Jasen B Hicks—August 16, 2025
Ordered this for my son's PS5 controller. Left stick was drifting and jumping around and verified with a few different testers. This is definitely NOT a plug and play install, so you need to be familiar with soldering and desoldering. I have built keyboards for a hobby for a while so overall this was not a difficult install for me. Only issue, I forgot to remove the ribbon cables and got the iron too close, so this repair cost twice as much in the long run. Once everything was done, the calibration was only slightly off and the GuliKit calibration site got them dead on. My son is now in love with his controller again and having been using his mom's PS5 controller while he waits, he says he can feel a definite difference between his upgraded controller and the standard one. I'll be keeping this kit in mind for the other controllers in the house at a later date. Read more
David Winn—August 1, 2025
To start: Most modern controllers are made with the same potentiometer design with a graphite trace and metal wiper design. Eventually, either contaminants, wear to the wiper, or wear to the trace all cause a bad read on the stick position, causing the dreaded phenomenon among gamers known as stick drift. I have a DualSense controller I had taken out of storage due to countless others that have hit the controller graveyard not due to other problems, but due to this one fault. I decided that enough was enough, and that there was no reason to be junking controllers due to a fault of one cheap part. So instead of using this particular one right out of the box, I decided to give TMR sticks a try. This problem is not exclusive to the DualSense - controller design has been using this same solution for the past 15-20 years and shows no signs of changing. It has been the death of many a controller, even though nothing else may be wrong with it. This kit, promises to fix that. Or, at the very least, give it a more reasonable lease on life before total failure. Main point that everyone should know about this before buying: Installation of this kit will be next to impossible unless you have some idea of how to solder components to a PCB. I at the time of this writing do not, which prompted me to first seek out someone who could perform the service. If you do not have prior knowledge on how to do this, seeking someone out who knows should be your first priority before even considering this. The kit came with two TMR modules for soldering, and two thumbsticks to retrofit onto the top of the modules once the job is complete. For my install, I sought out a local electronics repair shop. Almost any reputable electronics shop will have tools and professionals who can solder or micro-solder. This will be enough for the job. I asked them to install these onto the motherboard for the DualSense and all they would charge me is the fee to do so. I ended up asking them to only install the modules, with the stock DualSense thumbsticks. I did not use the ones that came with the kit, only because I was already used to the stock ones. I did not like the feel, grip, or circumference of the ones that came with the kit. The circumference of the top is less than that of a stock DualSense thumbstick. Although the thumbstick is rubberized, the top had this smooth plastic feel to it, even though it is clearly rubber. The only grip that I saw on it was ribbing on the outer edge. Presumably, the thumbsticks the kit comes with are a detachable design, and are advertised as being so to attach sticks of different heights. Here's the catch though: These other heights are not included in this package, and are sold separately by Gulikit. The only purpose in detaching the sticks that I would find without owning this kit is to clean them when dirty. Being that the repair shop did the installation of the hardware, I cannot comment on how easy this installation might be. I am under the assumption it depends solely on how handy you are with hardware. Initially, after the repair shop installed these, they had analog circularity error sitting at 12-14%. Stock DualSense potentiometers typically have around 7-9% circularity error on average. That is, until I learned that they had attempted to calibrate them in-house. What tool they used for this is unknown, but it is extremely important that you read the product description on Amazon before and after installing these - Gulikit has a dedicated test and calibration website made available directly in a browser for calibrating this brand of TMR sticks. This should be the tool you use for these particular ones. It's also very important that you do exactly as the tool says, not following its instructions could leave your deadzone sitting elsewhere on the stick, instantly causing drift, or it will raise the circularity on the stick throw to one side or another. After I used the tool on my home PC, circularity error on the sticks dropped down to between 2-4%. That dropped any questions about the quality of the part. Had I not known much about software calibration, this is something that could have very much damaged my experience with them. As for how long they will last, I cannot say for certain. But being that there are no wipers or traces and magnetoresistance is used instead, I imagine the durability should at the very least, be far longer than parts grinding up on each other, wearing down their durability over time. I am quite literally taking it on good faith that this will be the controller that lasts me the longest, well into another console generation. So far I have tested it on multiple games, and I can say that deadzone settings on games can once again be lower than if I did have stick drift, but not completely eliminated. It is important to understand that absolutely no analog input will be completely 0 on both X and Y axis, there is always some offset, even if it is very small. Also, games may offer you deadzone settings, while others do not and have a predetermined deadzone hard programmed into the game. Your mileage will vary, but this is why you tweak settings when they are available. The important thing is that the offset does not affect the experience. And these perform very well, even on very low deadzone settings. As stated on the box, TMR work best when throwing the stick in a cardinal direction. They keep their heading unless you make a small movement, which does not make them any more or less precise than potentiometers. I cannot say the same is true for Hall Effect, as I have never owned a controller with Hall Effect to make the comparison. So far overall, I like the product very much, but it is broadly inaccessible to a wide audience unless you have a certain subset of skills and tools, namely hardware, and software knowledge. This is hardly a failure of the kit however, as it is explained that certain skills are expected of you. What I also found is that you must plan ahead for both scenarios equally or this will end in failure. I also ended up not using the included thumbsticks, which is half the product. I did not find them useful, but you may, especially if your stock thumbsticks are badly worn and need replacement. About price: Consider your baseline knowledge into the price. Buying them from Amazon will literally be the price you pay if you understand exactly what to do and not have to pay someone else to do it. If you must pay service fees to shops for either the hardware or software components of this modification, you can easily double or triple the price of this at the end of everything. Read more
Michael—November 27, 2025
Install was a breeze, and the joysticks work incredibly well. I would recommend them to anyone that wasn’t to replace their joysticks, however you have to know how to solder to install them but if you know how to solder, they are an easy install. Read more
Billy Vincent—October 12, 2025
I am completely new to soldering and am determined to replace my PS5 DS analog with terrible stick drift. Taking apart the controller took me 15 mins Desoldering the 2 vibration motor (4 wires) took me less than a minute Desoldering the 2 original analog (4*3 pins for the sensor, and 2*8 pins for the body, 28 through-hole total), however took me more than 3 hours! Spend another hour to clean up all the through holes Then less than 10 minutes to solder everything back together. Finally, another 10 minutes to put everything back in one piece. Another 5 minutes to recalibrate. It turned out working flawlessly!! Everything is working, and no more stick drift!! And unlocked a new skill!! Only broke 1 tiny plastic clip piece close to the left bottom screw and deformed the bottom microphone cable socket a bit due to heat from desoldering wick. Read more
