TM Warthog throttle repair

Hi guys.

I promised a few guys to share my progress and story on this, so here it is.

After a few years with my trusty warthog (purchased 2012-07-02 exactly) it decided to die on me.

Just one of those quick standart days where you need to rearrange your wires behind the PC and need to disconnect the USB.

Apparently, the warthog is not a big fan of that...

When I reconnected it, it quickly blipped all the green lights and turned them off again at an instant, instead of keeping them lit. :helpsmilie:

So I tried everything there is to try, again and again like a crazy person, and ended up contacting thrustmasters.. All in all, the error was that windows didnt recognise the USB device at all.

They had a few options I could try, but nothing I hadnt done my self. So all in all, there was nothing to do and the diagnose was what I feared the most.

The mainboard on the throttle was fried. Yet another fail from TM on this expensive but cheap made piece of......... (Because amongs other things, apperantly this is quite a cheap and easy fixing by putting a condensator on the usb power before it reaches the mainboard)

After a few days of emailing back and fourth, they chose to give me a great offer I couldn't refuse. They would send me a new mainboard for 48,8 euro.

From the invoice that you have provided us with we can see that your Warthog assembly has passed the warranty period.

The price of a new main board is 48.8 euro, shipping fees included.

But I'll be a good boy today and thank them for their excellent support. Which I really mean, the email support was great and fast.

So, picture time of my disassembly. Please note, what you are about to see is not because of mis-use. I have treated this puppy with care it's hole life.

What I see when first opening it up.

Right. So the plastic they decided to keep this heavy piece of equipment together with, can't tolerate to be unscrewn without breaking into pieces? The plastic is very brittle! The left one is my trying to glue it. I need to redo that.

Close up MB:

Glue removed and unplugged the pluggies:

The MB underneath:

The only spot that's welded to the MB. with the USB cord. I dont think the new one will ship with an attached cord.

Also, interestingly there is to identical plates in the bottom of the thottle casing. The toolmarks on the holes is NOT made by me, and is only visible after dissasembly. All the fatty greasy stuff is leftover silicone or something from the throttles I think.

...Also.. Knee ^

I must say, I dont hate the warthog, and I enjoy flying with it.. But I am a bit dissapointed by the quality on the insides.

What keeps it from frying the MB again some day in the future?.. I do consider selling this when repaired and get something else due to the fear of it going out again.

That's it.

I'll keep you updated when I recieve the spare part from TM, and hopefully I can assemble it again without all the rest of the holes for the screws goes pouff.. Luckly the TM is so heavy and stationary at my place so it will work out no matter.

Reserved for update!

Wow this sounds almost the same as what happened to me a few weeks ago... changing my simpit unplugging cables etc, plugged the throttle back in and the lights just flashed briefly and it wasnt recognised by win 7.

Unplugged all cables and just put the warthog in, still the same, tried it on another pc, still the same.

Resigned myself to the fact it was dead... the next day just on the off chance i thought well i havent tried plugging it into my powered usb hub... and what do you know it works perfect now. still wont get recognised on its own if i plug it in my machine, but through the powered hub its fine... weird..

You probably already tried that and now your getting a new mobo for it i guess it dont help now but just incase anyone else reads this and has the same problem it might be worth a try.

Whether it works for anyone else i have no idea but ive been counting my blessings for the past few weeks now :)

Wow this sounds almost the same as what happened to me a few weeks ago... changing my simpit unplugging cables etc, plugged the throttle back in and the lights just flashed briefly and it wasnt recognised by win 7.

Unplugged all cables and just put the warthog in, still the same, tried it on another pc, still the same.

Resigned myself to the fact it was dead... the next day just on the off chance i thought well i havent tried plugging it into my powered usb hub... and what do you know it works perfect now. still wont get recognised on its own if i plug it in my machine, but through the powered hub its fine... weird..

You probably already tried that and now your getting a new mobo for it i guess it dont help now but just incase anyone else reads this and has the same problem it might be worth a try.

Whether it works for anyone else i have no idea but ive been counting my blessings for the past few weeks now :)

Hmm, that do sound wierd. And nope, that is actually the one thing I havent tried. I allways thought of usb hubs to be the most unsafe thing to use when it comes to stable currents and what not. In fact, TM specifically asked me if this problem happened when pluggin it to a HUB or directly to the PC. They did not advise me to try plugging it into a hub.

But yeah, thanks that might help someone in the future and good luck on keeping it alive hehe :thumbup:

hi Grizzly,

maybe its me but there is a nail embedded in the hot melt glue ?!?!?!?! the red cable on the picture of unplugging the pluggies...

Hmm, that do sound wierd. And nope, that is actually the one thing I havent tried. I allways thought of usb hubs to be the most unsafe thing to use when it comes to stable currents and what not. In fact, TM specifically asked me if this problem happened when pluggin it to a HUB or directly to the PC. They did not advise me to try plugging it into a hub.

 

But yeah, thanks that might help someone in the future and good luck on keeping it alive hehe :thumbup:

Thanks, yeah i always thought the same about hubs which is why i only had unimportant things plugged in, everything important like the warthog went straight to the pc before...

Guess we will see if it lasts :thumbup:

That does look odd, from the picture at least.

Maybe show Thrustmaster support this picture? Of course the nail didn't affect anything, but they can't absolutely say it didn't.

fixed this by changing PC and upgrade the firmware.

What the hell. Nice catch with the nail! There is a freaking nail in there!! It doesnt touch anything though so I dont think it's the cause.

Pilotasso, Im not sure you fixed this. It's not the same error you have had but something similar. I will allmost garantee you my problem is not something you can solve with software.

There is another "common" occurance that wipes the firmware from the MB on either the joystick or throttle also due to voltage fluctuations which I think is what most people will experience. Mine just took the full jump I guess. This can be reset by holding down Brake horn silencer and A/P engage button down while connecting it to the usb. This will reset the unit completely, forcing windows to recognise the unit or something like that.

In order to install a new firmware, the unit must be recognised by windows in the first place.

http://ts.thrustmaster.com/faqs/eng/thr_eng_00140.pdf

What the hell. Nice catch with the nail! There is a freaking nail in there!! It doesnt touch anything though so I dont think it's the cause.

NOW it isn't touching anything anymore ...

There is a freaking nail in there!!

My new favorite forum quote. :)

Of course, now I am afraid to open my Warthog! :cry:

Dont open your warthog unless you absolutely have to heh!

The nail is embedded in the glue. - Not touching anything

Dont open your warthog unless you absolutely have to heh!

 

The nail is embedded in the glue. - Not touching anything

Yeah, I don't plan on opening it without cause. I can't help but wonder exactly how that nail ended up there though. :)

So this happen because of a small power fluctuation when moving cords around? I just got my warthog at Christmas but winter weather was reeking havoc on my Warthog. The first thing I would do before touching my desk would be to static discharge on a metal chair in my office. If I touched the desk the Warthog would act like I unplugged it and re plugged it into the computer.

I just had the same issue as you.

I had a power failure and my battery backup was working, but I guess I had a spike or surge before it kicked in

Fired the PC back up when power was restored and wham no throttle

Still waiting on support to tell me what they are going to do if anything!

I'm in the same boat as you, waranty just expired

By the way the bare spots on the base are to allow the grounds for each board (red wire and ring terminal) to ground to each board through the base plate.

You might consider making a better ground to the base plate, that plastic post thats broken wont put enough pressure on the ring terminal to create a good ground.

also has anybody else noticed the lack of availibility of the warthog for online retailers?

I could order one today but it wont ship untill sept 22, seems strange to me

Also, interestingly there is to identical plates in the bottom of the thottle casing. The toolmarks on the holes is NOT made by me, and is only visible after dissasembly. All the fatty greasy stuff is leftover silicone or something from the throttles I think.

 

...Also.. Knee ^

 

The two plates are by design, one (outer most) is for mounting the housing to something using the open holes on the base plate. The other plate (cover plate) is if you remove the outer plate and install the assembly into a cockpit console, you will still have something covering the electronics on the outside.

Regarding the tooling marks, the paint is removed to aide in the grounding of the unit. Take notice as to where those ground wires are on the throttle MBs (two red wires with an open eyelet). They must be in contact with a non-painted surface to properly ground the unit. There fore your cover plate has the paint removed in those two areas.

Thrustmaster has a name for shiny outside and &%§% inside, it has been like that in 1994 and seems it still is like that 20 years down the road.

I can't recall how often I had to stop playing, take the F22 and TQS and RCS apart, solder new pots in, change wires, change broken springs, reglue this or that...for another 2-3 weeks until it dies again. It finally died on me with a broken motherboard in the F22 Stick and I said "no more".

It is a nice gadget to have, but if you have worn out three Thrustmaster Hotas over time you really think again before buying another one. They aint cheap, but cheap built.

I might one day get me CH Combo, maybe less features but they seem to be more sturdy from what I heard.

Bit

The two plates are by design, one (outer most) is for mounting the housing to something using the open holes on the base plate. The other plate (cover plate) is if you remove the outer plate and install the assembly into a cockpit console, you will still have something covering the electronics on the outside.

 

Regarding the tooling marks, the paint is removed to aide in the grounding of the unit. Take notice as to where those ground wires are on the throttle MBs (two red wires with an open eyelet). They must be in contact with a non-painted surface to properly ground the unit. There fore your cover plate has the paint removed in those two areas.

To me this looks like the Ground connection, you need bare metal there.

BitMaster, I had all CH stuff back in the Flanker 2.0 / Hornet Korea days. If you could still program through serial ports, or if they put them on computers anymore lol, I'd still be using them. Went to Thrustmaster after that, they died similar to what is being discussed here, and now I use Saitek X55's. No problems at all but I wanted the extra buttons that CH didn't supply.

Dale

I have a similar problem. Plug the throttle in and it flashes and then stays off. However, it does show up in Devices and Printers on the Control Panel with the yellow triangle with exclamation point. When I troubleshoot it says it is a driver issue. I have updated the driver. I tried to do the boot firmware but it doesn't seem to work on the throttle. Any suggestions?

Edit to Add:

Just plugged the throttle into my wife's Mac Book Pro and it lit up just fine. Could it be that it isn't getting enough power through my USB ports on the PC all of a sudden? I guess I will try the powered USB hub tomorrow.

Just a post to say it's this that puts me off the warthog, other manufacturers like saitek don't do it for me either and it's the only reason I don't bother with dcs as much as I'd like.

Maybe I should go the x55 route or just get a warthog or ch products, although they're aging a little now...

Hmm

DIY or CH gear, the only reliable options.

I remember all the rave reviews and everyone saying how great this TM warthag was. Then they started to brick....I waited a year and then purchased one set. The instructions were to reflash both units immediately.

I did this....and out of caution and reading many posts I put the TM warthag into the closet where it sits....never used it other than flashing it. 450.00 dollars just sitting there...what a waste.

I purchased a X55 that I use. I will never purchase flight sim equipment with a price over 200.00 from any mfg. since they all are cheaply made.

In todays market there isn't anything called quality or quality control....its called, TTAF, time to average failure. If their target is for 6% failure after 6 months and then market share drops because of bad publicity it is still in their profit margin to not fix any defects. They will not reengineer anything if the product is still in the profit margin. This is all calculated into the initial cost analysis. What that failure rate is determined by is a combination of failure analysis, market share, publicity, stock price and consumer confidence. This in most cases is not a engineering decision. Marketing hype and advertising departments have more control over the product than any other department. They have the magic but misguided authority to order initial product specifications...and changes and recommendations.

They don't care if a product is well built, they are the ones who argue with engineering to keep the cost margins down even though their ideas will cause numerous problems........just as long as the product reaches the TTAF.

They look at numbers.

Its not a fine line either.

There are manufactures who's Boards and staff actually do care but they are difficult to find.

Frankly I am amazed at just how pessimistic some of you seem to be.

I have also had the warthog fail - just once - in the 3 years I have owned it. And yes, I had to buy and install a replacement main board in my throttle unit. Big deal!!!

The simple fact is that stuff breaks, especially if you unplug it while it is powered up. Just power down BEFORE you unplug it, and it'll not blow. Ask any electrician and they'd confirm that unplugging anything while it is powered up is asking for trouble.

The main point here is that spares ARE available, which is more than you can say for all the other joystick manufacturers out there. Do they supply the parts because they are more subject to failure than anyone else's? I doubt it.

As for build quality - what the hell do you expect? Or would you rather pay $500 and get something built better?

It is what it is, the best commercially manufactured joystick/throttle unit combo, with much better than average after sales care.

As for putting it into a wardrobe in case it broke if you used it... Really?

If you want unreliable, try buying a games console of any variety, and see how long that lasts!!!