WiiU gamepad hall effect stick

[Kardell]

Hi! I don't know if someone already did it but I've tried it myself. Sometime ago i've started a bit of study and tests with hall effect sticks for the gamepad. The nearest working was a PS4 model. The horizontal axis worked while the vertical one kept dead. So i noticed that stick uses two different sensors and today i had an idea: why not trying changing the vertical sensor to the same one that worked with the horizontal axis? And now we have a 100% working hall effect stick for the gamepad!. It's still on tests but you can see for yourself.

 

[Kardell]

Until now the only "collateral symptom" i've found is the inverted axis when i fully turn left or down running vwii games. Something like that usually happens when we replace the analogic stick for bad quality ones. Worked perfectly with Nintendont.

 

[blackkawa]

So you used PS4 compatible stick for this? I wanted for a long time something like this, my pad stick are getting loose after all this years

 

[Kardell]

So you used PS4 compatible stick for this? I wanted for a long time something like this, my pad stick are getting loose after all this years

Yes. I've bought another pair to make the right stick. They are the same of this pic but only the black sensor works. What i did was changing the orange sensor for another black and solder the stick into the gamepad stick's board.

 

[Kardell]

The new pair just arrived. The black sensor is what we're looking for. It reads "R - 5 B" Tomorrow i will install into the gamepad's right stick place and test the results.

Post automatically merged: Nov 27, 2025

Ok. I'm back with two great news. I've commited an error: i didn't notice the analogic stick boards are mirrored BUT, normally mirrored boards means inverted polarity components AND that orange sensor we had unused did the trick. So, instead of buying four sticks (since the false need of 4 black sensors) all you have to do is buying one pair and change the sensors. All black: left stick, all orange: right stick. And that's it. I hope this helps anyone who feels this strange love for Wiiu like me and this is a way of saying thank you for all this community already did for me in the past years.

 

[Genotypic]

im not sure but do the xbox one variants work?

Post automatically merged: Dec 3, 2025

im not sure but do the xbox one variants work?

 

[Kardell]

im not sure but do the xbox one variants work?

Post automatically merged: Dec 3, 2025

im not sure but do the xbox one variants work?

I haven't tried it, you need to check the sensors' polarity. It probably is different. Without mentioning the "luck" we had with the same polarity and potency from PS4's.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Until now the only "collateral symptom" i've found is the inverted axis when i fully turn left or down running vwii games. Something like that usually happens when we replace the analogic stick for bad quality ones. Worked perfectly with Nintendont.

It might have the wrong resistance, maybe you can find a compatible pot with the right resistance and swap them out.

 

[Iced_Tea_Addict]

So I did this with TMR sticks, I desoldered both sticks of my Wii U's gamepad and replaced them with Switch Pro Controller TMR sticks. The left stick worked right off the bat, the right stick however needed more work. The voltage and ground lines on the right stick sensors are on the opposite poles, so that needs to be corrected by cutting traces and reconnecting them. However after correcting that, you have to flip the magnet within the mount on the stick box (this sucks to do), otherwise the directions will be reversed.
My theory is that maybe a PS5 Hall Effect will be better suited for replacing the right stick, since as far as I'm aware, that stick replacement comes with the ground and power poles swapped, and maybe the magnet would be flipped already too.

I have not tested vWii games yet, so I do not know if I run into the same issue above.

 

[Kardell]

So I did this with TMR sticks, I desoldered both sticks of my Wii U's gamepad and replaced them with Switch Pro Controller TMR sticks. The left stick worked right off the bat, the right stick however needed more work. The voltage and ground lines on the right stick sensors are on the opposite poles, so that needs to be corrected by cutting traces and reconnecting them. However after correcting that, you have to flip the magnet within the mount on the stick box (this sucks to do), otherwise the directions will be reversed.
My theory is that maybe a PS5 Hall Effect will be better suited for replacing the right stick, since as far as I'm aware, that stick replacement comes with the ground and power poles swapped, and maybe the magnet would be flipped already too.

I have not tested vWii games yet, so I do not know if I run into the same issue above.

Update us when you're able to test. I'm gonna buy other sticks to keep testing and see if we can find a permanent fix to vwii games.

 

[Iced_Tea_Addict]

So I've done some testing of a PS5 TMR stick in a Switch controller, if it be a NSO Gamecube controller or NSO N64 controller, they get real unhappy with PS5 TMRs. But perfectly fine with Xbox ones, with the modules using the correct matching polarity of course. I'm guessing maybe PS5 analog sticks use far less voltage than Switch analog sticks, but this could have been from a bad batch, I'll be converting another Wii U of mine to use TMRs fairly soon when I move into a new apartment. Maybe using Xbox TMRs if the PS5 one doesn't work.

But in the meantime, have you calibrated your Hall Effects using the Wii U's in-software method, or by moving the magnet? Maybe if you calibrated through software, it might work better for vWii games.

 

[Kardell]

So I've done some testing of a PS5 TMR stick in a Switch controller, if it be a NSO Gamecube controller or NSO N64 controller, they get real unhappy with PS5 TMRs. But perfectly fine with Xbox ones, with the modules using the correct matching polarity of course. I'm guessing maybe PS5 analog sticks use far less voltage than Switch analog sticks, but this could have been from a bad batch, I'll be converting another Wii U of mine to use TMRs fairly soon when I move into a new apartment. Maybe using Xbox TMRs if the PS5 one doesn't work.

But in the meantime, have you calibrated your Hall Effects using the Wii U's in-software method, or by moving the magnet? Maybe if you calibrated through software, it might work better for vWii games.

I've found some pinout diagrams and PS5 sticks use the same scheme for both sensors (vcc and ground doesn't change place into the board) and Xbox sticks are the inverse of ps4 so they can be used to test into both gamepad's sticks. I've ordered a pair and I'm having difficult to find info about the pro controller sticks' pinout.

Post automatically merged: Jan 28, 2026

So I've done some testing of a PS5 TMR stick in a Switch controller, if it be a NSO Gamecube controller or NSO N64 controller, they get real unhappy with PS5 TMRs. But perfectly fine with Xbox ones, with the modules using the correct matching polarity of course. I'm guessing maybe PS5 analog sticks use far less voltage than Switch analog sticks, but this could have been from a bad batch, I'll be converting another Wii U of mine to use TMRs fairly soon when I move into a new apartment. Maybe using Xbox TMRs if the PS5 one doesn't work.

But in the meantime, have you calibrated your Hall Effects using the Wii U's in-software method, or by moving the magnet? Maybe if you calibrated through software, it might work better for vWii games.

I've forgot to answer: yes, I've tried the built in gamepad calibration. Nothing changed. Everything works 100%. Only vwii is causing this issue.

Post automatically merged: Jan 28, 2026

im not sure but do the xbox one variants work?

Post automatically merged: Dec 3, 2025

im not sure but do the xbox one variants work?

If the pinout i found is right it shoud work. I've ordered a pair to test.

 

[Iced_Tea_Addict]

I've forgot to answer: yes, I've tried the built in gamepad calibration. Nothing changed. Everything works 100%. Only vwii is causing this issue.

Okay, so I have since been able to test vWii myself, and when I moved the right stick up completely, then it would read as going straight down. Everything else seems totally fine.
(I also changed out my white thumbsticks for xbox series thumbsticks, who knows if that is influencing anything.)

Could it have something to do with how Nintendo emulated classic controls with the gamepad? Like if the vWii CC Emulation reads a value too high then it would automatically loop to the lowest or something? Because I did notice that the TMR sticks would reach max sensitivity before it reached the edges, so maybe the stick is still sending higher values but most Wii U games would just max it out, while vWii CC emulation loops it.

I'll do another test with my next gamepad to see how just manual calibration would work.

I wonder if there is any possible way to fix this through software, most likely on the Wii U side.

 

[CMDreamer]

Okay, so I have since been able to test vWii myself, and when I moved the right stick up completely, then it would read as going straight down. Everything else seems totally fine.
(I also changed out my white thumbsticks for xbox series thumbsticks, who knows if that is influencing anything.)

Could it have something to do with how Nintendo emulated classic controls with the gamepad? Like if the vWii CC Emulation reads a value too high then it would automatically loop to the lowest or something? Because I did notice that the TMR sticks would reach max sensitivity before it reached the edges, so maybe the stick is still sending higher values but most Wii U games would just max it out, while vWii CC emulation loops it.

I'll do another test with my next gamepad to see how just manual calibration would work.

I wonder if there is any possible way to fix this through software, most likely on the Wii U side.

That behavior makes sense if we think about it as being "saturated" when reaching its max value, so it defaults to its lowest value.

Might a re-calibration solve the issue? I.e. increase the travel length when calibrating, so its max value is reached when reaching its max physical movement instead of before reaching it.

 

[Iced_Tea_Addict]

That behavior makes sense if we think about it as being "saturated" when reaching its max value, so it defaults to its lowest value.

Might a re-calibration solve the issue? I.e. increase the travel length when calibrating, so its max value is reached when reaching its max physical movement instead of before reaching it.

Yeah, it would probably be the best way to fix it. But unfortunately the Wii U doesn't (afaik) have a calibration tool that is that complex, just hold a button combo and it recenters the default position for the thumbsticks. If we had a homebrew tool that could calibrate the thumbsticks of the gamepad like the PS4/PS5 tool that was recently released, that would be pretty sweet, not even just for Hall Effects/TMRs.
But really I think the most simple way (and probably most likely) to fix this issue is just to adjust what the vWii CC emulator does through some patch. At least if you don't wanna play roulette with the batch of thumbsticks you get.

 

[Kardell]

Yeah, it would probably be the best way to fix it. But unfortunately the Wii U doesn't (afaik) have a calibration tool that is that complex, just hold a button combo and it recenters the default position for the thumbsticks. If we had a homebrew tool that could calibrate the thumbsticks of the gamepad like the PS4/PS5 tool that was recently released, that would be pretty sweet, not even just for Hall Effects/TMRs.
But really I think the most simple way (and probably most likely) to fix this issue is just to adjust what the vWii CC emulator does through some patch. At least if you don't wanna play roulette with the batch of thumbsticks you get.

There's a mini board with trimpots sold at AliExpress that is used to fix sticks already suffering with drift by manually calibrating them. Maybe it should be a noce start for us. The sticks finally arrived, i will start testing xbox tomorrow

Post automatically merged: Feb 23, 2026

Yeah, it would probably be the best way to fix it. But unfortunately the Wii U doesn't (afaik) have a calibration tool that is that complex, just hold a button combo and it recenters the default position for the thumbsticks. If we had a homebrew tool that could calibrate the thumbsticks of the gamepad like the PS4/PS5 tool that was recently released, that would be pretty sweet, not even just for Hall Effects/TMRs.
But really I think the most simple way (and probably most likely) to fix this issue is just to adjust what the vWii CC emulator does through some patch. At least if you don't wanna play roulette with the batch of thumbsticks you get.

 

[Iced_Tea_Addict]

There's a mini board with trimpots sold at AliExpress that is used to fix sticks already suffering with drift by manually calibrating them. Maybe it should be a noce start for us. The sticks finally arrived, i will start testing xbox tomorrow

Post automatically merged: Feb 23, 2026

I've tried at least two of these, I'm not sure why, but I've never had any success of having them work with TMRs. I'm not sure if Hall Effects will either with that being the case.

 

[Kardell]

I've tried at least two of these, I'm not sure why, but I've never had any success of having them work with TMRs. I'm not sure if Hall Effects will either with that being the case.

I've installed the xbox sticks into the right polarity's arrangements and these are the results.
The vwii now is working without reverse direction issues but i noticed the sticks a bit "weak" when i do point to some directions while playing wiiu. I need to make more tests with the right sticks. Some games like mario 3d world didn't show any difference. I still need to test Nintendont.

 

[Iced_Tea_Addict]

I've installed the xbox sticks into the right polarity's arrangements and these are the results.
The vwii now is working without reverse direction issues but i noticed the sticks a bit "weak" when i do point to some directions while playing wiiu. I need to make more tests with the right sticks. Some games like mario 3d world didn't show any difference. I still need to test Nintendont.

Strange. I'll shoot over a homebrew app that checks the ranges of the sticks when I can. But this is an interesting outcome so far. At least vWii seems to work, so that's a decent outcome for now.

 

[Kardell]

Strange. I'll shoot over a homebrew app that checks the ranges of the sticks when I can. But this is an interesting outcome so far. At least vWii seems to work, so that's a decent outcome for now.

I was occupied repairing a Nintendo switch and modding a gba sp for a friend and just got back to the tests. Unfortunately the xbox sticks cut the potency to play wiiu games. I kept testing some games and for example, in Xenoblade Chronicles x the character walk slowy when you put the stick to right. Still this isn't the definitive solution yet but i will keep noted the fact xbox sticks are vwii compatible (who knows? One day we can try creating a hall effect adaptation to wii classic controllers).