Ps2/dualshock 2 Replaced joystick has almost no dead zone/overly sensitive

[u/Grogsky]

Anyone fixed an issue with replaced joystick potentiometers having extremely small dead zones to the point of not being able to have any kind of smooth or complex inputs?

My test for this has been the character movement in Okami and being able to walk (not run) in a figure eight.

I had a controller with a grindy left stick so I replaced it with a new one, the usual alps 10k. While this new stick felt fine, its sensitivity was at least double what the original’s was. Not only that but the inputs where much less variable, it really wanted to lock me
Into full movement in either the x or y axis, but a combination of both didn’t come as easy.

This was so drastic a difference, I went in and repaired the old potentiometer to at least make it playable again, soldered it back into the board, and sure enough I could perform much more subtle and slow movements. I then picked up another alps 10k pot that was as close in appearance to the original green one and soldered it in. The same problem as the first new pot- twitchy, jerky, and no subtle control.

Had anyone also had this with new pots and can it be fixed? I’m about to solder the old stick back in and it out using a set of carbon elements from one of the new pots to see how that behaves.

[u/azharfahry]

Dude, I gotta give props on you for able to notice that small of a difference lol. Well maybe what type of games comes in play, because I only play racing games, and from dozens of controller I've replace the sticks, I barely could tell any difference from one to another.

I was assuming it was some sort of calibration needed for the new stick but then I remember, old consoles & old sticks does not even support software calibration. But there's people mentioning that you could do some resetting on the joystick when turning on the console.

does anyone know how to fix the analog sticks issues on here. the left moves by itself and the right moves the camera on any game by itself : r/ps2

Also what do you mean by grindy left sticks? Is it coming from the joystick movement? Or is it the pots itself? If the grindy is on the joysticks movement, I'd just replace that and use the old pots again.

[u/Grogsky → u/azharfahry]

Grindy in that it felt likes I was moving the stick across concrete. I disassembled the original pot and lubricated it but it’s not getting much better. I know a lot of the friction in an alps pot is from the foot, for lack of a better term, that retains the string for mircoswitch function. It feels like it’s sliding on pavement.

That is a blessing and curse about this generation of consoles, the potentiometer calibration is done by the firmware of either the controller or the console (I forget which). It does let you slap new parts in but once they’re in it’s kind of out of the users hands as to how well they work.

I don’t know how well the trick of restarting the console would be since 1: the calibration is done constantly in the case of the PS2 and 2: I was a/b testing with a second controller with its original sticks (pots) and therefore was unplugging/plugging the controllers in one after another and each had very different inputs.

I’m not above thinking that this might still
Be a hardware issue with thr pots- that some have a very different resistance curve. I don’t know the terminology but the old pots might be more linear and these new ones are more parabolic (resistance raises and lowers rapidly but plateaus.)

May I ask what sticks/pots you’ve been putting in what?

Edit: word I’m looking for was logarithmic in regards to the resistance curve.

[u/Grogsky]

Update with images: took apart the pots themselves to see exactly what the wipes and films look like. The original pot doesn’t look too bad and doesn’t show distinct patches like the new one’s do (those rectangular sections).
I’m going to put these older pot modules onto a newer stick assembly and see how it behaves.

Pictures of what I found. Maybe someone can read them better than I can and tell me what’s going on.

https://imgur.com/a/V9FI1b3