It’s pretty common to hear about people replacing their thumb sticks to avoid drift in the future, but I almost never actually hear about people having drift or other issues with the original OEM thumb sticks (outside of the occasional person who broke their stick by dropping the Deck).
I’m also curious to hear what people’s experience has been with replacing the sticks, both the difficulty of the actual replacement, if there were any issues after, and if they think it was worth it.
Got the Deck at launch. No issues with drift.
When I opened it to swap the SSD I preemptively changed the joysticks with electromagnetic ones from Gulistick. (LCD Model)
It was really quite straightforward, but I would suggest being familiar with some soldering prior (if you want the capacitive touching function). Otherwise, they have great instructions. The case is great for holding it screen down while you work.
They’ve been great, no complaints.
As far as I know, I think all the designs have been updated to not need soldering.
Oh very cool! Even easier then
No issues yet, but I’m docked and using M&K or external controller probably 85% of the time or so.
I plan to keep my Deck as my stream-to around the rest of house device far into the future (read: until it disintegrates, the ergonomics and form factor are that good), even after my next upgrade to the Steam Machine or similar option, so I will be Hall-replacing the sticks if / when they start to drift.
No drift yet, got an original 64gb basic edition. But I also barely use the thing, so that probably contributed to the longevity.
I did swap the SSD basically as soon as I got it, was trivial. Thumb sticks aren’t much harder as they are on daughter boards. Hard to fuck that up.
The inspiration for this discussion is that the capacitive pad on my left thumbstick has started to peel upwards at the bottom, so I plan to replace it soon. Haven’t had any issues with drift or anything else.
My left stick started jittering after a year. Switched the sticks out with Gulikit, and they were fine for a few years, then the right stick went bonkers psycho.
Replaced it with a̶n̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶-b̶r̶a̶n̶d̶ Gulikit again, cuz that was the only make available. Sigh.
My left stick squeaks so I’m thinking about replacement but I can’t get a straight answer about Hall effect stick compatibility with OLED models
They make specific hall-effect sticks for the OLED models, I know Gulikit make a set, possibly other companies too.
