VKB Gunfighter Pro scare - broken wire and resolution

[dburne]

Hey gang,

Had a bit of a scare with my Gunfighter Pro I wanted to share with you. I do it mainly to bring attention to exercising caution when working on your Gunfighters changing springs and cams.

 

I use this thing around 3-5 hours a day. Recently I added a couple of springs to my setup to increase tension as the new Ultimate Grip I have is a little heavier and I wanted a little more resistance. No problem, added a #30 spring to the #50 in each axis, done quickly and back to flying again in no time.

 

Well today, I am flying the Hornet in a campaign and all of a sudden the plane goes crazy and I can't control of it. So I exited the game and had a look in the VKB sofware - my axis were going crazy and no buttons were working. Then the axis stopped working as well. And no light on the grip any longer.

 

So I am thinking uh oh, not good. Took the grip with extension off and opened up the gimbal base. Lo and behold, I had a broken red wire. Apparently when I had added the springs, when I put it back together I must have had that red wire pinched or in a position to easily get pinched. And after a few short days that is what it did, and then broke.

 

Luckily for me I am familiar with soldering, and had a soldering iron and solder on hand, so I took care of that broken wire and then wrapped a little electrical tape around the solder joint. Back together now and working beautifully. This time I took great care of the wires position as I was lowering the gimbal in to screw down.

 

So for you fellow VKB owners, being able to change springs and cams quickly and easily is a nice feature, but do take care especially with the wire placement when putting it back together so this does not happen to you as well.

[Northstar98]

I had an issue when I was giving my MCG Pro a deep clean, essentially involving disassembling and reassembling the grip, everything went absolutely fine apart until when I closed the 2 halves back together - I failed to properly seat the wires for the flip-trigger, which caused them to get cut when I reattached both halves together.

 

Luckily, I was able to order a replacement wire from an electronics site, and simply soldered the broken wire off, and soldered a new one to replace it - thanks to the excellent design of the internals of the grip, this was super easy - the stick is clearly designed to facilitate maintenance. When I was done the flip up trigger was back up and running like nothing had happened. 

[AeroGator]

On 3/12/2021 at 6:58 PM, Northstar98 said:

I had an issue ..... and simply soldered the broken wire off, and soldered a new one to replace it

THIS is golden  we really appreciate people not being afraid to take a soldering iron, and do small fixes. We may be old school but to us it may be part of the hobby, this is one of the reasons we keep our designs user-serviceable.

[dburne]

17 hours ago, AeroGator said:

THIS is golden  we really appreciate people not being afraid to take a soldering iron, and do small fixes. We may be old school but to us it may be part of the hobby, this is one of the reasons we keep our designs user-serviceable.

 

Hey @AeroGator,

 

I reached out to 'sales_en@vkb-sim.pro' back on March 12th inquiring if I could possibly purchase a couple of those wiring harnesses to have as spare. So far the wire I soldered is holding up just fine, was just thinking it might be nice to have a spare harness ready to plug in should something happen again. Never heard back anything though.

 

Anyway just wanted to mention it in case this might be a possibility? I sure am loving my Gunfighter Mk III Pro setup with Ultimate Grip!

Use it for several hours on most days. 

 

[AeroGator]

10 hours ago, dburne said:

 'sales_en@vkb-sim.pro'

I'd say, do the same without _en. For some reason this address is a black hole.

[dburne]

4 hours ago, AeroGator said:

I'd say, do the same without _en. For some reason this address is a black hole.

 

Will do much thanks!

[dburne]

Just wanted to report back.

I did finally get in touch with VKB Support, and after a couple of email swaps they advised me I could get another wiring harness and just pay for the shipping. They set it up for me to be able to order through Ali Express which I did , and here around 3 weeks later the wiring harness has arrived.

 

So now I have a complete spare harness should my solder job fail at some point, which is a good feeling.

Many thanks to VKB Support for arranging this for me to be able to order!! I can fly comfortably knowing if something happens to the wires I have a replacement at hand. Or I may just go ahead and replace that harness next time I open it up for anything.