Xbox hotas price gouging

First one I bought cost me around $75 CAD.
Can't seem to find another for anything less than 120, which is ridiculous, given their low-quality.
No option to buy directly from Thrustmaster either.
Sure does suck because I can't play this game without one, and my old one has been broken for months.
 
my old one has been broken for months

The same price increase could be observed in Europe too. Bought the first Hotas (4, identical to the Hotas One) for about 65 Euros in 2019, then it was at 120,- during the stay-at-home crisis until about May this year, where the price droppet shortly to 75 (immediately bought one), now they are at 85 Euro and climbing, the Hotas One is even at 90,- now.

In what regard is your flight stick broken? Ghost movement around the twist axxis?
Sometimes it suffices to disassemble it and clean the contacts by moving the potentiometers through their whole movement range.
AFAIK mouser.com offers replacement potis, should you be able to solder them.
 
First one I bought cost me around $75 CAD.
Can't seem to find another for anything less than 120, which is ridiculous, given their low-quality.
No option to buy directly from Thrustmaster either.
Sure does suck because I can't play this game without one, and my old one has been broken for months.
i get not being able to play with out one. i don't think i can ever go back to a controller.

what's broken on your HOTAS? there are some fixes floating that can be done.

when time allows i will be unsoldering all the potentiometers and soldering in new ones that i bought online.
 
Its ridiculous how bad they are. If I had the money and time I would DIY the crap out of one and make it better. Oh well. Its honestly a $30 hotas they try to pass of for 100+. I use an elite controller and I get everything I need out of it.
 
There is ghost input for roll, and yaw doesn't work at all.

Classical.
Broken cable and dirt (residue) in the contacts. For the latter at least you can increase the dead zone in the axxis control in ED until you get to repairing it.

There are tons of repair videos (Fixing Thrustmaster Hotas 4/One) for that, so I won't link one here specifically.
Here are some pictures to show what awaits you (except for buttons on the mounting plate these Hotas are identical).

The yaw control is located in the stick on top of the "bone" inside it. Most likely one of the three cables has come off.
For this it suffices to dismantle the grip (you can use sticky tape to keep the parts falling off, especially the top button plate) and solder them back on.

The roll (and pitch control) are located in the white bottom housing of the stick at 90 degrees angles of the rotating axxis.
For this you need to open the body from below.
The potentiometers you can see in this pictures, the two black thingies connected with three cables each to the white housing.
They can be easily pulled out of their sockets (do not rip off the flimsy cables), cleaned, then turned by hand through all their range of movement. Do not use oil with resin in it, it might gunk up the works later.

Please be aware that this fix probably needs repeating after some month. My Hotas 4 "behaved" for about three month after that, then the throttle kept acting up (not nice when you are trying to land a loaded T9 when due to the ghost inputs the autodocking gets switched off).
 
Theres a strip down and fix thing on youtube, I think theres a very good thread by 'mole' on the forum with some good advice. I regularly spray ptfe spray into mine having done the strip down fixes and its been ok for a while. They really are poor quality though. Cant do CQC without it mind, at least on xbox.
 
The trick for me is....make sure the throttle is centralised, brace your fingers on top of the base, directly under the stick. Using your thumb and index fingers, pull vertically up on the stick and move it gently around until it's not touching any of the sensors. Whilst still holding the stick in this position, plug it into the USB. The trick is finding and holding that sweet " space " spot when you plug it in. Let me know how you get on. 👍
 
I've had to replace both of my T-HOTAS One while they were under warranty. The customer service response each time was outstanding. Once I got the second, glitch free HOTAS it was good to go for a years (1-3). I play everyday so I cannot say they do not have a quality product. First HOTAS One purchase 2017, second purchase 2020. Started flying PC with a Warthog full sim setup and the quality of that makes flying xbox hard to tolerate. If MS would only authorize TM to build a dongle or a Warthog rig all would be right with the world. The increased costs will always be passed on to the user, just basic economics - key for me is customer service and a chance to get a good product that has a reasonable life span. Three years on on affordable plastic HOTAS seems okay; we'll see how long the metal HOTAS lasts. Either way, guess I'm a loyal Thrustmaster customer, both in flight (ELITE) and on the ground (FORZA).
 
The quality is the problem. Hardware should not go faulty that quickly.
HOTAS X here.
1,216.04 hours on mine according to steam, and still working great,
Yaw would drift a bit at first but that is because there is too little slack in the wires to the pot, pulled a bit more wire through and it's been perfect ever since.
I have a new one still in its box in the loft for when this one eventually fails
 
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I've had the same T Flight HOTAS 4 across thousands of hours on PS4, PS5 and PC in both Elite Dangerous and Microsoft Flight Sim (also ETS2 where it's used as a handbrake :D)

I must've been lucky and got one of the ones that lasts. I did take it apart very early on, and greased up all of it's internals because the thing creaked louder than the Mary Celeste when I first got it. I've got the tension on fairly low too.

I'm hoping it lasts at least until MSFS is a bit older (high demand) and the chip shortages improve (low supply).

I salute you, humble T Flight and your many hours added to my flight-and-drive related immersion.
 
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