The One Nub Club

[j.pickens]

Emailed to join the one-nub-club yesterday.
It shipped yesterday.
Wish me luck!

 

[Cheese]

I sent them an email last night and got a reply from Debs while I was sleeping, along with a shipping confirmation and UPS tracking number.
The wait is almost over! I just hope I don't regret not waiting for a fully working one.

 

[MDave]

I can confirm what exactly the problem is, and it sounds like it MIGHT also applies to the fully working Pandoras.

My guess was spot on, the sticks need to be dead on center by the nano meter to fully work when you turn the unit on / restart it.

Even the slightest bit of the nubs going off-center causes weird sensitivity problems.

So the one way to remedy this in hardware is to have the nubs tighter, spring back to the center position as accurately as possible.

Perhaps it does do this properly on the fully working units? And the 1 nub units are just a bit more looser?

Besides that, my nubs work pretty good!

Is there a way to adjust the deadzone, acceleration, tolerance and speed of the nubs? I think it just needs a little tweaking and they'll be perfect (despite the centering problem).

If you don't mind centering the nubs yourself each time you restart or power on the unit (don't have to do it coming out of sleep mode!) then jump in

 

[levi1123]

^I just replaced the case on my PSP-1000 with a white one. It came with a spare analog nub that I replaced my old one with. (a bit worn) Upon playing video games I noticed it was moving downward on its own sometimes but if moved properly worked for the rest of the game. I just moved it in all different directions when it was off and then did the calibration method. (If you go to the System Information menu and move the nub around in circles for about 30 seconds (I did mine for 5 minutes lol, probably way to excessive) But my analog nub works fine now.

Wait. So i sit in System Settings and move the nub in all directions to calibrate? Man Sony.. Why not make the calibration tool its own damn menu.. -_-

 

[tsh]

My nubs are a little odd... Sometimes they work fine, sometimes the cursor movement rate seems to be inverted. I swapped them round so the right (faulty) one is mouse cursor, and it is OK when not moving, but a small deflection makes the mouse move faster than a large deflection. When I use the nub to navigate the start menu, movement is much slower (or to be strictly accurate, probably what is expected since I turned down the mouse speed - it is way too high otherwise and I think that is the faulty state).

So I'm guessing that the deadzone position for calibration is throwing out the firmware, and the maths is running out of numeric range wrapping a small number to a larger one.

I think my nub needs a closer inspection... Sadly I forgot to bring any tools into work...

 

[Ollonk]

I have decided against it; I'll just wait for several months until my fully functional one arrives.

Did you happen to get an email? /me is still waiting

I got an answer to a question, yes.

 

[craigix]

My nubs are a little odd... Sometimes they work fine, sometimes the cursor movement rate seems to be inverted. I swapped them round so the right (faulty) one is mouse cursor, and it is OK when not moving, but a small deflection makes the mouse move faster than a large deflection. When I use the nub to navigate the start menu, movement is much slower (or to be strictly accurate, probably what is expected since I turned down the mouse speed - it is way too high otherwise and I think that is the faulty state).

So I'm guessing that the deadzone position for calibration is throwing out the firmware, and the maths is running out of numeric range wrapping a small number to a larger one.

I think my nub needs a closer inspection... Sadly I forgot to bring any tools into work...

Try blasting it with some air first. It might just bring it back to life.

 

[SirisC]

I sent them an email last night and got a reply from Debs while I was sleeping, along with a shipping confirmation and UPS tracking number.
The wait is almost over! I just hope I don't regret not waiting for a fully working one.

Do you only get a tracking number when shipping via UPS?

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

I have taken the plunge.(water sound)emailed and asked for a one nubber.
addmittedly though i had 2 pandys on order from the first batch. :blink:

 

[GhostChaserUK]

My nubs are a little odd... Sometimes they work fine, sometimes the cursor movement rate seems to be inverted. I swapped them round so the right (faulty) one is mouse cursor, and it is OK when not moving, but a small deflection makes the mouse move faster than a large deflection. When I use the nub to navigate the start menu, movement is much slower (or to be strictly accurate, probably what is expected since I turned down the mouse speed - it is way too high otherwise and I think that is the faulty state).

So I'm guessing that the deadzone position for calibration is throwing out the firmware, and the maths is running out of numeric range wrapping a small number to a larger one.

I think my nub needs a closer inspection... Sadly I forgot to bring any tools into work...

Try blasting it with some air first. It might just bring it back to life.

I have the same problem but on both hubs,. Blasting it with air has made it better so will give it a few more goes

 

[Alpha2]

^I just replaced the case on my PSP-1000 with a white one. It came with a spare analog nub that I replaced my old one with. (a bit worn) Upon playing video games I noticed it was moving downward on its own sometimes but if moved properly worked for the rest of the game. I just moved it in all different directions when it was off and then did the calibration method. (If you go to the System Information menu and move the nub around in circles for about 30 seconds (I did mine for 5 minutes lol, probably way to excessive) But my analog nub works fine now.

Wait. So i sit in System Settings and move the nub in all directions to calibrate? Man Sony.. Why not make the calibration tool its own damn menu.. -_-

If the hardware were in perfect working order there wouldnt be a need for any type of official calibration on a PSP, since the throw distance on the nub is so shallow, for it to be registering a down at all without being touched might mean there's something pushing the stick off it's center position.

 

[GizmoTheGreen]

BARKING, GB	09/06/2010	12:10	DEPARTURE SCAN

Hmm, no update since, more than 24 hours ago... >_>
If its just sitting still somewhere im going to give them a good beating! D:

 

[tsh]

I have the same problem but on both hubs,. Blasting it with air has made it better so will give it a few more goes

Mine comes and goes - Gave it a blast with air, checked the soldering. It's like it has a direction it doesn't want to move in, does much slower to the right today than the other directions, yesterday ir was up that wouldn't go. It does feel gritty in it's movement, so the root cause seems to be mechanical. Without removing the nub from the PCB, I can't see if it is possible to access anything - and I'm quite reluctant to do that at this stage - the contacts are pretty small and I'm not confident of removing it without causing damage. Seems like the only options are more air, and to hope it improves with time.

 

[torpor]

Are you guys doing the 'magic calibration' dance every time you reboot your Pandora? I've found this really does make a difference:

1. Power down your Pandora, to OFF state.
2. Center the nubs, physically, as best you can.
3. Turn it on.
4. While it is booting through the splash screen, press up, return to center, then down, return to center, left, return to center, right, return to center. Do this for each nub.

After doing this, the nubs *really* are calibrated properly and work superlatively on my Pandora every single time. I've gotten into the habit of doing this every time I reboot my Pandora ..

 

[Snow-Okami]

Just got mines yesterday. And I revived my nubs to full health!

I noticed out of the box the left nub worked perfectly fine but the right nub was having serious issues (randomly clicking, right clicking when suppose to left click, etc etc.) I powered down the unit after applying Hotfix 2 and Codec install. Took a canister of compressed air and blasted along the nub (where the little edge is where it meets the rest of the case, there is a crack where you can get it in there good) for a good 30 seconds. While doing this I noticed there were left over plastic shavings on both nubs so I air blasted both of the shavings off.

Rebooted and found the responsiveness of the right nub had dramatically improved but it wasn't quite perfect. I then (how funny) used the Konami code on the right nub almost endlessly for 15 minutes. (in conjunction with the left nub to make sure as though I didn't hit anything in a contextual menu that I did not want to do) Up Up, Down Down, Left Right, Left Right (No need for the B A Start portion) Up Up, Down Down, Left Right, Left Right with every go letting the nub return to the center of its axis. While doing this it seemed to make a noticeable difference as it wasn't giving me the wrong mouse gestures anymore.

Final reboot. I shut it down. Blasted a bit more air on it and restarted. Boom. The nub was working perfectly fine for me. I almost didn't believe it so I installed Hexen II, Heretic, Quake 2 and 3. (3 seems to be having major issues nub wise for me, but it worked none the less) Played them. Both nubs responded to every movement action I gave them. in fact, I played Hexen II with nothing but the nubs control wise!

I am thoroughly pleased I was able to rise my nubs back from the grave (Altered Beast anyone? ) Have some time and patience with them, I am sure in some cases if people show them a little love, they will start working again for you

 

[levi1123]

Stuffs....
(Altered Beast anyone? )... Moar Stuffs

Rise from your grave and save my daughter!! *crumble crumble BOOM!*

I never did beat that game.. >.>

Im hoping i get a reply to my email shortly.. the first email took 5 days to get a response from

 

[skeezix]

Are you guys doing the 'magic calibration' dance every time you reboot your Pandora? I've found this really does make a difference:

1. Power down your Pandora, to OFF state.
2. Center the nubs, physically, as best you can.
3. Turn it on.
4. While it is booting through the splash screen, press up, return to center, then down, return to center, left, return to center, right, return to center. Do this for each nub.

After doing this, the nubs *really* are calibrated properly and work superlatively on my Pandora every single time. I've gotten into the habit of doing this every time I reboot my Pandora ..

This (more or less) seems to be the most successful approach; ie: there is a time limit to when calibration is accepted by the nubs, so doing it early is better than trying to do it later (I think.)

It seems better when you center physically, agreed.

The actual 'dance' varies by person; I tend to just run them in circles around, with some cross up/down/left/right as well, not sure it matters too much.

But we all do hate the dance; the bloody nub company doesn't tell us any useful way of storing/restoring the calib data :/

jeff

 

[GizmoTheGreen]

grrr, they should! D:

 

[bradleyb01]

@Snow-Okami,

Thanks for the step by step. I will try this as soon as I get mine. (Stoopid me! I shoulda asked for UPS shipping.)

 

[Dead1nside]

grrr, they should! D:

Exactly. This is really one thing that I wasn't expecting with the Pandora. I hope there's some way that we can store the values and restore them. Even if it has to be done by us individually and not in the firmware.