.
Can't you read? The title clearly says How Manufacturers Can Fix Joystick Drift. Not how you can.
he really edited the comments instead of deleting it, it's just amazing even more amazing he didn't edit it to admit his mistake
Okay, firstly thanks for highlighting this issue!
Second,
Hall Effect Joystick Sensors are NOT the "End Game" solution to fixing the problem. But they are a positive step in the right direction.
Just like any other piece if hardware you need to have it calibrated properly out of the box and in the past 6-Months I've seen a wealth of replacement Hall Effect Joystick Sensor products arrive on to the market, but unfortunately a trait with them has been that some of them have notably bad calibration out of the box meaning that the end result can still be a very poor tracking experience.
I mean, that's kinda the point of calibrating your controllers after replacing the joystick assembly. I just replaced my joycons joysticks with hall effect joysticks and yeah they needed recalibration but that takes less than a minute to do and after that they work fantastically.
@@Enclave. I meant in regards to firmware, the actual firmware inside on the micro controller baked into the joysticks, they are REALLY POORLY calibrated in the way they react to input such that no amount of built-in device level adjustments can positively counteract the inaccurate readings.
@@longnamedude3947 Ah, gotcha. When I hear calibration I immediately think of people who don't know you need to calibrate your joysticks any time you replace the assembly.
I thought hall sensors were some fancy customization to a controller for try hard gamers but I see it’s just a better tech that lasts longer, thank for the clarification
I wonder what is "The latest Master Elite Five Thousand for the Playstation 5" mentioned on 0:07.
I’m sure the reason for buying new controllers every 4 months due it’s cheap quality is no coincidence. Planned obsolescence, they’ll (Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo) will never pick up this solution and if they were offered too they would bury that opportunity a new grave due to greed, great video btw!
Where are the aftermarket Hall sensor pot replacement joystick assemblies?
I have the Gulikit Zen pro and can tell you it feels hella diffrent then a standerd controller. And reacts a lot diffrently. For anyone wondering, the King Kong 2 is the Zen Pro they just renamed it.
A replacement for normal sticks can be done, but needs a DAC circuit. It is a little complicated but its doable... Ben Heck did it.
Had this controller but at some point started to get troubles with few face buttons and right shoulder button. Now I wonder how soon other manufacturers will adopt hall sensor sticks and triggers in their products so we can choose between many good alternatives..
Xbox actually already uses hall effect sensors in their triggers.
That the value at the center point varies is completly normal and is mitigated by a dead zone in software. This technology has been used for decades and was always a fine solution. Only a small, loud minority is complaining about "stick drift". I have never seen it in person.
Thank you so much for bringing this up, I love you guys.
This is a great step in the right direction,
but it still drifts backawards in the wrong.
See the problem is that this design doesn't
give the user any customizable options.
If you wanted to mod the spring tension
you'd have to run through the trouble of
desoldering the thumbstick potentially
causing damage to the circuit board in
the process if you mess up just once.
The right way to go would be like
Paradise Arcade's Majenta Joystick.
Design a thumbstick that screws in
and out for easy access and gives
the user the ability to swap out the
spring or any other component.
This is a nice step forward but
not in the direction I'd like it.
I'm curious if it's possible to modify existing controllers to use these joysticks.
Manufacturers won't do it, so can we?
Probably not. The power supply, DAC and/or software also play their part in the chain, so they need updating (to their circuitry) as well. These sensors are not drop-in replacements for potentiometers (as far as I know)
@@erwinmulder1338 shame. I doubt xbox or Sony will want to use hall effect sticks because they'd last too long, but I've never got along well with 3rd party controllers.
Thank you for a great video on joystick sensors.