Looking for New HOTAS advice

I have been using mine for two days now and can't understand the posts saying poor quality bla bla bla. It is certainly way better quality in feel and use than my old Thrustmaster X Hotas which lasted me 6yrs before the yaw function got so much drift it made a new buy necessary. The X56 is solid and while researching various Hotas replacements it is clear that the bad ones were the last batch of Saitek ones with the blue on black design Logitech inherited. Logitech have since changed the spec and improved the new ones with the black and silvery/grey design.

There are three colour bands in the settings red, green and blue, each of which can be stylised giving a decent spectrum of colours including the red on the bottom and blue down the side. When I got it I followed the instructions by first installing the software downloaded from the Logitech site. As with my old Hotas I calibrated it from the Windows devices and printers screen icon. The first time I played after setting the binds I did notice that the joystick was very imprecise and thought I might test out the springs to see if that helped. After watching a review video on You Tube I decided to calibrate the X56 from the Logitech settings panel instead of in Windows and what a difference from before, now the joystick is seriously precise. I had been using a small hauler I bought for testing as I wanted to keep rebuy costs low in the event of a disaster but immediately went back and retrieved my Corvette from storage before taking a few missions and immediately flew through the letterbox as easy as going through the eye of a needle.

If you have the funds, play several flight sim/ space sim games a lot then I suppose long term the really expensive gear is good economics but if like me you play a couple of hours daily on ED or other game then the X56 is more than adequate in my opinion. Another thing not mentioned is the fact that some people are heavy handed and I suspect many of the problems written about here about faulty products etc are more to do with playing styles. I myself am very light handed and my old Hotas X lasted me 6yrs before the yaw and a somewhat imprecise hat switch made me get a new hotas. 90% or so of my old Hotas X controls are still working perfectly well after 6yrs and this in a unit that cost me £35 at the time. So with sensible use there is no reason to doubt that the X56 @ £215 should far outlast that. In fact I am 70yrs old so it will likely outlast me as well. :cool:

It's nice that you give so expert feedback after a full two days of use. I dare to say that yes, within the first weeks of having the device i also had no problems. (Once i solved the often reported problem of it the device being power hungry by getting a powered USB hub. )

On throwing it around or handling it badly: i also don't agree there. The devices are screwed to my table, so unless i start throwing around the table the chance of them being tossed around, bruised or anything like that are rather low.
[Also, i have a small metal plate taped to the top, where a plush pet with a magnet inside is being held in place. Even just moving the stick like 50% to the side and releasing it is enough that the pet goes flying, and i use the second weakest centering spring. Yet the pet is fine there, even when i do combat flying, be it Elite Dangerous or Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. So again, i am rather sure that my handling of the stick is not too wild. ]

Yet over the years, i went through a number of X55/X56es. The old Saitek ones broke down once a year and the usual problem was broken wires. (So, i always was able to replace them on warranty. )

The new Logitech device lasted for 3 years and 4 months and the first defect now was that a soldering broke. It was a wire in the grip. I resoldered it, the device is fine again, but when i next time have to open the joysticks grip, i will also use a little glue to fix them in position. The wire currently is dangling down from the top of the joystick. The plate where the POV and 4 way switches are attached is where the cable bundle from goes to from the base, from there on it's loose wires going to all the other buttons. So as the wires are soldered to the plate and the switch, but not held in place by any other means, they are subject to gravitation when moving the joystick. And movement, no matter if fast or slow, results in them also moving a little bit.

One of the Saitek built sticks i opened later. (I have one spare, as one time support just told me to cut off the USB cables and send a picture to confirm that i disabled the device and then sent me a new one. ) The wires in there are still of the "solid core" type. (Excuse if the term is not correct, my am not sure on the proper english term here. ) In the newer Logitech device, when i opened it up, i found the wires to be have a mesh core.

This means that the cables indeed are of higher quality and less prone of breaking. I am quite confident that the higher quality of the cables is the reason why the stick lasted about three times as long as its Saitek-built predecessors. But where the wires are soldered in place, the soldering eliminates the flexibility. So logically, that's where it broke. It's a very logical consequence of how the wires are put into the device, without being held in place at other places than where they were soldered to the board and switch.

So yes, both from how long my device lasted without problems and on what i saw on the wires, Logitech improved some parts compared to the old Saitek/Madcatz version. But while the parts are of better quality, some of the inherent problems could only be properly fixed by completely redesigning the devices internals. As it's unlikely that Logitech will do that, higher than usual wear and tear is simple designed into the device and will happen, no matter how carefully and properly you use it.
 
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It's nice that you give so expert feedback after a full two days of use. I dare to say that yes, within the first weeks of having the device i also had no problems. (Once i solved the often reported problem of it the device being power hungry by getting a powered USB hub. )

On throwing it around or handling it badly: i also don't agree there. The devices are screwed to my table, so unless i start throwing around the table the chance of them being tossed around, bruised or anything like that are rather low.
[Also, i have a small metal plate taped to the top, where a plush pet with a magnet inside is being held in place. Even just moving the stick like 50% to the side and releasing it is enough that the pet goes flying, and i use the second weakest centering spring. Yet the pet is fine there, even when i do combat flying, be it Elite Dangerous or Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. So again, i am rather sure that my handling of the stick is not too wild. ]

Yet over the years, i went through a number of X55/X56es. The old Saitek ones broke down once a year and the usual problem was broken wires. (So, i always was able to replace them on warranty. )

The new Logitech device lasted for 3 years and 4 months and the first defect now was that a soldering broke. It was a wire in the grip. I resoldered it, the device is fine again, but when i next time have to open the joysticks grip, i will also use a little glue to fix them in position. The wire currently is dangling down from the top of the joystick. The plate where the POV and 4 way switches are attached is where the cable bundle from goes to from the base, from there on it's loose wires going to all the other buttons. So as the wires are soldered to the plate and the switch, but not held in place by any other means, they are subject to gravitation when moving the joystick. And movement, no matter if fast or slow, results in them also moving a little bit.

One of the Saitek built sticks i opened later. (I have one spare, as one time support just told me to cut off the USB cables and send a picture to confirm that i disabled the device and then sent me a new one. ) The wires in there are still of the "solid core" type. (Excuse if the term is not correct, my am not sure on the proper english term here. ) In the newer Logitech device, when i opened it up, i found the wires to be have a mesh core.

This means that the cables indeed are of higher quality and less prone of breaking. I am quite confident that the higher quality of the cables is the reason why the stick lasted about three times as long as its Saitek-built predecessors. But where the wires are soldered in place, the soldering eliminates the flexibility. So logically, that's where it broke. It's a very logical consequence of how the wires are put into the device, without being held in place at other places than where they were soldered to the board and switch.

So yes, both from how long my device lasted without problems and on what i saw on the wires, Logitech improved some parts compared to the old Saitek/Madcatz version. But while the parts are of better quality, some of the inherent problems could only be properly fixed by completely redesigning the devices internals. As it's unlikely that Logitech will do that, higher than usual wear and tear is simple designed into the device and will happen, no matter how carefully and properly you use it.
I never said or even implied that every player having problems with the X56 was misusing it but that some are?. Unless I am mistaken you are more or less saying that the main problem in your experience going wrong with the new Logitech X56 series is solder joints going bad. This is unfortunate but I understand how this happens. For many years now I have repaired and built guitars and around 5-10 years back new laws were brought in banning lead based solder due to health concerns on the fumes being cancerous. Now here in Europe it is illegal to sell lead based solder and therefore all modern soldering is done using silver solder. Silver solder needs more heat in general in my experience and doesn't blend as good as lead based. I have had guitars from as early as the 1950's on my workbench and although it does happen at times the old lead solder is still good after that long unless I find a cold solder joint or a pot or pickup has been changed out. On the other hand I get a lot of work resoldering newer guitars where I often find the cause of the problem being cold solder joints due I believe to the silver solder requirements. In general iI would say that not only Logitech but any company using soldered products will have a higher percentage of rejects due to this.
 
I never said or even implied that every player having problems with the X56 was misusing it but that some are?. Unless I am mistaken you are more or less saying that the main problem in your experience going wrong with the new Logitech X56 series is solder joints going bad. This is unfortunate but I understand how this happens. For many years now I have repaired and built guitars and around 5-10 years back new laws were brought in banning lead based solder due to health concerns on the fumes being cancerous. Now here in Europe it is illegal to sell lead based solder and therefore all modern soldering is done using silver solder. Silver solder needs more heat in general in my experience and doesn't blend as good as lead based. I have had guitars from as early as the 1950's on my workbench and although it does happen at times the old lead solder is still good after that long unless I find a cold solder joint or a pot or pickup has been changed out. On the other hand I get a lot of work resoldering newer guitars where I often find the cause of the problem being cold solder joints due I believe to the silver solder requirements. In general iI would say that not only Logitech but any company using soldered products will have a higher percentage of rejects due to this.

Hmm. On abuse, i basically wanted to clarify that a lot of the problem reports are legit. The reports of what is breaking on the device are quite consistent and mostly are clearly not connected to bad handling. Especially the old Saitek/Madcaz built ones had severe quality issues.

On the part i described on my last problem: it's not the soldering itself, which was faults. It's just the mere fact that soldering elimintes a wires flexibilty on the area where you have lead/silver on it. And the wires inside the device just still move, as they are not properly attached anywhere and thus held in place. (Cable ties exist for a reason, and it's not only to make things look neat. ) As long as the device had the cheap wires, they broke at those places where they experienced most flexing. Now with the better mesh core cables, they seem to break where the soldering eliminates the flexibility of the mesh.

What did surprise me is that this time it was a wire in the stick that broke first. The old wires usually broke first in the throttle. The way they are lead up into the grip means that any time you move the throttle forward or back, they are moved a lot. The way they are lead is not optimal. (Some bending is unavoidable, considering that they go into a moving part. But you could eliminate a lot of the movement by them going down further in front. )

So all in all, Logitech did improve the wires. That much i can now, after fixing my device, that for sure. But the general interior design is the same as before, which just means that i do expect more trouble to come. Time will tell.
 
I thought EdRef main feature is to pull YOUR BINDINGS from file and generate a printable visualizatiin of them 😊
I've never really bothered much with it to be honest, way back when I started with the T hotas X there were some blank printouts on the go and then EDref came about. I think I may have actually uploaded my TX one there just to get a printable version to keep in front of me, a bit like I am doing at the moment with the X56. I always found that most of the uploaded player set ups seem to me to have set stuff on their controllers that are not actually necessary as they can be done when needed ingame. Stuff like mapping, silent running, next target etc are all available in the ingame external/internal menu's.
 
That still is the main feature, but it occurred to me that it can just as easily print the DirectInput names on the diagram, so now we have a button map for each device. It’s also a useful diagnostic for all the diagrams I inherited when I took over the project. Some mistakes came to light as a result.
 
Stuff like mapping, silent running, next target etc are all available in the ingame external/internal menu's.

But ingame menus take time. For this reason I have next/previous target, enemy and subsystem as well as select target ahead bound. When in combat, they are useful and I can use them while still properly flying, instead of switching over to some menu. For similar reasons

I even have select next waypoint in route on a button: when my target uses chaff, I want to deselect it, so my gimbaled weapons behave like fixed. And "select target ahead" is risky. If by chance there is another ship somewhere ahead of you, even at a longer distance, you select that one instead of just deselecting your target, which can get you into trouble. Using next waypoint in route reliably deselects your target, without any such risk.

Silent running also already prevented me from loosing a few ships. It's rare that I want to use that feature, but when I do, it's usually that my shields are down and I am taking a beating and want to break target lock. Would I have to go to the side panel to switch it on, it would've meant too much time digging in the menu instead of properly flying this ship.

Of course it depends on how you are flying and what you are doing, but most of these things can be bound for good reason: to save time in critical situations.
 
There are three hats on the top of the Logitech X56 stick. Which of them is fully analogue? Or is the gray hat with the dish shape on the left side fully analogue?
 
I've never really bothered much with it to be honest, way back when I started with the T hotas X there were some blank printouts on the go and then EDref came about. I think I may have actually uploaded my TX one there just to get a printable version to keep in front of me, a bit like I am doing at the moment with the X56. I always found that most of the uploaded player set ups seem to me to have set stuff on their controllers that are not actually necessary as they can be done when needed ingame. Stuff like mapping, silent running, next target etc are all available in the ingame external/internal menu's.

I'm not a "Touch Typist", so with the VR headset on I have huge problems trying the menus or keyboard, literally exploding as I tried to navigate the menus and sub menus. Sometimes even when not in VR. I needed something with lots of buttons, and the VKB Gladiator ( with K handle ) fit the bill. When I play I push my keyboard out of the way and use only the VKB.

I personally need a HOTAS to quickly select targets, chaff, SCB, cargo scoops, landing gear, weapons deploy.. Even if it only saves me a second, thats a second more I have to concentrate on something else. I don't even remember half of the keyboard shortcuts. And when you start getting used to not having to use the keyboard, going back seems archaic.

I guarantee you'll find uses for those extra buttons on your setup. The X56 is a good stick. Lots of great CMDRs here use one.

Check back in a few weeks and let us know how it's working out.
 
X55/56 users :
Don't use your throttle(sarcasm) as eventually the dozen wires that get flexed every time you throttle up/down, will break,happened to me.
Another weak point has been,in the past, the twist assembly as you can't just swap broken spring for a good one(can be done but VERY difficult), happened to me.
Solder joints : No problems, lead or no lead.
 
Shame. That dish hat in that position would be perfect for strafe thruster maneuvering. The thumb stick will probably do the job fine (perhaps better), but that top hat position seems good for it.
What is the difference between them being analogue or digital?. After playing for a few days I changed my hat controls about last night just before exiting EDH. Previously I had the up/down/left/right thrusters on the dish hat on the throttle but found it too awkward when landing I also found I had the Joystick hats a bit back to front. I changed the bottom hat to eng/weps/sys/bal, the hat above that to UI and the silver/grey hat to thrust up/down/left/right and using the dish hat on the Joystick for external/internal/comms/roles. In a way this was how I had it set up on my old T flight X hotas except there I used one hat and four shifts instead of four hats and no shift?. What effect will these being analogie or digital mean to the way I set them up yesterday?
 
What is the difference between them being analogue or digital?.


Analogue means it is a stick (I should have called it that way), like on an XBox controller and digital is like hats usually are, a 4 or 8 way switch.

Ironically, I fly FA off and a digital hat switch is not much of a problem, because you just use short thruster impulses to change vector and the ship drifts there all by itself, whereas with FA on, you have to continuously hold the thruster stick at a certain position to make the ship fly that vector. With a hat switch for thrust and FA on, you need to release and apply the hat switch all the time to not over- or undershoot.

Still an analogue stick should be better (finer in output) even with FA off.

So I reword my question, which of the hats on the Logitech X56 is actually an analogue stick?
 
Analogue means it is a stick (I should have called it that way), like on an XBox controller and digital is like hats usually are, a 4 or 8 way switch.

Ironically, I fly FA off and a digital hat switch is not much of a problem, because you just use short thruster impulses to change vector and the ship drifts there all by itself, whereas with FA on, you have to continuously hold the thruster stick at a certain position to make the ship fly that vector. With a hat switch for thrust and FA on, you need to release and apply the hat switch all the time to not over- or undershoot.

Still an analogue stick should be better (finer in output) even with FA off.

So I reword my question, which of the hats on the Logitech X56 is actually an analogue stick?
There is one on the left side of the Joystick and another of the same type on the right side of the throttle, these have 4-way hat functions but also a push setting. On the throttle there are another two 4-way options these are the two silver/grey ones on the right side of the throttle
 

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There is one on the left side of the Joystick and another of the same type on the right side of the throttle, these have 4-way hat functions but also a push setting. On the throttle there are another two 4-way options these are the two silver/grey ones on the right side of the throttle

If you're using analogue for thrusters - it's often worthwhile using a different hand from your main pitch/roll/yaw rotational axes. It helps separate the inputs for ship translation movements ( up/down, left/right, forward/back) from those rotations, and this can be more intuitive as your hands can function independently better than individual fingers on one hand.

If you have an analogue ministick on the throttle, that might be your best option. As with all things tho - ymmv.
 
There is one on the left side of the Joystick and another of the same type on the right side of the throttle, these have 4-way hat functions but also a push setting. On the throttle there are another two 4-way options these are the two silver/grey ones on the right side of the throttle

The one on the throttle actually is the best choice for the thrusters. That one is nicely and conveniently placed, very good too use. When i try to use the one on the stick for that, i am way less precise. I guess it's something about the size of the stick and the angle my thumb is there at.

Edit: to really clarify, the analogue stick on the joystick is technically perfectly fine. But when you already fly the ship, move the stick, perhaps twist it, too, then at least for me it's hard to still use it precisely.
 
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