New Joystick: Ideal settings for OFF?

[Lewie]

Just picked up my replacement joystick, (yay!) a Saitek ST290, which replaces my ancient old worn MicroFlop. The old one was on it's last repair for the rudder pot which had worn into complete un-calibrativity. Yeah I know, the Saitek ain't exactly a high end unit, but for my uses it seems fine. Fired up TargetWare and flew my Borel monoplane which has a considerable engine torque and 'P' factor and discovered it wasn't the complete handful on takeoff it was with the old stick. Flew a few rounds of Redbaron3D with the realistic torque and gyro on. Pretty good.

 

My only gripe is that the twist for the rudder is a pretty narrow arc and the spring tension is a bit high, my old crates rely on the rudder a lot and I'd like to make it have a bit more resolution.

 

Anyone have some observations and comments about the Saitek and using it in OFF?

Edited February 17, 2011 by Lewie

[RAF_Louvert]

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I can't help you with this one Lewie. I run a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro with Saitek pedals. But I know some of the folks here are running the Saitek sticks so I am sure you will receive sage advice.

 

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[Lewie]

Well one alternative would be to perform some surgery to extract the rudder pot out of the Saitek and make my own rudder pedals, I've never flown a sim with them though.

 

It sounds like a bit of surgery will be required at any rate, the rudder spring is just too stiff and the arc too small. It's too bad because the rest of the stick is pretty good.

[Lewie]

I did some surgery on the Saitek stick last night, it's pretty straight forward in it's construction but really complex in the handle where the rudder pot resides.

 

Oh yeah the metal plate for the palm rest's thumb screw can drop out of alignment and really make your reassembly fun.

 

I discovered that Saitek uses a really thick treacle like compound in the throttle paddle 'bearing' support and the handle part of the rudder twist part of the handle, that supposedly makes for smooth damped control.

 

Well except for the problem that this compound has either dried out or stiffened with age. It was really thick and glue-like, and was actually hindering both controls. I found that plain old isopropyl alcohol will clean this crap out. That's a good thing as any other solvent would probably attack the plastic which looks like Styrene. You might get away with low odor mineral spirits, but the alcohol worked fine.

 

I gave the paddle bearing and the rudder twist bearing a generous daubing of plastic compatible teflon grease and took the spring out and gave it a slight detuning by stretching it a bit and the control is a bit more balanced. it's not perfect but the notchy center is definitely easier to work past.