I went to an auction (a real auction rather than an online one) and, among all the other items from a house-clearance, was a Logitech X56.
It didn't come with the extra springs, or the little palm-rest, and it was untested, but it was up for sale with a reserve price of £40 in an auction room full of people hoping to unearth lost Picassos and job-lots of Spode crockery.
I waved my lollipop once and it was mine, for the princely sum of £45! (ironically, exactly the same amount that I paid for my old X45nearly more than 20 years ago)
Got it home, plugged it in and it all worked except for one of the hat's on the throttle.
I've fixed the wiring on a few of these before, and I know they're a bit fiddly inside (the throttles, that is. The joystick is easy to work on), but I pulled it apart, found a wire broken off a PCB, soldered it back on, spent about 2 hours rebuilding it without getting any of the wires snagged anywhere, and it works perfectly.
I'm not really a fan of macro's or multi-function keybinds so I won't have a lot of use for the Saitek/Logitech software which, hopefully, will reduce the amount of problems I have with the HOTAS.
Only problem with it is that I want to attach it to the seat in my command-module and the size of the joystick base makes that difficult.
Fortunately, despite the size of the joystick base, there's naff-all inside there except a small PCB which is a hall-effect sensor and a USB interface.
I currently have a plan to make a Warthog style base out of a short length of 110mm drainpipe and then machine circular plastic plates for the top and bottom, which'll make it much easier to mount to a base poking out of my chair, between my legs.
I notice that there are extension-tubes for these joysticks available on ebay.
Not entirely sure it'll be wise to attach something that will allow me to apply more force (by accident) to something that is already not terribly robust but I might give one a go, just to see how it feels.
To be fair, the joystick (this one is the Logitech version, and the most recent black/grey version rather than the one with the lurid blue graphics) doesn't seem squeaky or creaky and it seems fairly solid, even though it's not especially heavy.
So, there we are.
I'm now the proud owner of one of the most maligned mid/high-end HOTAS' around.
It didn't come with the extra springs, or the little palm-rest, and it was untested, but it was up for sale with a reserve price of £40 in an auction room full of people hoping to unearth lost Picassos and job-lots of Spode crockery.
I waved my lollipop once and it was mine, for the princely sum of £45! (ironically, exactly the same amount that I paid for my old X45
Got it home, plugged it in and it all worked except for one of the hat's on the throttle.
I've fixed the wiring on a few of these before, and I know they're a bit fiddly inside (the throttles, that is. The joystick is easy to work on), but I pulled it apart, found a wire broken off a PCB, soldered it back on, spent about 2 hours rebuilding it without getting any of the wires snagged anywhere, and it works perfectly.
I'm not really a fan of macro's or multi-function keybinds so I won't have a lot of use for the Saitek/Logitech software which, hopefully, will reduce the amount of problems I have with the HOTAS.
Only problem with it is that I want to attach it to the seat in my command-module and the size of the joystick base makes that difficult.
Fortunately, despite the size of the joystick base, there's naff-all inside there except a small PCB which is a hall-effect sensor and a USB interface.
I currently have a plan to make a Warthog style base out of a short length of 110mm drainpipe and then machine circular plastic plates for the top and bottom, which'll make it much easier to mount to a base poking out of my chair, between my legs.
I notice that there are extension-tubes for these joysticks available on ebay.
Not entirely sure it'll be wise to attach something that will allow me to apply more force (by accident) to something that is already not terribly robust but I might give one a go, just to see how it feels.
To be fair, the joystick (this one is the Logitech version, and the most recent black/grey version rather than the one with the lurid blue graphics) doesn't seem squeaky or creaky and it seems fairly solid, even though it's not especially heavy.
So, there we are.
I'm now the proud owner of one of the most maligned mid/high-end HOTAS' around.