How To Fix Controller Drift Without Opening
Mere months have passed since the PS5'south hotly anticipated launch, and already there's a class-activity lawsuit brewing over joystick migrate on Sony's high-tech DualSense controllers. Who could have seen this coming? Well, as it turns out, everyone. Everyone should have seen this coming. Because for all its exciting new tech, the DualSense uses off-the-shelf joystick hardware with a long history of predictable, preventable bug. And now we've investigated those issues in excruciating detail.
Similar the PlayStation 5 itself, the DualSense controller feels like a device brought back from the near-future. It has new adaptive triggers and advanced haptic feedback. Deeper inside, nevertheless, are joystick modules that could accept been held over from when Seinfeld was on the air. In some ways they're actually less sophisticated than certain joystick engineering science available in the tardily 1990s.
Sony isn't the just company to use off-the-shelf joystick modules, but, like Microsoft, they've made it difficult to repair this consumable component. Joysticks have a known life expectancy—it'due south listed right in a product sheet from the manufacturer. It's predictable they would fail, which makes you wonder if information technology'south a willful cost-saving calculation on the console makers' part to not offer more reliable, or replaceable, sticks.
Let's head inside a DualSense controller to see what is failing, and how.
The potentiometer problem
Nosotros gave a detailed blow-past-blow of the controller disassembly in our PS5 teardown, so here nosotros'll zoom right in on the joysticks. Different the buttons and analog directional pad, the DualSense thumbsticks sit down directly atop the main controller board.
The joystick modules themselves are manufactured past Alps—a name familiar to anyone who has fallen down a deep keyboard hole, or struggled with a trackpad driver. The Japanese company (formerly Alps Electric, now Alps Tall) specializes in input and sensing devices.
Tempting every bit it may exist to blame Alps for the PS5'due south drifting problems, they probably aren't the villain of this story—because, brand proper name notwithstanding, this joystick module looks extremely familiar. You may already recognize it from the prior-gen PlayStation's controller, the DualShock four. Or from the Xbox One controllers. Maybe the Nintendo Switch Pro controller. Or, somewhat confusingly, the $180 Xbox One Elite controller. Underneath that plastic cap, the dirty secret is that they all use the same joystick hardware.
Getting a closer look requires a significant amount of effort. Both joystick modules are soldered to the controller board, with 16 solder joints apiece—including two wires to remove, for the haptic motors on each side.
You're not getting these joysticks out without soldering gear: at minimum an iron, flux, a desoldering braid and/or solder sucker, and patience. Or you lot could cover up all the other components with high-temperature tape, heat up a whole pot of solder, and dip information technology in for the win. We went a more traditional route, blasting it with hot air until the solder gave way.
With the entire joystick module removed, nosotros can pry it apart and survey what's inside.
Each of these seafoam covers houses a potentiometer—that'southward two per joystick, ready perpendicular to each other. I potentiometer senses up/down movement, and the other left/correct.
To understand the part they play, information technology's helpful to know how a potentiometer goes about the business concern of measuring position. You kickoff with a strip of cloth with a known, uniform resistance value—that is, how hard it tries to finish an electric current running through information technology. Put one terminal at each stop, and so y'all can apply a known voltage beyond the entire strip. Now add a tertiary terminal, chosen a wiper, that slides dorsum and forth along the strip. The voltage reading at the wiper changes predictably based on the wiper'south location—closer to ane last or the other, or right in between.
The potentiometers in the DualSense joysticks work like that, except instead of moving back and along in a straight line, the wiper races effectually a semicircular track fabricated of printed carbon film. When y'all movement the joystick with your thumb, information technology rotates ii little shafts, 1 continued to each wiper. The wipers translate their positions into voltage values, which the controller reads to decide the joystick'south position and motion.
At that place are two other noteworthy components in the modernistic joystick. One is a bound that returns your joystick to a centered, neutral position when you lot let get. The other is the push-in push action that many controllers offering on their thumbsticks.
Knowing what nosotros know well-nigh who made this affair and how it works, let'south move onto where it doesn't piece of work.
Why Migrate Happens
Who knows the particulars of the PS5 joysticks better than the company that makes them? Let's take a look at Alps' spec sheet for the RKJXV series, a ThumbPointer™ (Stick Controller) fabricated for "Game" purposes. Search around eBay and other shopping sites, and you lot'll see variants of this model number listed alongside many PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch Pro Controller joystick replacements. Right on page one of the product sheet is the operating life for the RKJXV's potentiometers: 2,000,000 cycles.
One of our teardown engineers measured their own Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) controller interactions for back-of-the-envelope joystick life math. Averaging ten different 30-2d intervals, they made roughly 100 full potentiometer rotations per minute. If you play a less stick-intensive game than a first-person shooter, rotating eighty times per minute, y'all'll hit ii,000,000 rotations in 25,000 minutes, or 417 hours—that'due south only 209 days, playing 2 hours per mean solar day. At a more than kinetic 120 rotations per minute, that'southward 139 days at two hours per mean solar day. So Alps' own rating for authentic joystick measurements is, in one gamer's hypothetical experience, 4-vii months—and that's with a very not-pandemic 2-60 minutes cap on your game time.
That doesn't necessarily mean your joystick volition drift at that point—it could fail earlier, or go on working fine for much longer. Merely null lasts forever, and potentiometers are no exception. Here's why.
1. Sensor wear
The beginning potential cause of drift is the hardest to avoid: wear to the potentiometers. Over time, the wiper scrubbing dorsum and along against the resistive pad creates imperfections, altering the voltage readings across the terminals—think of a skipping tape or scratched CD. It'due south worth noting that, while the Switch's infamously drifty Joy-Con sticks expect quite different internally, with wipers moving across flat pads instead of circular tracks, they tin neglect in exactly the same mode: wear to the pads, resulting in incorrect readings.
2. Spring fatigue
Let'southward not lay all the blame at the feet of these little resistors, though. In club to work, they have to measure joystick movements from a consistent, neutral starting point. As you move your joystick around, the spring-loaded self-centering mechanism tin stretch slightly, creating a new "neutral" bespeak. In this scenario, the potentiometers can still accurately read the relative position of the joystick, simply that position is objectively incorrect.
3. Textile stretching
That's not to say that plastic stretching throughout the joystick isn't a factor. You are, afterwards all, constantly pushing joysticks against their limits, sometimes quite hard, whether drifting in Forza or stressfully racing the clock in Overcooked. Nosotros suspect this contributes more to a "looseness" in joystick pointing, rather than consistent slow-walking drift.
4. Grime, dust, wet, and other gunk
Finally, there's the boogeyman nosotros've all been trying to ward off since the days of NES cartridges: contamination. For instance, the abiding plastic-on-plastic grind of gaming creates plastic dust that tin accumulate within the joystick mechanism. Most modern controllers use self-lubricating plastics for smoother action. Self-lubricating ultimately ways self-degrading; they work in part by sacrificing minute amounts of their ain material.
We and others take had some success eliminating migrate past cleaning out the potentiometer internals with compressed air, contact cleaner, and/or isopropyl alcohol. Often, though, without a full removal and reassembly, you're just displacing grit, not removing it. Information technology tin can wander back into your stick, while y'all continue generating more of information technology.
And then in that location'south contamination from the external world. Potentiometers are vulnerable to farthermost temperatures, humidity, oxidation/corrosion, and yeah, small particles. Your house is non a cleanroom.
Attempted fixes, including calibration, and why they simply sometimes work
If yous don't desire to solder, at that place are plenty of YouTube videos demonstrating purported drifty joystick fixes that don't require heat—just a lot of patience, and sometimes fine motor skills. You could, for instance, pry off the housings of the potentiometers and either clean or replace the rotating wiper. Or you might try advisedly cleaning both the wiper and its graphite track. Some folks accept tried physically twisting the potentiometer hardware ever then slightly in order to offset slightly incorrect position readings.
Some consoles, and even some games, offer joystick or expressionless zone calibration, which tin help put a ring-aid on many of these issues. Only at that place are a few problems with software scale:
- Calibration can help if y'all have a consistent, uni-directional result with your joystick'southward centering mechanism (return spring). It won't fix full general "looseness" or a worn-out spot on a potentiometer.
- The fix for some kinds of looseness is a "dead zone" calibration. This makes games ignore minor movements of the stick. But if the problem worsens, you have to expand the dead zone to compensate, making finer joystick control impossible.
- Contamination is, as you might expect, non something that software can work around.
Then in that location's the class of fixes that do require soldering, and fifty-fifty here the situation scarcely improves. Make-new joysticks correct from the factory are known for having a lot of variance in the resistance values in their individual potentiometers, which requires… you guessed information technology, software calibration at the factory. That calibration contour is stored on the controller board, not in the joystick itself. Without the factory calibration tool, brand-new replacement joysticks can—ahem—drift. Undeterred by this, heroic fixers have devised one tedious workaround later some other. Suffice to say, these things could be a lot easier to ready.
The real fix is improve choices past console makers
If you lot're experiencing drift on your controller, you have three existent options: Fix it (either yourself or through an experienced tech), send the controller back to the manufacturer and wait for a ready (if it'due south warrantied/covered), or buy a new one. It'due south bizarre to us that the console makers, who spend countless thousands of hours obsessing over their controller designs, don't just concede that joysticks are consumable parts, and blueprint them every bit such to be more hands replaced.
No device, rated for 2,000,000 cycles, particularly a vessel of frustration or obsession, tin can maintain perfect performance forever. They should exist designed with that reality in listen. Nintendo, for all its extended silence on Joy-Con drift failures, at least chose an easily replaceable joystick secured by Phillips screws and a flexible cable, non 16 solder joints. And even if a joystick needs the stability of solder beneath it, information technology's possible to design a "breakout board," such as nosotros often see on phones and other portable devices. A smaller circuit lath would hold the joystick and its necessary wires and chips, then connect to the main lath with a detachable cablevision.
That'due south just the obvious stuff. You could dream bigger and pattern pin sockets for the controller module, like the kind seen on the ErgoDox keyboard. Fifty-fifty better: a modular controller like the Astro, which doesn't expect much bulkier than other modern controllers, but features no-solder-needed swap-able parts. Just try and convince us that console companies couldn't make a mint selling express edition themed controller parts.
Evan-Amos, CC0 / Wikimedia Commons
Console makers could also choose more reliable joystick hardware in the starting time place. The Dreamcast, circa 1999, used Hall Effect sensors in its controllers. The magnets could wear out over a very long timeline, but magnets are also replaceable. Inside the N64's center joystick were optical sensors that read input much similar an older ball mouse. The joystick itself was susceptible to physical sag and leaning, merely the sensors were likely still reading truthful.
In the end, then, the real culprits of migrate are humans, and profits. These controllers are cheaper to produce upwardly-front, just more expensive to fix when they fail. Perhaps gaming companies can't reconcile the obvious truth that joysticks fail with the image of their technology as immaculate, haemorrhage-border, a completely seamless entertainment experience. Merely we think most people would adopt to exist a chip more than realistic about something every bit unglamorous every bit a thumbstick. It beats mailing out a controller, or buying another $70 controller to replace an 88-cent part.
Note: We reached out to Alps Alpine, Sony, and Nintendo for comment on this post; nosotros did not hear back earlier publishing.
How To Fix Controller Drift Without Opening,
Source: https://www.ifixit.com/News/48944/heres-why-ps5-joysticks-drift-and-why-theyll-only-get-worse
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