I am pretty sure the green one is the stiffest one, which is the stock spring. All of the other ones felt too flaccid. I did try the green one and the red one combined, and it actually felt really nice, but I got the feeling I was losing a few degrees of movement. Maybe it was just me though.
Hardware & Technical Saitek x55 rhino
- Thread starter Oculus
- Start date
I am pretty sure the green one is the stiffest one, which is the stock spring. All of the other ones felt too flaccid. I did try the green one and the red one combined, and it actually felt really nice, but I got the feeling I was losing a few degrees of movement. Maybe it was just me though.
Red one for me. I get wrist ache with any on the longer springs
Does anyone know how to lubricate the yaw movement ? Mine has got very 'Bitty and grauncy'. The main Ball beneath the spring is dead easy to lub, and i do this once a week with splash of Silicone Spray grease, but i need to do the side to side Yaw mechanism.
Does anyone know how to lubricate the yaw movement ? Mine has got very 'Bitty and grauncy'. The main Ball beneath the spring is dead easy to lub, and i do this once a week with splash of Silicone Spray grease, but i need to do the side to side Yaw mechanism.
It is impossible without voiding the warranty.
Does it get stuck in the extreme yaw positions as here?
https://youtu.be/a0ylVZ9HWd8
If this is the case then you probably need to RMA it as I did. If you have the batch starting with the S/N 151xxxxx then it looks like a manufacturing issue. The yaw axis becomes overtightened while using it.
In order to get to the yaw axis potentiometer you need to disassemble the joystick by unscrewing 5 screws on its side. Then you need to carefully part the left and right side of the stick as you might break the wires inside it. Then unscrew 2 screws that hold the potentiometer, which is located closer to the bottom part of the stick. Be careful with the 3 wires going from the potentiometer to the base of the joystick, the soldering is not particularly good and the wires are very thin, it is easy to break the soldering. Then you need to carefully disassemble the plastic part that holds the yaw spring and the potentiometer. Check whether it is the potentiometer that is causing the issue by trying to rotate the moving part there. If it does not move freely then it is the cause of the issue. In case it does not move freely you can use the pliers to rotate it, this should loosen it a bit. However, the issue is probably going to return in a couple of weeks. You can then try unscrewing the nut that fixates the potentiometer, this should allow you to get access to the part that overtightens, may be applying the lubricant will solve the issue.
But as it voids the warranty, I would recommend contacting the seller and requesting RMA.
Hi there
Has anyone come up with a decent solution to repair this issue ? my Right Throttle wires have done this and i need to fix them , any particular wire used ? how about a decent cover when repaired ? i think heat shrink would stress the wires too much where they go into the base of the throttle.
I'll be repairing mine and will take some pics and post what i did in the next few weeks as i'm away from ED for two weeks
Well now, I thought I was clever when I finally figured out what was causing my throttle to behave erratically. I made the decision to open up the throttle to investigate myself, instead of losing it to customer service for who knows how many months. Once I opened it and moved the throttle back and forth, the problem was obvious. Kinked wires.
.
My problems were: I stopped using the two wheels because I had them mapped to throttle up/down and throttle left/right. Sometimes when coming in for a landing, I would throttle down (not the wheels) and all of a sudden I would start flying up/down or left/right, ruining my beautiful landings. So I eventually just unmapped those wheels in favor of the thumb sticks.
.
I continued playing for months and now my thumb sticks won't work in the up (both of them!!) when my throttle is all the way down. So I now have 2 throttle sticks and 2 wheels that don't work half the time and cause erratic inputs some of the time. So I called it quits and started researching online about X55's and discovered "Ghosting". I went into my windows 7 joystick calibration and that's when I saw that my button works when throttle up, but not down. I also saw the wheels doing funky stuff as I moved my throttle up/down. Now, I had read about the USB3.0, powered or not, and I didn't buy it. I'm a quality engineer for a robotics company and this smelled like bad wiring to me. So I made the decision to open my stick.
.
Now I came online to post my findings, thinking that I was so clever. But I see that OCD has already posted this issue. The only thing I can add is why I think people using powered USB hubs are getting results. For now.
.
The problem is the wires have to move as they throttle moves up/down. When the throttle is UP, the wires are stretched "tight". When the throttle is down, the wires have to fold somewhere. And there are a lot of wires. And they are TINY. When the wires are new, they bend. But there's a phenomenon in engineering called "fatigue". Keep stressing something over and over, and eventually the strength of that something weakens and fails. And as I discovered on my joystick, the wires fatigued until they buckled into a sharp bend (a point, a "V", a kink). Then that wire keeps bending there until the strands inside break. When the joystick causes the bend, the strands inside separate and the button doesn't work. When the joystick causes the wire to straighten out, those strands "MIGHT" reconnect, or connect but not well. As to which wire breaks, it's entirely random. It just happened that the thumbsticks and wheels broke on mine. But it could have been any wire, which would have had me boosting unpredictably, or going free-flight, or whatever else my other buttons are assigned to do.
.
As for the powered USB3.0 solution, I believe that all is happening there is the increase in voltage is allowing the current to jump the tiny air gap inside the wire where the strands have come apart, making them work. For now. As this kink continues to fold and straighten out and the strands inside the wire continue to pull apart, eventually the voltage will not be high enough to continue to make the connection. Also, you can expect more and more wires to kink, and more things/buttons "ghosting".
.
Fixing this yourself is not easy. I have access to skilled technicians here at work, that will cut those kinked wires and re-solder them together. I have some skill in doing this also, but the wires are TINY and in a bundle of other wires. I will let someone more experienced than I fix it for me. Then I will wrap that whole wire bundle in spiral wrap, so they can no longer kink. But once I do that, I will have to figure out how to let the wires MOVE. So I may report in with a solution later.
.
However, people that do not have skilled electronics friends, may want to start a customer service ticket and get the crappy wiring fixed, before any kind of warranty expires. In my opinion, it is just a matter of time before ALL X55 throttles fail this way.
.
My problems were: I stopped using the two wheels because I had them mapped to throttle up/down and throttle left/right. Sometimes when coming in for a landing, I would throttle down (not the wheels) and all of a sudden I would start flying up/down or left/right, ruining my beautiful landings. So I eventually just unmapped those wheels in favor of the thumb sticks.
.
I continued playing for months and now my thumb sticks won't work in the up (both of them!!) when my throttle is all the way down. So I now have 2 throttle sticks and 2 wheels that don't work half the time and cause erratic inputs some of the time. So I called it quits and started researching online about X55's and discovered "Ghosting". I went into my windows 7 joystick calibration and that's when I saw that my button works when throttle up, but not down. I also saw the wheels doing funky stuff as I moved my throttle up/down. Now, I had read about the USB3.0, powered or not, and I didn't buy it. I'm a quality engineer for a robotics company and this smelled like bad wiring to me. So I made the decision to open my stick.
.
Now I came online to post my findings, thinking that I was so clever. But I see that OCD has already posted this issue. The only thing I can add is why I think people using powered USB hubs are getting results. For now.
.
The problem is the wires have to move as they throttle moves up/down. When the throttle is UP, the wires are stretched "tight". When the throttle is down, the wires have to fold somewhere. And there are a lot of wires. And they are TINY. When the wires are new, they bend. But there's a phenomenon in engineering called "fatigue". Keep stressing something over and over, and eventually the strength of that something weakens and fails. And as I discovered on my joystick, the wires fatigued until they buckled into a sharp bend (a point, a "V", a kink). Then that wire keeps bending there until the strands inside break. When the joystick causes the bend, the strands inside separate and the button doesn't work. When the joystick causes the wire to straighten out, those strands "MIGHT" reconnect, or connect but not well. As to which wire breaks, it's entirely random. It just happened that the thumbsticks and wheels broke on mine. But it could have been any wire, which would have had me boosting unpredictably, or going free-flight, or whatever else my other buttons are assigned to do.
.
As for the powered USB3.0 solution, I believe that all is happening there is the increase in voltage is allowing the current to jump the tiny air gap inside the wire where the strands have come apart, making them work. For now. As this kink continues to fold and straighten out and the strands inside the wire continue to pull apart, eventually the voltage will not be high enough to continue to make the connection. Also, you can expect more and more wires to kink, and more things/buttons "ghosting".
.
Fixing this yourself is not easy. I have access to skilled technicians here at work, that will cut those kinked wires and re-solder them together. I have some skill in doing this also, but the wires are TINY and in a bundle of other wires. I will let someone more experienced than I fix it for me. Then I will wrap that whole wire bundle in spiral wrap, so they can no longer kink. But once I do that, I will have to figure out how to let the wires MOVE. So I may report in with a solution later.
.
However, people that do not have skilled electronics friends, may want to start a customer service ticket and get the crappy wiring fixed, before any kind of warranty expires. In my opinion, it is just a matter of time before ALL X55 throttles fail this way.
I'm currently mid repair on my throttle, every wire in the right quadrant was damaged or kinked in some way, even when I opened the actual head of the quadrant I found some wires flattened where it had been assembled poorly, there are 14 wires in total and the are in a 2x7 plug configuration, there is a plug in the Base of the throttle and one in the head of the quadrant, both are the same, my local Marlins do not have anything close but RS Components seem to sell the right equipment. I'm going there tomorrow so I'll keep you updated as to what I find and how I can improve on the awful design. I'll also try and replace the wires on the left quadrant even though they are not broken (yet)
Had the same problem. Part of the wires got in between some mechanical parts of the throttle and were slowly destroyed basically. It seems to be a common problem, because of poor assembly. Found more about this on the net.
I noticed it when a few buttons on the right throttle wouldn't work sporadically, especially when I had it moved all the way to the front.
I soldered the broken wire, thankfully it was just one at this point, then put a cable binder and some tape all around all wires to keep them nicely bundled and out of the destructive area. For now, this works just fine.
The wires are of very poor quality. Extremely thin and barely flexible. If it didn't look so damn intimidating and wasn't all full of that sticky goo they used to make it resist movement, I would probably rewire the whole thing.
Before I had that problem, I had another one. The trigger on the stick wouldn't work anymore unless pressed very, very hard. Fixed that by gluing a small piece of rubber on the lever of the microswitch, to reduce the distance between switch and trigger.
Actually I was well within the warranty for my HOTAS, but the problems I had seemed to be so ridiculously common, that I didn't even bother to go through a replacement process, just to get another unit with the same problems.
Rather fix it well and, hopefully, permanently, than to get my HOTAS replaced every few months.
Last edited:
This doesn't stack up. The voltage is the same 5V in all USB devices from USB 1.0 to USB 3.1.
However what is different is the ability to supply current. But I'm not convinced that makes any difference either. The tiny break in the individual strands would appear as an increase in resistance to the current which would drop a voltage and act as an in-line intermittent resistor.
As far as I recall the USB 3 hub thing is down to the legacy USB drivers that come on some motherboards have that have issues with high current devices plugged into USB2 ports. So if you have a USB 3 port/hub, that doesn't suffer from the legacy issues, and the problem goes away. You can in some BIOS configurations disable the legacy USB drivers and allow the default to be the OS contained driver. That also cured the problem for some.
I think this has been a mixture of problems with several potential solutions. Some have dodgy wires and the hub thing doesn't work for them. Some have legacy USB issues and the dodgy wiring so the USB thing doesn't work for them. Some have good wiring and dodgy USB and the hub thing does work for them. Some have no issues, for some others the problem exists between the keyboard and the chair.
At least this is my distillation of what has been happening.
I've been fortunate with My X-55 and not had any issues other than wearing out the 4 way switches on the throttle, and the stick castle hat. They replaced that under warranty and in the mean time I went out and bought another one just in case.
This talk of wires breaking made me a bit worried, so I took the throttle a part. From what I can see everything looks fine. The wires looked wrapped good enough around the gears. It seems that not all had the wires wrapped this way from the pics I have seen.
I bought this in July of 2014 and have only had three issues that were easy to fix. The first was the ghost button problem. I bought a internal USB 3 powered card and that solved that issue. The motherboard USB causes the problem. Next, the throttle was very hard to push when I bought it, but tightening the throttle all the way and moving the throttle back and forth really fast wiped enough of that sticky grease off so that it was fine after loosing it back. The last was a minor creaking sound from the rudder. WD 40 Dirt & Dust Resistant Dry Lube PTFE Spray (Plastic safe) solved that. In fact, I used a bit on spring area and it seems to work really well. However, I never had the sticking washer issue.
All in all, I am very happy with the X55.
I bought this in July of 2014 and have only had three issues that were easy to fix. The first was the ghost button problem. I bought a internal USB 3 powered card and that solved that issue. The motherboard USB causes the problem. Next, the throttle was very hard to push when I bought it, but tightening the throttle all the way and moving the throttle back and forth really fast wiped enough of that sticky grease off so that it was fine after loosing it back. The last was a minor creaking sound from the rudder. WD 40 Dirt & Dust Resistant Dry Lube PTFE Spray (Plastic safe) solved that. In fact, I used a bit on spring area and it seems to work really well. However, I never had the sticking washer issue.
All in all, I am very happy with the X55.
Yeah, that's looking fine. It's one of the earlier models I think, where the wires were neatly wrapped in paper all the way up into the throttle handles.
That was not the case for my model, after they had "optimized" the assembly process. At least that's what I've read somewhere.
EDIT: This should make it clear:
Last edited:
Like I said batches sold July 2014 were fine, the wires had good isolation. These were the batches sold later, where they have removed it. The replacement they have sent me in late November 2014 did not have it already.
EDIT: Saitek has released Win 10 Beta drivers for X52, X52 Pro, X55, and X65f. More details and installation instruction can be found here:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=180924
EDIT: Saitek has released Win 10 Beta drivers for X52, X52 Pro, X55, and X65f. More details and installation instruction can be found here:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=180924
Last edited:
So anything AFTER July 14 will most likely have the wire issues?
No idea. The one that was sent in July 2014 broke in October 2014. It took 3 months until the wire issue has developed for the one received in November 2014. Replacement was confirmed in February 2015, delivered in June, broke in 4 weeks, another replacement received in July, the same issue has developed as with the previous one, fixed in myself this time. Currently working fine.
Does it get better with time? I got my x55 a couple of weeks ago or so. It is also a bit annoying in the jaw movement.
Last edited:
I had this issue with the replacement #3 that was sent in November last year, developed within 3 months of usage, replacement #5 sent in July this year. So the issue affects batches with the serial numbers starting with 142******, and 151******. Now I have 152******.
Last edited:
ok, I got a 152******
I think I will give it some time, see if it gets worse or better. It it not much, but it doesn't feel smooth.
I can't really decide if I should try this to fix the Rudder "squeak" or not - it seems a bit risky:
[video=youtube;yTnD3SDHCXQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTnD3SDHCXQ[/video]
Have any of you tried this?
[video=youtube;yTnD3SDHCXQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTnD3SDHCXQ[/video]
Have any of you tried this?
My squeak went away with normal usage. I use Solicone base lubricants for the ball of the joy and was almost going to take mine apart then it fixed itself lol
Last edited:
Ok. How long did it take for it to fix itself? I have had mine for 1½ month now.