Yeah and the nub on the bottom of the stick gets worn down as well. I recently bought the gears, bowls and replacement sticks from Kitsch to fix some of my controllers and my results were amazing.
Hi good video the test is a little flaw. The reason is because the bowls wear out too. So the test should be done with a brand new bowl this would have given you more accurate results. Can you do an update video with a new bowl that will give you more accurate test. Thank you. 🙏
Hi. Thanks for the review! However I think this test could of been done better. As I understand it, there are 3 things that can make a controller's thumbstick loose. The bowl, the stick, and the gears. Judging from the old gears, the bowls inside of these controllers are most likely very worn. The difference in looseness you are seeing is likely due to the bowl the kitsch bent gears were installed in being less worn. That white powdery residue you see in the controllers is the plastic dust from the bowls being worn down, so as it stands this test seems questionable in terms of validity. I know you swapped them out but..idk. It doesn't seem right. Especially considering ReStick (new upcoming replacement) went with N64Gears over Kitsch Bent for their product. Perhaps you should try redoing the test, but with new bowls and a new stick. I'd love to see a re-review with all new sticks and bowls! Kitsch Bent also sells very cheap replacement bowls and even sticks. Not sure how good their sticks are, but for a control it should be fine. Either way it's cool that you made a video to compare the gears, as there does not seem to be any other videos on RU-vid. The general consensus I've heard is that N64gears is the closest to OEM, so I'd be surprised if you still thought they were worse. Have a nice day! :D
I would agree with you ShinyTomb that the bowls and the stick definitely have wear and that replacing them would be ideal. But this video focused on just the gears alone. Furhumore between 22:00-26:00 I switch the N64Gears out with the Kitsch then I put the N64Gears back in the same controller with no cuts in the video, therefore, showing that the play was coming from the gears and not the other internals. Now, this is just an experiment I did for my own business regarding the best product I could purchase for replacing the sticks. I would implore anyone to try both out and let me know in the comments below your thoughts on the gears.
@@MaxLevelVideoGames Sorry if it sounded like I was calling you a liar, that's not what I was trying to infer. I just meant that I thought the test could of been done better. Perhaps the N64Gear ones are designed with the assumption that the other parts are also relatively new or not very worn. Although as far as I know they are molded from virtually brand new OEM gears so they shouldn't be any different. That company I mentioned called ReStick is making what is essentially SteelSticks64, but on a mass manufactured scale. The gears they are using are from N64Gears and the modules are currently being tested by speedrunners in the community. I haven't heard any mention of the sticks being loose in the neutral position, so if I had to guess something else may be to blame. Could be a defective set of gears. From what I've heard some of the N64Gear ones are basically on par with OEM gears, and some of them are subpar. Maybe you got a bad set. It really is just random since they are made using a mold. Seems like sometimes they turn out pretty perfect, sometimes they don't.
On a related note I actually ordered 4 sets of the N64Gear gears, along with some kitsch bent sticks and bowls to repair my sisters controllers. I can give you an update on how they turn out in around a month when I get the controllers to repair them.
For the games that aren't broken by it I really like the tribute64 wired. The stick is really good, be nice if the c buttons were bigger though. Keeping 2 originals around as well for 4 player & games that play more correctly with it. Restick looks too costly for me at the moment. Far as I can tell n64 gears, kitch bent are about the same price although I don't know which gears are better. As it stands though I have 2 oem controllers packed with tons of white lithium grease I don't expect to ever replace the stick on them from simply playing. I do have a few I need to ditch though so I was curious and one of them is a pokemon controller too.
I have a thought why not make the axis gears out of something a little bit more sturdy like aluminum or something that would not easily be worn down on the inside of the two pieces of the gears and still use the method of lubricant on the bowl
Third party complete joystick modules like the "Repair Box, Sharpshooter" are designed a little different than OEM. The only things that are re-usable are the electrics and housing. The encoders, gears, bowl and spring are all slightly different. They are designed to work with each other and not OEM or Kitch-Bent parts. The encoders on third party sticks like the one you have have 58 steps vs 80 and they have 13 gear teeth on the inner wheel vs 18 on OEM. They'll generally will be a little more sensitive "faster" in the way that a person skips steps going up stairs. Although since the there are missing steps, there is no finesse in the movement. This makes a big difference in N64 games. If you're using Kitsch-Bent parts you need to get OEM encoders and spring. Then you need to replace the bowl with an OEM, Kitsch-Bent or a mental option. If you do this you'll have a stick that feels much better and it wont grind or bind at times. This can happen once you start mixing parts from a complete third party stick. As you mentioned, I also recommend using super-lube but it wont save a stick with badly matched parts. Last is the spring and plastic ring go in a certain way. The larger part of the spring faces towards the end of the joystick nub. It's confusing because once you put the plastic ring on, which has it's own lip, it's doesn't fit well because that side is bigger. But that's the way it goes. The ringed circle also has a flat part on it. That faces the opposite of the cog. It's to help clear the screw post. I recommend running the N64 controller benchmark rom on the stick when you're done and you'll see the difference. A good stick should be between 80-85.
Oh. The sticks are OEM. I was putting the old OEM stick in the 3rd party boxes. At one time I was just replacing the broken sticks with Repair Box all in one. Then I had the dreaded OEM controller cracking issue that some people were saying can happen with the 3rd party controller all in one. Because of that, I started testing gears and posting my opinion of said gears on youtube. I've seen the N64 controller benchmark I just have yet to pull the trigger.
Do you actually buy these parts from the actual website on the kitsch bent. The website looks sketchy to me since they don't offer PayPal. What payment method do you use?
Since your post is a year old you probably already bought it :-). But i just wanter to mention that they do have a PayPal checkout option right now. I bought a 10 piece set an hour ago
