I then did a little research and found out that all the analog sticks in the xbone controllers are ALPS brand, and can be ordered really cheap on eBay. A month later, and I’m ready to begin my repair.
Bottoms are slightly different. I had to use my soldering iron to melt off the little circles on the bottom of the new one to make it sit flush with the PCB.
Aww yeah, great job on repairing it, got yourself a nice bargain in total!
I bought some non-branded sticks awhile ago to fix a pad with drifting issues, they sort of worked but they still drifted (in other directions), will check out this Alps brand, thanks for the post.
Maybe I’m just naive, but considering how complicated these little things are, and the super low price that ALPS us willing to sell them… It’s hard to believe that there would be a bunch of fakes out there.
This is a great resource! I probably play my Xbox One the least out of all of my consoles, yet I’ve had to replace the controller twice due to significant stick drift.
I went down a bit of a rabbit hole yesterday regarding these mechs opening up all my pads and checking the laser cut on the ALPS logo and to see if there were any other differences, seems like they vary a lot and the precision and depth of the cut doesn’t relate to being genuine or not which I was hoping was a way to tell if it was a clone.
So my notes are generally from anecdotal posts but some of the Assembler Games posters I recognise as knowing their stuff so I’m likely to be persuaded or lean in their direction:
ALPS moved their production to China, no longer made in Japan (no idea if they have but if true then clones are going to be easy to make)
Mechs used during the 360 era were of higher quality because: metal parts (even clones copied the metal)
The problem is the potentiometer, they ‘mess’ up on new genuine ALPS mechs too
Genuine ALPS parts from places like Mouser will still have drift issues (Same goes for genuine 360 ALPS parts from mouser)
People suspect[2] that there’s a method to calibrate them but nobody knows how
Someone sells working ALPS sticks taken from controllers here. At that price though I think it would be better to get a broken pad with working sticks off of eBay.
So the main issue seems to be the potentiometer inside the pots which I’ve seen people swap in working/perfect pots from a broken stick into a 3rd party/og mech and fix them:
I tried this yesterday and it seems you can freely swap X and Y axis but I had a slow turn issue so it didn’t help, not sure what the fix or problem is for that yet and I’ve got some pots to take out from a junk pad to do some further testing on this.
Which led me to this video:
Seems someone is selling just the sensor itself and the curious thing is that it looks like no other sensor I’ve seen as they’re usually black, not sure who is making these and stopped short of looking to see if they were available anywhere else.
Buying the sensor alone isn’t much cheaper than getting a whole mech so it would have been nice to just buy a bunch from China to test. So, in conclusion, it’s a crapshoot
Another ‘fix’ I’ve not tried was bending the axel/prong that rotates the carbon track but maybe someone will be interested in testing it:
I was looking at the datasheet for these ALPS sensors and the ones they use in the XB1/PS4 are rated for much higher clicks and rotations cycles than ones used in the 360 (and I presume PS3) luckily I’ve never had any issues with 360 pads (even though I know they’re susceptible to the same issues) and thought maybe putting them into an xb1 pad would be a good move but alas the sizes aren’t the same.
Very interesting information, thanks! I played a few games of Rocket League with mine yesterday, and they feel really good. They are a little stiffer than my other one, but my other controller also has 3-4 years of use, and 1500+ hours of Rocket League on it, so that’s a terrible comparison.
Some notes about my experience so far, and my purchase:
No drift at all, the analogs are centered and straight
The deadzone feels natural, and the same as my original controller
Stiffer than my original controller, probably due to heavy use on the original
The thumb pads (black tops) that I got with my purchase are definitely not authentic, but I assumed that from the beginning, and had no intention of using them.
I didn’t use the included screwdrivers, as I have my own proper set
The plastic pry tool broke early, and is complete soft crumbly plastic garbage.
I guess time will tell, but so far I have no indication at all that the analogs I bought are fake ALPS.
