Greasing up the Warthog

My stick suddenly developed a "clunk", but I cured that by opening it up and rotating the main spring a bit. Are you sure it's due to the ridges?

I can't reproduce it now, so I guess its gone away for now :)

On a different issue, can you add an extension to the warthog and turn it into a cyclic? That would be cool, especially if I can mount that on the Obutto revolution I am planning. No force trim though, huh :(

Aaaand its back. Left the stick to sit overnight, can only assume the pressure on the greased areas pushed the lube out. Stiction is back again in the exact same spots.

Should this be happening on a newish (2 months) stick or should I RMA?

Depends on how picky/sensitive you are, I guess, but I don't think so. Odd that the grease effect is gone so fast, very odd. Not sure if TM will consider replacing it for such an ill-defined/intangible issue. Maybe you could take some pics of the ball joint for us to see if anything is visibly off?

Depends on how picky/sensitive you are, I guess, but I don't think so. Odd that the grease effect is gone so fast, very odd. Not sure if TM will consider replacing it for such an ill-defined/intangible issue. Maybe you could take some pics of the ball joint for us to see if anything is visibly off?

Well thats slightly patronising isn't it? The entire thread is about stiction my friend, and that is what I have. Its this issue:

A fair few people have reported adding grease and it going back to stiction, including the user Ronin who is in this thread and mentions it in his video on sanding.

No, I won't be taking any pictures, and thankfully its up to TM whether they will take a return.

Haha, what? Patronizing? Wow. You seem to have completely misinterpreted my tone. What I meant was that I don't know exactly where your boundary between "no issue" and and "too much stiction" is. I'm not saying, or even implying, that you've imagining it. Admittedly, I haven't read the entire thread, but your stick regressing overnight is still what I'd call strange, which led me to think there might be some other problem.

Calm down, pal.

Haha, what? Patronizing? Wow. You seem to have completely misinterpreted my tone. What I meant was that I don't know exactly where your boundary between "no issue" and and "too much stiction" is. I'm not saying, or even implying, that you've imagining it. Admittedly, I haven't read the entire thread, but your stick regressing overnight is still what I'd call strange, which led me to think there might be some other problem.

 

Calm down, pal.

Going back assuming you'd read the thread, yes it did seem a pretty odd thing for you to say ;) Anyways, no harm no foul.

To be honest I will just wait for TM's response. If its not useful I will look at alternatives. Cheers all.

So today i was home alone and had a few hours to do the greasing.

All went smooth till i opened the ball part. I had the same problem as 14th Jar

but even worse.

This is the picture what 14th Jar wire looked like when he opened his up.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1924996&postcount=89

This is what mine looked like after it opened up.

For such an expensive stick Thrustmaster is really to blame for this piece of shit part in the joystick. They could have made the part where the wire goes through padded with soft material or even taped the wire to prevent damage during use of the stick.

Let me remind you this is not damage by opening up the stick this is pure a big design FLAW. The wire makes contact with a straight sharp piece of plastic where the wires go through when you move the stick.

Look at this picture where i have taped the wire to prevent even more damage.

You can clearly see how stupid Thrustmaster designed this. The wires have to go angled through a small square area to connect to the circuitboard and the upperpart of the joystick. Everytime you angle your stick those wires go past the edge of the square. FAIL !

Anyways replaced the rubber cheapass ring from Thrustmaster with a ring provided by fellow community man Hempstead

thx again man for making it possible to help others around here aswell.

I went for the Molykote 44 Medium.

Super nice thick grease and not that expensive. Quality stuff.

In the end after closing her up shes super smooth and feels great. I still have to get over the fact Thrustmaster made parts of this expensive hardware so poorly designed.

Going back assuming you'd read the thread, yes it did seem a pretty odd thing for you to say ;) Anyways, no harm no foul.

 

To be honest I will just wait for TM's response. If its not useful I will look at alternatives. Cheers all.

I wouldn't bother RMAing it. It's no use. Go straight for an extension. It'll make the stiction moot.

I just send Thrustmaster an email with my findings. Lets see what the response will be.

Thats not why the wire got cut. I you look what i posted in the picture you can see its the upperball where the wire goes through angled that caused the damage.

So today i was home alone and had a few hours to do the greasing.

 

All went smooth till i opened the ball part. I had the same problem as 14th Jar

but even worse.

 

This is the picture what 14th Jar wire looked like when he opened his up.

 

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1924996&postcount=89

 

This is what mine looked like after it opened up.

 

 

For such an expensive stick Thrustmaster is really to blame for this piece of shit part in the joystick. They could have made the part where the wire goes through padded with soft material or even taped the wire to prevent damage during use of the stick.

 

Let me remind you this is not damage by opening up the stick this is pure a big design FLAW. The wire makes contact with a straight sharp piece of plastic where the wires go through when you move the stick.

 

Look at this picture where i have taped the wire to prevent even more damage.

 

 

You can clearly see how stupid Thrustmaster designed this. The wires have to go angled through a small square area to connect to the circuitboard and the upperpart of the joystick. Everytime you angle your stick those wires go past the edge of the square. FAIL !

 

 

Anyways replaced the rubber cheapass ring from Thrustmaster with a ring provided by fellow community man Hempstead

 

 

 

 

thx again man for making it possible to help others around here aswell.

 

 

 

I went for the Molykote 44 Medium.

 

Super nice thick grease and not that expensive. Quality stuff.

 

In the end after closing her up shes super smooth and feels great. I still have to get over the fact Thrustmaster made parts of this expensive hardware so poorly designed.

Do you find the stick has any play near center position after replacing the rubber ring with the PTFE ring?

Mine did.I found the reason is the diameter of the 4 metal pillars is slightly smaller than the 4 holes of the big plastic ring.

So when your stick is in center position and you move the stick slightly the whole plastic ring moves in horizontal instead of vertical.

I don't if it is only happen to my stick.

PS:The stick can center dead accurate with that play.

Do you find the stick has any play near center position after replacing the rubber ring with the PTFE ring?

Mine did.I found the reason is the diameter of the 4 metal pillars is slightly smaller than the 4 holes of the big plastic ring.

So when your stick is in center position and you move the stick slightly the whole plastic ring moves in horizontal instead of vertical.

 

I don't if it is only happen to my stick.

 

PS:The stick can center dead accurate with that play.

I posted the following findings long time ago on WarthogWorld before it went down.

The dead center on Warthog is only dead center for the spring force, not the sensor measurement. The sensor will still accurately pick up the stick movement inside the dead center zone, as Shadowlin pointed out.

However, I think the dead center is mainly caused by the 4x holes for the 4x posts being tapered, not because the holes are larger than the posts (the holes on the white plastic being bigger than the post obviously would make that worse, but even if it's not, you would still have dead center). If you look carefully, you'd find that the hole diameter is slightly smaller than the bottom, i.e. the cylindrical wall of the hole is not exactly cylindrical. I didn't notice that before I went on to mill a "perfect" spring platform out of 6061-T6 aluminum, see the attached picture. I thought the same thing, that the holes are not accurate, so I set out to CNC mill this thing out of a solid chunk of aluminum, and accurately drill and ream the 4x holes to be exactly 5.01mm, to tightly fit the 5mm diameter posts.

It took hours to accurately CNC mill this thing front and back out of a solid chunk. The result was a "spectacular" failure -- the precision reamed holes bind the 4x post as soon as the stick is moved, i.e. the stick now does not move at all. Upon close inspection, I find that as soon as the stick is tilted, the rim tilts up on one side, contacting the platform at one point (through the PTFE/rubber ring). Then, naturally, the platform wants to tilt too. The 4x posts are there to "guide" the platform up and down and prevent tilting. But, if the 4x holes are as tight as I made them, each post will contact its corresponding hole by two points only, one on the top, and one on the bottom. This causes great pressure between the post and the hole, thus binding! I am quite sure TM found this problem during prototyping and they solved the problem by tapering the holes, making the contact area bigger so no binding. But the consequence is the slight dead center of spring force -- the platform has to tilt slightly before moving up and down.

I am designing a new gimbal mechanism that has no such dead center of spring force, and might be able to adopt this mechanism to Warthog. However, this time around, I might want to patent the idea if it works well. So, some commercial company can't just take the idea and run with it and beat me to the punch without even acknowledging the idea's community origin, like last time. But even if I patent it, I will let the non-commercial use by the community use it for free. Don't hold your breath on it though. It's not urgent and I have so many other things to work on. It will take months (oh, it's already been months since ... ;-)

One thing I found is that the platform performs differently depending on the orientation at which it is installed. I got more or less play in all of the four possible rotations, so if you have your stick apart again it might be worth checking which direction gets you the best result.

I posted the following findings long time ago on WarthogWorld before it went down.

 

The dead center on Warthog is only dead center for the spring force, not the sensor measurement. The sensor will still accurately pick up the stick movement inside the dead center zone, as Shadowlin pointed out.

 

However, I think the dead center is mainly caused by the 4x holes for the 4x posts being tapered, not because the holes are larger than the posts (the holes on the white plastic being bigger than the post obviously would make that worse, but even if it's not, you would still have dead center). If you look carefully, you'd find that the hole diameter is slightly smaller than the bottom, i.e. the cylindrical wall of the hole is not exactly cylindrical. I didn't notice that before I went on to mill a "perfect" spring platform out of 6061-T6 aluminum, see the attached picture. I thought the same thing, that the holes are not accurate, so I set out to CNC mill this thing out of a solid chunk of aluminum, and accurately drill and ream the 4x holes to be exactly 5.01mm, to tightly fit the 5mm diameter posts.

 

It took hours to accurately CNC mill this thing front and back out of a solid chunk. The result was a "spectacular" failure -- the precision reamed holes bind the 4x post as soon as the stick is moved, i.e. the stick now does not move at all. Upon close inspection, I find that as soon as the stick is tilted, the rim tilts up on one side, contacting the platform at one point (through the PTFE/rubber ring). Then, naturally, the platform wants to tilt too. The 4x posts are there to "guide" the platform up and down and prevent tilting. But, if the 4x holes are as tight as I made them, each post will contact its corresponding hole by two points only, one on the top, and one on the bottom. This causes great pressure between the post and the hole, thus binding! I am quite sure TM found this problem during prototyping and they solved the problem by tapering the holes, making the contact area bigger so no binding. But the consequence is the slight dead center of spring force -- the platform has to tilt slightly before moving up and down.

 

 

 

 

I am designing a new gimbal mechanism that has no such dead center of spring force, and might be able to adopt this mechanism to Warthog. However, this time around, I might want to patent the idea if it works well. So, some commercial company can't just take the idea and run with it and beat me to the punch without even acknowledging the idea's community origin, like last time. But even if I patent it, I will let the non-commercial use by the community use it for free. Don't hold your breath on it though. It's not urgent and I have so many other things to work on. It will take months (oh, it's already been months since ... ;-)

Thanks for the info:)

About the center playing, I am thinking if using a rubber ring combine with the ptfe ring will make it better.

I think the elasticity of the rubber ring did make the center play kinda unnoticeable.

One thing I found is that the platform performs differently depending on the orientation at which it is installed. I got more or less play in all of the four possible rotations, so if you have your stick apart again it might be worth checking which direction gets you the best result.

I did tried that.

Could make it better but for my instance the play is still noticeable.

One thing I found is that the platform performs differently depending on the orientation at which it is installed. I got more or less play in all of the four possible rotations, so if you have your stick apart again it might be worth checking which direction gets you the best result.

I agree that's indeed the case. I figure it's because the posts and holes are not perfectly aligned. So, if you rotate the platform relative to the posts, i.e. make the holes mate w/ differrent posts, then you get tighter or loser mating, resulting in more or less dead center.

Of course, I could be totally wrong on this reasoning/hypothesis. But i think sharing the reasoning behind why I think so is more important than the end result.

If the hypothesis is correct, then it stands to reason that there is one direction (1 of 4 possible permutation) that is tighter than the other 3! Therefore, you should try to rotate the platform and get the tightest one!

^ Yeah, probably somewhat from manufacture, but also from uneven use; rolling more than pitching, which I'm pretty sure we all do, or at least pulling more than pushing.

That will probably wear the four holes differently, and thus you have another mechanism producing preferred directions.

At first I also suspected that the orientation of the main spring (which is obviously cut at two places and therefore not symmetrical) could have a similar effect, but I tested it quite thoroughly the last time I greased mine and saw no evidence of that.

Another thing: if you mess with platform directions your calibration will most probably also end up out of whack, so make sure to check that.

I am designing a new gimbal mechanism that has no such dead center of spring force, and might be able to adopt this mechanism to Warthog. However, this time around, I might want to patent the idea if it works well. So, some commercial company can't just take the idea and run with it and beat me to the punch without even acknowledging the idea's community origin, like last time. But even if I patent it, I will let the non-commercial use by the community use it for free. Don't hold your breath on it though. It's not urgent and I have so many other things to work on. It will take months (oh, it's already been months since ... ;-)

What was that other idea of yours, if you don't mind me asking?

What was that other idea of yours, if you don't mind me asking?

Can't say it in public. Otherwise, I could get sued for defamation, partucularlly when CougarWorld, the site I posted the idea, is down, i.e. can't even defend myself. I live in the land of the free, got to watch out for law suits that could ruin you fonancially.

Can't say it in public. Otherwise, I could get sued for defamation, partucularlly when CougarWorld, the site I posted the idea, is down, i.e. can't even defend myself. I live in the land of the free, got to watch out for law suits that could ruin you fonancially.

OK, I kind of figured. I get the picture, though. Good luck with your other endeavors.

you all might look for this, I have two "new" parts from TM that look just like this, they don't have any that are not cracked and Domed. They want to send me back my money. they are infact glueing in the rubber ring, but the glue has jellied in the grease by the time I get it. the Plastic may be drying out and cracking or the metal insert is expanding or these are "used" parts they are sending me. anyhoo, take off that white ring on top of the Pressure Ring, you will likely find cracks and domed like mine. I suspect even new ones will have this.

https://drive.google.com/#folders/0B8skSfT-PBecTzBfSV9WYUxVdlk

Hi folks,

I have one of these sticks and the stiction issue is a bad one for me. I've cleaned and sanded all the bits and tried a few different greases but none work for more than a few days. I really like the stick but the stiction won't allow me to fly accurately.

I can't get a small enough amount of the Molycote that Tietze used here in the UK. The only place I found would only sell it in 1kg pots!

Is there any other grease that you have used successfully that is available in the UK?

Cheers, Goggz

I don't know if it's available in UK. I use SuperLube, a PTFE-based synthetic grease.