symowallo

Good point! It ought to be good for the price they're asking :)

Per above, (refer to my comment regarding “base rotaries”) I use the volume knobs for things like HMD brightness and wing sweep. You could also use it for light/HUD brightness.

I used a bunch of ferrite cores with 3mm inner diameter and 5mm inner diameter. For example, here's some in 3mm: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32827107564.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.2fcf4c4dtZT6zJ Photo of the X56 innards after installation is in the first pic in this thread.

In addition: - For the virtual mouse, I use that as the TDC as it's an axis and works really well for that. - For the bottom 4 way in your picture, I use that for radar range up/down (Right MFD PB11 and PB12 on the Hornet) and left is Comm2, right is Comm2. - For the 4 way just above the one in the picture, I use that for speed brakes (up/down) and MIDS A and MIDS B (left/right). I still don't know what MIDS does but haven't gotten to that yet, I just saw that the real F/A-18 HOTAS has it on the throttle as well, so if a real pilot needs it near the hand, then so do I.

I map the antenna elevation to the top wheel. I map the pushbutton function of that wheel to SRS1 (not that I use this yet - I am using Discord as I am only doing multiplayer with my kids at the moment until I get better) I map cockpit zoom to the bottom wheel. I use this a lot, particularly when lining up for landing - it helps me sight the runway. I map the pushbutton function of that wheel to SRS2. The clicky wheel is useless to me. I tried to get it working as an in-cockpit zoom but it didn't map. I got it working as a mouse zoom for external views however. Of limited use in my book as it doesn't map to an axis from my experimentation (I could be wrong - gave up after mucking about with it for an hour or so). I use one of the base rotaries for the Helmet Mounted Display brightness. I find it really helpful as it becomes an annoying distraction when you're fence out and heading in to land. For the F-14 I use one for manual wing sweep. I use the base switches for various things. Landing gear up/down for one of them. Flaps (auto/half/full) for another. Master arm on/off for another. A2A/A2G for another. Quite useful. I'm still fairly new to DCS but I'm quite happy with my control mappings now. Let me know if you want my exported config.

2 weeks later, no ghosting. Gave it to my son to thrash and he reports no ghosting. Pretty happy with that fix - wasn't too difficult and it was cheap.

Happy to say that I’ve had no more ghosting in the last 8 missions that I’ve flown in the last week, after performing my ferrite core “upgrade”. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes while the system is under heavy stress, but I’m not good enough with the sim yet... mostly simple missions so far. For anyone interested, I purchased the ferrite cores via AliExpress.

Ghosting? Is it occurring with the throttle or the stick? Which buttons/switches specifically?

Sounds like you need to open it up and check to see whether you bumped some of the wire harnesses; that’s the only reason I can think of.

It’s disgusting stuff. Only reason I got rid of some grease is because it basically came off on the bench when it was upside down as I was fixing the internals. You’re absolutely right in not using anything harsh on the plastic. I was going to use Teflon grease but decided to just leave the rest of it intact. Seems to be a bit better than when I started so that’s good. My tension knob is busted so this was really the only option for me anyway.

Since opening mine up to repair it and getting rid of some of the grease, I've found it to be much better. I didn't get rid of all of it, just some of the excess.

Fellow newbie to newbie... I too have an X56 and F/A-18 and I'm also a month or two into it. I spent so much time tweaking mine but I'm fairly happy with it now. Basically, I followed Grim Reapers X56 HOTAS setup guide on YouTube as a starting point, then I customised it to suit. The SLD is just a 2-way switch. I mapped brakes to one of the 4 ways. PM me your e-mail address and I'm happy to e-mail you my config. I'm pretty happy with it now. I modified it ever so slightly from Grim Reapers - I moved SRS and a few other things around. The ministick is an axis. If you select the Axis drop down you'll see it in there, where you can map TDC to it. Add some deadzone by right clicking on it in DCS. Works well as the TDC cursor. Where mine differs from GR is that I'm using the switches on the base for flaps and gear. I can't see the point of wasting a perfectly good 2 way switch near the hand on landing gear - even the real plane doesn't have gear on the HOTAS, and you don't normally need to lower the gear in a hurry. I would suggest thinking about it this way when mapping something to the hand vs base. - Will I need to hit this switch/button in a hurry? - Is it OK to take my hand off the stick to activate this particular command? From my perspective, I would disqualify flaps and gear from the hands-on part of the hotas and instead put them on their own switches. Same with Master ARM and Helmet mounted display brightness. At the end of the day though, it's what you're comfortable with. I'd also suggest looking at the F/A-18C early access guide PDF from DCS (search for it under your install folders) as it shows the real F/A-18C HOTAS and the controls mapped to it on the real plane. Pretty much everything you need to hand is there, and nothing you don't (mostly!) I like having the following on the throttle/HOTAS - Radar elevation - you definitely want that on the HOTAS - Speed brakes - same - Radar range - I like this on the HOTAS - TDC - as above - Cage/uncage - SRS 1 and 2 - Chaff/flares (I mapped this to the 3 way switch - flares up, chaff down) - Head tracker re-centre (I have this on the stick, easy to get to) - Zoom in/out (for inside the cockpit) - I have this on one of the twirly dials on the throttle. I find that it helps immensely when lining up the runway from about 5 miles out. Kind of like having binoculars I guess. etc etc. You'll probably tweak it a few times until it's right for you. Main thing I find is that getting some consistency between aircraft helps - I tried to keep most of it the same for the F-16 then decided to just stick with the F/A-18C for a while until I'm good at it.

Hoping to order one of these (AU) however they have been delisted from VKB's AliExpress shop. I assume that's because they're out of stock. Hopefully they can get the factories moving again!

All good, thanks for the suggestions. However I've tried all of that. Every USB combo I could think of. I've got a dedicated powered USB3 hub, a PCI-E 7 port USB3 powered card - all sorts of stuff. Anyway, since I installed the 7 additional ferrite cores around what I believe are some of the less protected wires, it's been better. 10 test flights so far over the last week and no ghost presses so far. I don't believe it's just a USB issue. I think that's part of it, but not the whole cause. I certainly saw improvements after isolating its USB connection, but it didn't fix the issue until I opened it up and installed the ferrite cores for better EMI protection. My refund arrived from Logitech today. It doesn't cover the full cost, but I guess their argument is that the joystick still works, so I can't complain too much.

Basically, the landing gear will activate, master arm/on off, etc etc - at random times. If I'm slow enough, the gear will come down at random times (irrespective of aircraft). It was funny doing some dogfights - I'd be whipping the F/A-18 around in mock combat, trying to get a lead on an F-14 and suddenly my gear was down, flaps were down and master arm off. Hilarious! Essentially, anything mapped to one of the base switches will activate at random. This was even more noticeable on the F-14 as I had wing sweep mapped to the base switches. Not specifically happening in relation to throttle position but there's only so many things I can test. I've already opened the throttle up and there's no wire pinching, and I don't think it's an issue with this model (X55 maybe). As far as parts go, you could try Logitech support directly, although they're having trouble getting stock at the moment (just try their support inbox support@logi.com maybe)