N64 glove controller movement issue

nasune · Aug 1, 2021

So I have a realityquest glove controller for the N64 (as well as one for the PS1, but that one functions correctly), but it has an issue with the 'thumbstick' part of the controller. Basically, it works fine for every direction but left, where it only goes to (somewhere around) half speed. Does anyone happen to know what causes the issue, and (hopefully) how to fix it?

FAST6191 · Aug 2, 2021

Had never even heard of this before now but can do the general case.

Analogue sticks in general work in one of a few ways
1) Resistance. Usually carbon traces with a wiper.
2) Some kind of magnetic encoder.
3) Some kind of optical encoder. Never going to see this on a cheap consumer device for a joystick -- pull apart an inkjet printer though and there will probably be one (the long strip of sort of clear until you look at it plastic that runs the length of such things is probably this). Expensive industrial devices is a different matter.

You will tend to have one for each direction (left-right and up down, diagonals then being computed from that), hence why it is usually one direction that fails rather than the whole thing. One particular direction is potentially not a bad sign actually if the other one works; if the whole thing breaks then if it is not a solder joint failure you are probably replacing the whole thing, one half of it failing (especially at not complete failure) means a clean up probably is where you want to go. Main exception being if it is a controller used for one game extensively that needs one direction pressed a lot/hard/quickly where that can mean damage to that one area.

A deadzone is a usually the area around the neutral where no input is registered (resistance can vary with temperature, you don't want someone moving with just the natural jitters of their hands or moving the controller around), however some will also use it to refer to failure modes like this.

I don't know which of the 1) or 2) modes would have been used for this. Carbon film traces still get used, and fail (see joycons), to this day and are generally the cheaper option but I have seen enough of 2) used in all manner of things that I won't discount it. Pulling such assemblies apart varies dramatically in difficulty (some at simple plastic clips or screws, others are welded together) and cleaning them also can be fun. If it is a worn trace then can be hard to repair them (not many great ways of depositing carbon for the average household, can try forcing better contact but it is not a long term fix).

Looking at pictures I doubt this is going to be a stock item, and I doubt they sold enough of them to be out there to cannibalise. This would possibly mean adapting another item to serve in this (can include some serious programming extras to change signals if you want -- nice double speed and precision modes then achievable like you might have for a gaming mouse do get opened up with this one). Naturally resistance ranges and magnetic encoding types used in the base device and newer replacement options could be radically different.

nasune · Aug 2, 2021

After opening it up a little further, this thing is weirder than I thought. It uses some metal wires (not electric), with endstops. Basically pulling on the wire moves it to one direction, and letting it go to its contracted state (presumably by use of some springs) moves it it the opposite direction (with a neutral state somewhere in the middle).
Fortunate thing is that I did manage to find the proper 'neutral' state for left/right, unfortunate thing is that someone else had opened it up before me and didn't close it up properly. Long story short, the up/down array wasn't held together properly so when I opened it up to take a look the parts went everywhere. Took me an hour and a half to figure out which screw and spring went were, and now the up/down isn't quite right.
Still, at least I know what the issue is, so it's just a matter of tweaking it until it works properly.

JuanMena · Aug 2, 2021

nasune said:
After opening it up a little further, this thing is weirder than I thought. It uses some metal wires (not electric), with endstops. Basically pulling on the wire moves it to one direction, and letting it go to its contracted state (presumably by use of some springs) moves it it the opposite direction (with a neutral state somewhere in the middle).
Fortunate thing is that I did manage to find the proper 'neutral' state for left/right, unfortunate thing is that someone else had opened it up before me and didn't close it up properly. Long story short, the up/down array wasn't held together properly so when I opened it up to take a look the parts went everywhere. Took me an hour and a half to figure out which screw and spring went were, and now the up/down isn't quite right.
Still, at least I know what the issue is, so it's just a matter of tweaking it until it works properly.

Well that sure is a weird stick.
Do you think you'll be able to solder a proper analog stick?

nasune · Aug 2, 2021

JuanMena said:
Well that sure is a weird stick.
Do you think you'll be able to solder a proper analog stick?

Nah, since it's not really a proper joystick. It's basically a faux motion controller (with things like wii controllers etc. counting as proper motion controllers).

One of these to be precise. Due to the way it seems to work I thought there would be a proper analog stick hidden in the pivot point, but that's not the case

JuanMena · Aug 2, 2021

nasune said:
Nah, since it's not really a proper joystick. It's basically a faux motion controller (with things like wii controllers etc. counting as proper motion controllers).

One of these to be precise. Due to the way it seems to work I thought there would be a proper analog stick hidden in the pivot point, but that's not the case

Oh wow! What an oddity that is.
It must be fun to play with it.

Judging by the video explanation of "where's the analog stick"?

nasune said:
It uses some metal wires

I'm guessing you'll probably need to replace such wires.
I mean, they're probably 2 decades old by now, any resistance it might be using is probably long gone.

nasune · Aug 2, 2021

JuanMena said:
Oh wow! What an oddity that is.
It must be fun to play with it.

Judging by the video explanation of "where's the analog stick"?

I'm guessing you'll probably need to replace such wires.
I mean, they're probably 2 decades old by now, any resistance it might be using is probably long gone.

From what I can see, the wires themselves are just regular metal wires. I'm guessing they are attached to some kind of variable resistor (one wire + resistor for left/right, and one for up/down) which functions correctly, but the wires were glued into place and the glue has come loose. So I found the correct placing for left/right, but in the process up/down has come loose too which means tweaking it until that's in the right spot too.

edit: Amusingly the Playstation has its own version which I have as well, but since that one functions correctly I'm not opening that one up.

Playstation version:

The videos are random youtube videos by the way, I haven't seen them but they seem to be talking about the controllers in question.

N64 glove controller movement issue

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