Brief report on ElecGear Hall effect analog sticks for Steam Deck

A few reports over the past month on Reddit (www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/…/jq251yj/ and reddit.com/…/psa_elecgear_hall_effect_sticks_are_…) indicate that ElecGear does not suffer the infamous outer dead zone issue featured in e.g. GuliKit V1 and V2. On the corresponding Amazon page ElecGear also advertise that there is a “correction trim circuit.” I decided to finally try the swap to ElecGear Hall effect stick and see the (inner and outer) dead zone behavior and need for calibration.

Confusingly, the included instructions indicates that ElecGear also have a potentiometer version called “Analog Edition.” Ignore it. You should have ordered and received the “Hall Edition.”

ElecGear does not include the stick cap, and soldering is absolutely needed to retain the touch sensing functionality. The soldering pad is slightly offset from the square and a elongated rectangle, possibly to accommodate the MEDA/MHDA switch on the opposite side (curiously, the PCB does have the square shape drawn, possibly copied from Valve’s). The soldering technique needed is a bit similar to SMD, but with easier tolerances. Because the pad is not pre-wetted, I ended up using a reversed “reflow” technique, i.e. using a wet soldering iron tip to wet the end of the stick cap wire with solder, into a little ball, and then flow that ball onto the pad.

ElecGear also included three hot glue pellets and vaguely described using “iron” to apply them on top of the solder. I found applying them with the soldering iron to be a total mess (it melts only partially and then sticks to the soldering iron). Maybe hot air would be better. But in the end, I decided my solder point was good enough also mechanically (though not as beautiful as the pyramid from Valve’s ODM) and cleaned off the hot glue residue.

After installation, the stick is essentially immediately usable. In the Gaming Mode calibration tool, the outer deadzone is visibly circular. The center position is offset, but well within the 8192 default deadzone, likely just the left-over factory potentiometer calibration.

After thumbstick_cal the inner dead zone is not as low as 2000 as some posts have advertised. Mechanical manufacturing tolerances here limits the stick to return within a tight circle. In my case, the left stick fares comparatively worse, and the tightest possible dead zone is maybe 3600–3800. And I just left it at 4000 to be safe.

I also tested the touch sensing for gyroscopic movement. And it is fully functional.

In conclusion, I can also confirm that there are almost no deal-breaker regarding the ElecGear, should you be able to solder. This is in stark contrast to some better advertised competition like GuliKit, which ended up blaming Valve. Also, the fact that ElecGear’s sticks are fully functional even without calibration casts a bad light on the claim by GuliKit, that somehow Valve made it impossible to supply Hall effect sticks without the outer dead zone problem.