Saitek X55 DIY stick extension

[spaceraver]

Hello people.

For my next trick I'd like to show off my stick extention I made.

The whole thing took me roughly 2 hours to make, using only basic hand tools.

Note 1: You will loose the ability to use the stick twist, so unless you have pedals, don't do this mod.

 

Parts needed.

2x 27K4 resistors. (Match them with a multimeter if you have one.)

(No picture) :)

Heatshrink.

Bits of 20 awg wire to extend the second connector.

Hardware:

1x brass 1/2 to 3/4 inch adapter

1x brass 1/2 inch coupler

1x 1/2 inch brass pipe 60mm long (If you choose a longer pipe you have to extend your wires more)

1x 1/2 inch to 15mm soldering adapter

1x 15mm piece of hard copper tubing.

 

1x 3mm steel or brass bolt, pin or equivalent, as long as it's round.

Note 2: I had to use a copper tee to get the right length, but that was because I was lazy.

 

Tools needed:

Soldering iron.

Solder for wires.

Solder for tubing.

Blowtorch or gas torch. (MAPP is good)

Flux for copper tube.

Sandpaper or 3m pads for cleaning the copper and brass for soldering.

3mm drill and something to spin it. I used a cordless but if you have a pillar drill use it.

Calipers.

Multimeter

 

Time to take it apart:

I am referencing the guide on taking it apart found in the link below, because I am lazy and have already made the mod:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=137522

 

First remove the 5 screws on the side of the stick, you don't need to remove the ones on the base.

 

Once, you've separated the two halves, disconnect the top connector, and you can put the half with the hand rest to one side.

 

Now remove the second connector, and remove the two screws holding the yaw unit in place.

 

You can loose the small pin that makes the retaining ring click, fortunately mine stayed in place.

So before you lift out the whole Yaw unit, make sure you have something to catch all parts.

 

Cut the 3 wires leading to the yaw pot as close to the pot as you can:

 

And you can actually pull the whole Yaw unit free, there is no friction. (Save or throw it out. Your choice)

Remove the bearing while you are at it. That part is set in place with friction.

 

The next part I don't have pictures of as it is already covered in heatshrink.

But we are making a simple voltage divider. Or a static pot if you will.

 

1.Cut some heatshrink for each of the 3 wires and put it on the wires, remember the center one will have the resistors in it too.

 

2. Remove 5mm of insulation from each of the 3 wires.

 

3. Take your 2x27K4 and twist them together like this, the ones pictured are not the ones I used, I just took a pair of random resistors for the picture:

 

4. Tin your resistors and wires.

 

5. Solder the twisted side of the resistors to the blue wire, with a red and a black wire at either end of the resistor pack.

 

6. Slide your heatshrink over and heat, add a 4th piece to cover the whole pack and avoid short-circuits.

 

This is what mine looks like when done.

 

There will be some more soldering after this. But for now just turn off the soldering iron.

 

 

Now on to the brass extension itself.

When done it will look like this:

 

1. Take the brass coupler and thread that tightly onto the other end of the brass pipe, your assembly should look like this now:

 

2. Time to solder the soldering connector to a piece of copper tube.

Cut a piece of tube roughly 55mm long, deburr, clean the end and add flux to both the tube and the solder fitting. Solder and let cool.

My scrap pile of tubing was too short so I added a tee in the other end because that was what I had laying around..

 

3. Thread the soldering connector into the coupler and turn it so the end of the threaded part aligns with the coupler. We actually need that slop for locking it.

 

4.Take your calipers, and with the two halves of the stick assembled measure from the bottom lip to the steel crossbar and add 1.5mm to that.

Mine was 13mm to the bottom so that made my crossbar 14.5mm to center.

 

5.Take your brass and copper assembly. Measure the distance from the coupler end and mark your copper tube.

 

6. Unscrew, drill with a 3mm drill, deburr the hole on both the in and outside.

 

7. Rethread it back on almost to the bottom of the coupler and set the assembly in the left side of the stick half, close the two halves of the stick together and tighten the coupler. But be gentle here, it,s still only plastic.

 

8. Take the 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch adapter and thread tightly by hand upside down onto the brass pipe.

Notice the small lip made by the adapter

 

9. Thread the adapter and pipe into the coupler.

 

10. Mark your adapter and pipe. Use the same distance we used for the copper to coupler end. Take note that the brass pipe and adapter must be drilled the same way as the top adapter piece, that means perpendicular to the trigger, Note where my brass pin is.

 

11. Unscrew the pipe from the coupler

 

12. Drill through both brass pieces with a 3mm drill.

 

13. Disassemble the stick and take out the copper and brass bits. It should lift out after rotating the coupler a bit CCW on the solder adapter

 

14. Snake your wires up through the brass and copper assembly

 

15. Assemble the bottom piece and add the 3mm bolt or brass pin.

Note that the fat part of the locking pin on the original adapter points forward when assembling.

 

16. Take out the Pinkie switch. Slowly and carefully bend the Pinkie switch wires so they don't touch the copper tube.

 

17. Remember the Second connector?

 

We need to splice more wire into that black cable.

Cut the connector off with enough wire to spare to extend your wires. 15mm from the connector should be enough. I made mine 30mm longer. And I spliced the wires after extending the stick with brass.

 

18. Reassemble the stick after you made the extension, tighten the coupler against the bottom of the stick

Again: Note that the fat part of the locking pin on the original adapter points forward when assembling. Screw the whole thing onto the base with the spring of your choice. I'm using the yellow, one up from red which was the softest, but that gave me a centering issue, brass weighs a bit.

As an added bonus the stick can be now turned to the left, because it lacks the center spring found in the yaw unit and due to friction it stays there. And it feels nice as a center mounted stick.

 

And there you have it.

[NineLine]

Very cool... looks like a lot of scary work, but glad to see someone figure it out :)

[Düsentriebdaniel]

Great upgrade!

 

And ofcourse good step by step explanation.

[BrassEm]

Excellent work spaceraver! Good instructions too. Definitely on the to-do list. Did you find you needed changes in curve settings?

[lxvanwyk]

hi Spaceraver. Awesome mod and thanks (gave u rep). Yesterday I immediately after getting home did this mod but with a differrence. PVC pipe has the exact same dimensions with regards to fittings so....... Absolutely brilliant fix .Here are some pix of my G940 mods aswell.....(Heli) . The cosmetics still to be done.

 

[spaceraver]

BrassEm, I'm using a linear setup in all of my planes and the Saitek software. So far it works, I haven't had time to fly a lot since I did the mod. Must admit that it takes some getting used to, where I was able to fly the Shark mostly by touch, I now need to use more stick.. So I need to set a latched button in the Saitek software just for trimming.

Ixvanwyk: That looks great, here I can't get my hands on the right size plastic pipe, that's why I opted for brass and copper.

I might ask a friend of mine to chuck it in his lathe and skim the outside, it should look really good.

[spaceraver]

Update: I extended the stick even further, it almost holds it's own position bar near the center. Have to play around with the springs. Removed the static voltage divider from the twist action. And added the Twist axis back into the stick with a quality pot from Leo Bodnar and a LEGO rubber wheel, so now I have even more trim wheels or what ever I wish to do with it.. Bands are a good thing as it gives me 2 extra buttons on the stick.

Planning on using a PSP joystick for the mouse nipple..

Edited November 5, 2015 by spaceraver

[ProsperGuy]

I decided to give a stick extension a go for my x55. I went the 3D printer route. I got the basic design down, and printed what I hope is the first prototype. I got it wired up, and ready to test. Sadly, my X55 joystick decided to die before I could test it.

 

Hopefully, I will get a replacement soon so that I can test it out.

 

Here is what I have so far (yellow is the only color of filament I have at the moment):

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/141778131@N07/26333534366/in/dateposted-public/

[spaceraver]

I decided to give a stick extension a go for my x55. I went the 3D printer route. I got the basic design down, and printed what I hope is the first prototype. I got it wired up, and ready to test. Sadly, my X55 joystick decided to die before I could test it.

 

Hopefully, I will get a replacement soon so that I can test it out.

 

Here is what I have so far (yellow is the only color of filament I have at the moment):

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/141778131@N07/26333534366/in/dateposted-public/

 

Do you have the stl for the stick extension?

And how did your stick die?

Symptoms?

[Gladman]

Hmmmmmm.

[ProsperGuy]

My joystick worked one day, and the next it didn't.

 

The lights underneath the hat switches are on. The joystick shows up under my USB Controllers in Windows and the status says OK. However, I get no response from any movement or button presses. I have tried it on 3 different computers with the same results.

 

I am planning on uploading the stl to thingiverse once I get it working.

 

If I do get it working, I will also make one with the joystick rotated about 20 degrees for a center stick. I am also going to add 4 mounting holes for anyone that wants to go to a 4 spring setup.

 

The tricky part will be the electrical connections. Currently, I have holes that run the length of the extension that line up with the contacts on the X55. They accomadate 12 guage solid copper wire. (I had some spare romex, so I decided to give that a try first.)

 

I am very much not an electronics guy, so if anyone has any suggestions for the electrical contacts, I would love to hear them.

[Brewnix]

Sounds like something was unplugged. I have a couple of usb controllers for joysticks lying around when I plug them in and they have no buttons attached they act like that. Looks good to windows but nothing happens. Well since your taking it apart you'll find out. Maybe the wire connector was wound too tight thru the stick to the nearest pcb and was slowly working its way apart.

[ProsperGuy]

I haven't taken it apart to look. I think it is still under warranty, so I am trying to resist the temptation to do that.

[Brewnix]

ah sorry ya I'd say check the warranty out first I didn't realize you still had warranty..

[Tekkx]

Hallo folks.

Due to inspiration of spaceravers work, I modded my own X55.

Thank you spaceraver. Without your example I'd never had the guts to do it.

 

Look [thread=166174]here[/thread], if you want :)

Edited May 6, 2016 by Tekkx

[drwenck]

Hi ProsperGuy,

Just wondering if you got to the bottom of the problems you were having with the x55 stick not working with the extension.

I'm having the exact same issue and wonder if you found a fix.

 

I'll post a reply if I figure it out.

Cheers

D

[Devrim]

Hi. Finally I'll try to do that, too but, all photos gone!

Is there any chance to restore them?

 

Thank you.

[Devrim]

On 7/20/2015 at 8:14 PM, spaceraver said:

Hello people.

For my next trick I'd like to show off my stick extention I made...

Hi mate.

 

Could you re-new photos or send me? Thank you.

Edited August 21, 2021 by Devrim

[spaceraver]

3 hours ago, Devrim said:

Hi mate.

 

Could you re-new photos or send me? Thank you.

 

Of course mate.

 

I still have an album of all the pictures I made of it

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/GydarXFKmSDW9rR36