Teej

That's my concern as well. Out of the box, those little springs don't get cycled much. The one possible saving factor here is that I think it's less stressful on a spring to be used to resist tension than extension. But I'm not an M.E. so I can't say for sure.

Pasting from another thread. If Leafer doesn't wish to discuss, that's fine. I just don't want to talk about it in the Warthog thread...

The vast majority of PTFE (teflon) in slick 50 ends up immediately trapped in the oil filter resulting in a larger restriction to flow. Independent tests on engines found some reduction in friction...but also increased iron in the oil, indicating increased engine wear. I wouldn't touch the stuff at gunpoint. Regardless, the subject of slick 50 is not appropriate to the Warthog topic, so if you want to continue this, let's take it elsewhere.

NP. Just to put it another way...it's not that the TMWH is preprogrammed for DCS A10 (It most assuredly is not)...DCS A-10 is preprogrammed to understand the TM Warthog. What happens is when you plug the sticks in, Windows sees them as something like "Throttle - HOTAS Warthog" and "Joystick - HOTAS Warthog". They act like generic sticks - the buttons generate DX Button events, as do the switches. Most switches are set as 1 DX button and are either on or off (such as EAC for example) In windows you'd see a DX button (like...25 or something I don't know) lit up with the EAC in ARM, and unlit with EAC off. Some things (flaps lever, engine oper switches) have 2 dx buttons associated with them as they're 3-way controls - either both dx buttons are off, or one or the other is on. If you have the game controllers open when you launch a TARGET profile, you'll see the two Warthog entries (and, if you've included them) Cougar, MFD, T16000.M disappear and will all be replaced by a single "Thrustmaster Combined" entry. At that point, the Windows service is acting as an interpreter. When you're done with the profiled game, you just click 'stop' in TARGET (no need to even close it..just stop the script/profile) and your devices return to the control panel applet and work as they otherwise would have. You don't need TARGET for A-10C because DCS A-10C has code included that understands the joystick/throttle - HOTAS Warthog game controllers.

I've said this a bunch of times, but clearly it bears repeating.... Notwithstanding anything TM may come up with regarding firmware updates....nothing you do...nothing....is saved to the stick or throttle. You don't "download" a program to them...or flash them...or however you want to think about it like other sticks. They don't have the ability to take a program. When you're using TARGET to execute a profile, a Windows service runs in the background and acts as an interpreter. Your code/profile/script tells that interpreter how to work. Anytime you don't actively have a script running, the two units are ordinary directx joysticks. Thus...to get it "back to default"...after running a TARGET profile...you do nothing more than click 'stop' in target.

Gotcha. Just to make sure...you do realize that what you said there (removing the 4 springs) isn't what Feur suggested, right? He removed the big one, and moved the 4 small ones up on top of that...ring...instead of damping it from underneath, so that those springs effectively took the place of the 1 big one. You may have gotten that and just tried something different...wasn't clear from reading your post. T

^^ I wouldn't have done that for several reasons... 1: While WD40 does have some lubricant properties, it's not a great product for lubrication. 2: WD40 does contain petroleum products which will eat some kinds of plastics (polycarbonate and polystyrene). As I don't know specifically what that ball is made of, I wouldn't take the chance.

I find that interesting indeed. Wouldn't have thought of that. However...I'm not sure I want to try it. I'm no Schwarzenegger by any stretch, but I can move the stick comfortably with my smallest finger, and if anything when trying to drag a formation around it feels a bit light to me as it is.

I must say though, Frazer...I had a lot of respect for you before, and this only raised it higher. Too many people would simply say "Oh, this sucks" and walk away. I'm not happy that this appears to be a QC issue in terms of how the grease is applied (and how much)...but there's worse ways it could've played out.

Even more to the point...polishing the balls would probably increase the friction. Physicists will tell you (at least at a high school level) that friction between two surfaces depends on the coefficient of friction between them and the force pushing them together. This excludes surface area. They're right in many conditions (ideal, non-deformable materials. Kinda like the "ideal gas law" works for most gases even if they're not "ideal"). However, clearly there are exceptions. Do you really think tires 20mm wide would provide exactly the same grip as tires 250mm wide? Under all conditions? Neither do I. There is a happy medium in honing. That's what engine builders do (they leave the piston / cylinder surfaces slightly rough...sometimes deliberately grinding a crosshatch into the cylinder wall...and allow the parts to "wear together" which is why you're often not recommended to exceed a certain RPM for the first xxxx number of miles.

I would be hesitant about polishing because when you polish you're essentially removing material...by removing material, you increase the size difference between the inside and outside of the ball...which means you're likely to add slop. Plus, any roughness in the surface will help hold grease in place. A super smooth mating surface would simply push the grease away under pressure.

Frankly, paying anything extra for a grease/spray with teflon is a waste of money due to what Teflon is and isn't. In order for it to work, it needs to be bonded to one surface so that it prevents other things from sticking to it. That's only going to happen as part of a manufacturing process - adding it to an oil/grease won't do it. That's why "slick 50" products are at best a waste of money and at worst counterproductive. In this usage (Warthog) I wouldn't expect teflon to do any harm...but I similarly wouldn't expect any benefit from it either, all else being equal.

@Necroscope: It is absolutely fine to put the Warthog stick onto a Cougar base. Everything will work except the new button (CMS push). Based on one person's input, it may not seat properly on a U2NXT Cougar base, but mine worked perfectly on a stock Cougar as well as FCC...and I've been told by other VTBers that it worked fine w/ FSSB as well. @Frazer: I had a final preproduction unit that I ran from the end of May into October. It was always smooth except one day when the (hand cut, preproduction) o-ring slid a bit out of place and I had to reposition it. Hard to say how many hours I put on it...but it had at least some use nearly every day, and usage was pretty heavy the first 2 weeks during preparations for E3. Teej

I just went into the options, hit 'axis comands' (make sure you're on the right jet first!). Then clicked on one of the the boxes (doesn't matter which, or even if it's used) in the column under pro pedals. Chose 'clear category'. Yes. Then remapped the axes I wanted on the pedals. It didn't affect my throttle mappings...and if it did, I'd just remap the throttles again.

Yeah, I just did a 'clear category' on the pro pedals axes, then mapped the rudder and brakes. Default had one pedal mapped to pitch and one to one of the throttles or something. Makes for an awkward flight. :O

If you'd think of changing grease...I can only recommend sticking with something thick enough to not run onto the electronics!

Don't know. I don't think too many people keep their houses colder than I do. I only heat my house to 62F / 16C...and that's about what it is in here now. It _might_ be a degree warmer in this room with the computer running...but it's not like I've got it hot enough to keep questionable grease slippery.

Notwithstanding that this isn't what he suggested as a test in the OP, I don't have a problem there either. His words: I do not feel bumps even when pulling back super slow. If he had said "try to make the smallest adjustment you can and note the bumps" I still would have to disagree. I have great respect for Frazer. He's an awesome stick and he knows what he's talking about. I just don't agree with him on this and it has nothing to do with sponsorship: Grab on the VBA (not sponsored) says his is "smooth as glass" as well. Target has a device analyzer that lets you see raw values. The stick responds over a range of -32767 to +32767 (16 bit). In truth I only ever see even numbers out of it, so really 15 bit. I can easily make consistent movements of ~4....so I have a personal resolution with the stick of 14 bit. Here's the kicker...FC2 has a default joyrange of 400. Unless you edit that number, FC2 isn't even seeing 9 bits of resolution....so its finest movement is 5 bits coarser than I can smoothly make. I would have to move the stick my smallest amount 16 times before it would register its smallest change (because when you get halfway, it'll round it off...)

Not sure what's up with your copy. I can make a dead smooth pull from center to full back taking much longer than 20 seconds to do it and not have any bumps/lurches at all. That's (much) slower than any move I'd make leading. It's as smooth as the throttle for me.

I'll agree I would have preferred to see metal there. I'll bet it's a lot tougher (read: more expensive) to work with metal like that. Personally, the biggest issue I have with the Warthog is the slew switch / microstick. Tuning in software makes it usable, but I still haven't gotten used to the feel of it.

I think that would come as a shock to Joe and the rest of the media who saw us at the E3 event. That was after just a few weeks with the Warthogs and very little time to practice in the nice SCS pits/seats.

I'll say this much...I'm not sure about the super short runways but you have no excuse for overrunning at Kutaisi. Just to test, I took off at 111% MTOW (loaded with Mk84, CBU and fuel) went out a couple of miles, turned around and landed. Did what I could with aerobraking and dirtying up the a/c....didn't touch the brakes until I was down to about 75 knots and stopped w/o low hyd pressure.

If you snap those off while flying, you need to seriously restrict your sugar / meth intake.

Actually, no. I can't stand more than about 30 seconds of that guy.

Interesting. I just went flying again. After braking for a bit... L-HYD PRES starts blinking on the caution panel and braking force is much reduced....