Saitek no more.

[dcshobbis]

In Sweden, I can't see that Saitek Pro Flight products have been restocked in our Flight sim friendly stores for quite a while now and no orders are accepted from stores. :huh: Have Saitek hold off on the production of devices pending a long term solution? :noexpression: In that case, I hope Logitech spins it off again so we can get our stores restocked with Pro Flight gear :thumbup:

Today I finally got my ordered Pro Flight Switch panel, so I'm happy for now **diving into the simulator for some DCS world configuration** :book::joystick:

[Buzzles]

This is good news.

 

Saitek used to be decent. Under MadCatz they became terrible, and I'm saying this as an X-55 owner, so moving to Logitech, who've always made pretty good hardware and have a decent support department is a good thing.

 

All I hope is that Saitek don't become their "cheap" brand, but become their "flight-sim" brand.

[GeorgeLKMT]

Can't wait for the lineup of flimsy space-sim controllers! :D

[SkateZilla]

Logitech just saved the Saitek Lines.. Cuz MadCatz Quality was that of a Dollar Store water gun..

[Kayos]

That's pretty cool.

[streakeagle]

I have a Saitek X-36 USB that still works 100% despite years of abuse before it was replaced by an X-45. After I got a great deal on an X-52 Pro (only $100 shortly after its release at $200 retail), I cut up the X-45 to act as a 2nd generation attempt at a USB interface for my real F-4 Phantom stick. the X-52 Pro has been my son's stick/throttle since I got a Warthog for $350 several years back.

 

So that's three generations of Saitek sticks and the only one that isn't intact after all of these years is the one I disassembled for a DIY project.

 

I know I was lucky. Others had plenty of complaints about spikey axes, bad buttons, etc. My main complaint over the years was the ever buggy software, which I needed to make use of all the axes in all my games. But none of my Saitek products were post Madcatz acquisition.

 

The X-55 was tempting, but with both an X-52 Pro and a Warthog fully functioning, I just didn't need it. The X-65 didn't interest me at all: I prefer conventional sticks, preferably centered in front of the seat with a realistic height and range of motion. A force sensing stick that emulates the short side stick of the F-16 just doesn't appeal to me at all. The X-56 is to the X-55 as the X-45 was to the X-36: Re-engineered a bit, but mainly a change from black to bright blue with more flashy lights. I didn't really need the X-55. I need the flashy space sim X-56 even less.

 

So, I haven't bought a Saitek product in years and I don't plan to buy one any time soon. But I loved the ones I did buy and if Logitech's acquisition ensures Saitek stays around to make more great products for flight sim fans, I am all for it. If my X-52 Pro ever fails, I will probably replace it with a Saitek stick.

 

People ask why most (at this point all?) of the manufacturers don't make a truly quality stick that will last for years? Because in this very small niche market, if you don't buy a new stick every 1-3 years, their company won't be making any money after everyone gets a really good long-lasting stick and only orders some repair parts every now and then.

 

I have been PC simming with a joystick since August of 2000, over 16 years. I have bought (in order of purchase):

1. Thrustmaster Top Gun, the really cheap, crappy analog one that covered the shelves of Best Buy in August of 2000.

2. Saitek X-36 USB, bought about a month later because the Top Gun was such total crap.

3. Microsoft Sidewinder Pro USB, another Best Buy purchase around early 2001 so my dad could fly with me. It was the first to be cut up to support my F-4 stick's conversion to USB.

4. Saitek X-45, also bought at Best Buy late 2001/early 2002? just to see how its new centering spring and software compared to the X-36. With the arrival of the X-52 Pro, I decided to retrofit my F-4 stick with the X-45 components so that I could use the Saitek configuration software with it.

5. Saitek X-52 Pro, bought online in October of 2007 because of the very low $100 price at GoGamers.com.

6. Thrustmaster Warthog, bought online in September of 2011 because of the very low $350 price at Fry's Electronics.

 

So from the X-45 to the X-52 Pro was 5 years and from the X-52 Pro to the Warthog was 4 years, and I have had the Warthog 5 years. If I had only purchased sticks after failure, I might still be using the X-36 or X-45, though software issues with Win7 would probably have forced me to go X-52 Pro or Warthog... though I can still get the X-36 to work to this day as a basic stick without any software.

 

I don't see how any manufacturer can survive at any kind of affordable price, when even my cheap crappy plastic sticks with low grade pots and switches have lasted for 5 or more years of heavy daily usage. Saitek served me well for the first half of my years of PC flight simming hobby and continues to serve my son. I hope Logitech helps Saitek continue to do the same for other newbies to the pc flight sim community.

 

edit: I forgot to mention I got the Saitek Pro Rudder Pedals when I bought the X-52 Pro. They remain fully functional after 9 years of service... but the spring loaded locks for adjusting the foot pedal length gave out a couple of years ago. So they are loose and sitting at the shortest length. This doesn't affect anything unless I am not wearing shoes and can feel my toes hanging over the ends.

Edited September 16, 2016 by streakeagle

[aracas11]

Make ya own

[streakeagle]

Make ya own

 

I already did :)

 

 

 

Edited September 16, 2016 by streakeagle

[Sokol1_br]

A really sturdy "X-45". :)

[Dudikoff]

1. Thrustmaster Top Gun, the really cheap, crappy analog one that covered the shelves of Best Buy in August of 2000.

2. Saitek X-36 USB, bought about a month later because the Top Gun was such total crap.

5. Saitek X-52 Pro, bought online in October of 2007 because of the very low $100 price at GoGamers.com.

 

I had these three as well. The TM Top Gun never worked well, some axis was messed up from the get go (don't remember the details exactly, but I do remember it was total crap). I found the X36 very impressive for the time and the price. A friend had the TM F-16 FLCS, but I felt Saitek used better materials (e.g. rubberized grip, much better base plastic, etc.) than TM and IIRC it went for the price of the FLCS stick only. The rudder control on the throttle was pretty cool, too. It still works (I remember using Dhauzimmer's drivers for XP or maybe even for Windows 7?). X52 Pro was pretty solid for the price as well, though I wish they used better pots for the rotaries and a better thumb stick (as I always had to play with the deadzones to get them to some usable state) and the twist rudder is useless IMHO.

 

I mostly use the X65 now which I got used and I feel it's the best Saitek HOTAS ever made (metal, decent rotary pots, decent mini-stick, zero complaints really except short screws used on the throttle handle so one was broken when I got it and it's a PITA to remove it).

 

I also have a TM Cougar I never once used as I know the pots are crap. Still considering whether to sell it for a dime or to throw more money at it and mod it with FSSB or something as all the other mods are impossible to get. I don't really need another force sensitive stick as I have the X65, but I kinda dig the TM Cougar MFD's and it would be nice to combine a TM HOTAS with them in a Target profile (the cool thing about FSSB R1/R2/R3is that it still runs with Target as it interfaces with the original PCB). I'm actually closer to considering a VKB gimbal (e.g. the Gunfighter) even though it won't be supported in Target if they're as good as they say they are.

Edited September 17, 2016 by Dudikoff

[streakeagle]

I felt the twist stick rudder of the X-52 was a downgrade from the rudder rocker on the throttle of the X-36 and X-45... but fortunately I got rudder pedals when I bought my X-52 Pro!

 

The twist stick was useful in one application: Mech Warrior. It made sense to have the upper torso axis mapped to the twist stick compared to the rudder rocker. But rudder pedals with toe brakes were far superior for any aircraft application and flying helos without rudder pedals is just not right.

 

I am not a huge fan of metal stick grips. They are okay, but my real F-4 stick is some kind of resin or plastic that is very heavy duty yet much more comfortable than the Warthog stick. The real B-8 grip fits my hand and feels great in the same way a 1911A1 0.45 pistol does... complete with diamond texture.

 

I had a chance to get a new-in-box Cougar for a really good price one time, but all my friends with Cougars eventually ditched them due to the expense/difficulty to maintain or mod them. Given that my X-52 Pro was working so well for me, I hesitated on buying the Warthog. But $350 was an exceptional price at the time. Initially, I only used the Warthog throttle since my F-4 B-8 worked so well. Out of the box, I liked the feel of the X-52 Pro better than the Warthog stick. The Warthog was clearly more precise/accurate, but it had too much resistance and "sticktion". I was much better at precise, high-deflection air-to-air gunnery with Saitek sticks than the Warthog. But now I have the stick extension which provides two advantages:

1) Realistic long-throw range of movement (matching the F-4 B-8 ) that leverages the precision of the Warthog.

2) Minimizes and almost completely eliminates the "sticktion" problem, which combined with the above long throw means being able to make very small adjustments key to precise gunnery and flying helos.

 

If I could perfectly interface Warthog axes with my F-4 stick, that would give me the best of all worlds. The feel of the F-4 stick is fantastic, but the BU0836X isn't quite as high a resolution as the Warthog and the pots I am using with it are high maintenance. I bought some hall-effect sensors, but never bothered to develop a way to make them work my stick. The Warthog works so well now that I am lazy about improving and restoring the F-4 B-8 into service.

Edited September 19, 2016 by streakeagle

[Sokol1_br]

If I could perfectly interface Warthog axes with my F-4 stick, that would give me the best of all worlds.

 

Installing a Shift Register PCB (Tm or DIY) inside this "box" bellow B-8 grip this became possible "PnP".

 

... but the BU0836X isn't quite as high a resolution

 

Well, their resolution is supposedly 12 bits (4096 steeps though axis course) what is said more than humans hands can manage. :D

 

Will be less only if pot' course don't varies voltage from 0 to ~5v - or don't travel all their possible course.

[S-GERAT]

I am not very enthusiast with this purchase.. Logitech used to make great products and have a great customer support.. but when I bought the 940 Logitech only had a great customer support.. because the 940 had very worrying fabrication issues.. and the support for the software nearly don't exist.. In fact, Logitech didn't have any interest in the sim market.. and because that it stops the fabrication and the design of any new joystick..

 

The reason of this movement from Logitech is due the rise of spacial flight simulators like Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous.. seems that a lot of people is buying hotas for these sims and probably the new Thrustmaster products are oriented for that new customer base. Logitech at this time don't have any Hotas.. and probably they buy Saitek in order to sell those Hotas for the space simmers without the need to wait for a new own Hotas design and fabrication..

 

Logitech had the skills and technology to build a very good Hotas, pedals.. whatever.. no need for Saitek, unless they want to sell these products right now.. and they are not going to build any high-end product for enthusiasts.. at least not something for jets flight simmers like us..

 

Sorry for being pessimist but..

Edited September 19, 2016 by S-GERAT

[Dudikoff]

I am not very enthusiast with this purchase.. Logitech used to make great products and have a great customer support.. but when I bought the 940 Logitech only had a great customer support.. because the 940 had very worrying fabrication issues.. and the support for the software nearly don't exist.. In fact, Logitech didn't have any interest in the sim market.. and because that it stops the fabrication and the design of any new joystick..

 

Yeah, the G940 software is almost useless and they didn't even fix the axis hystheresis bug on the throttle, rudders and rotaries (just the stick AFAIK).

 

The reason of this movement from Logitech is due the rise of spacial flight simulators like Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous.. seems that a lot of people is buying hotas for these sims and probably the new Thrustmaster products are oriented for that new customer base. Logitech at this time don't have any Hotas.. and probably they buy Saitek in order to sell those Hotas for the space simmers without the need to wait for a new own Hotas design and fabrication..

 

Well, whatever happens, it can't get much worse than under Mad Catz..

[streakeagle]

Installing a Shift Register PCB (Tm or DIY) inside this "box" bellow B-8 grip this became possible "PnP".

 

 

 

Well, their resolution is supposedly 12 bits (4096 steeps though axis course) what is said more than humans hands can manage. :D

 

Will be less only if pot' course don't varies voltage from 0 to ~5v - or don't travel all their possible course.

 

Using JoyTester2 or whatever it is called, I can test the reaction of the stick to my inputs.

 

I have verified that the Warthog is not truly 16-bit. I think it is 14-bit. I can easily make small adjustments to my stick position that utilize the 14-bit precision, which means the difference between the accuracy of 12-bit and 14-bit can be sensed by the game. While I flew just fine with 12-bit when the pots were clean, I definitely have better control of the helos with the 14-bit when Warthog "sticktion" doesn't get in the way. With the extension, the accuracy and smoothness of the Warthog absolutely kills the 12-bit BU0836X when you look at graphs on the joy tester.

[Sokol1_br]

A interesting matter, how different people "fell" this resolution thing. :)

 

Posted in VKB forum by one of their engineers*:

 

The angle of the joystick is 45 degrees.

Precision: 16-bit

The height of the joystick: 300 mm (with extension)

One count at 16-bit precision means moving the stick to 0,003mm length!!!

 

I guess use this high resolutions means "move" the stick without hands movements, only with brain input. :)

 

Other curious thing is, with extension one tend make less throw movement for precise control... what move lees the magnet over sensor and so reduce their reading/output, or lower somewhat their "resolution" for a given control input relative to same stick without extension - if axis response curve in game is not adjusted to reflect this smaller movement.

 

What maybe is happen in your B-8 stick, the pot are not moving all their projected throw, and so the voltage variation send for BU0836X is less than 0~5v, reducing their output resolution.

 

And even are a guy in this same forum saying that the 8 bits (256 points) of their CH stick give then better "control feel" that "16 bits" of their Warthog, because with CH he can move more the stick side to side (~33 degrees for each side)...

 

* They say that 12/14 bits resolution is more than sufficient for joysticks, due their limited angular throw.

 

BTW - 3D HALL sensor Melexis MLX90333 used in Warthog (X-55/56) datasheet don't inform 16 bits of resolution output, but 15 bit in "slow mode" and 14 bit in "fast mode". Seems that this 1 bit more (what double the previous reading) is marketing trick. :D

 

https://www.melexis.com/-/media/files/documents/datasheets/mlx90333-datasheet-melexis.pdf

Edited September 19, 2016 by Sokol1_br

[streakeagle]

My B-8 stick uses an industrial grade 20 mm linear pot that when clean, provides nearly a perfect response as indicated by the graph produced by the joytester software. When I see noise, I wonder how much is more likely from my soldering and/or the wiring than the pot or the BU0836X. I have been able to move the stick in pitch to produce 1-bit increments in the raw values. 20 mm / 2^12 = 0.00488 mm.

 

But my hand is moving 10.5 inches or 266.7 mm to generate that 20 mm of movement, which means my hand moves 266.7 / 4096 = 0.0651 mm per step.

 

I chose my Warthog extension to a nearly identical range of motion, so being 15 bit vice 12 bits, the movement of my hand for one step is: 266.7 / 32768 = 0.00814 mm.

 

Reading a pdf on the limits of mouse precision, a study was quoted as saying this:

Bérard et al. more recently found that participants could comfortably acquire 0.036 mm and 0.018 mm targets with a mouse, and even smaller ones (0.0045 mm) without

impeding the error rate but at the expense of longer movement times

 

I can assure you that "longer movement times" is a factor in my successful attempts at advancing the value by one step, which is a decimal value of 16 using a 12-bit resolution with a 16-bit joystick axis value, or a value of 2 using the 15-bit Warthog.

 

With the Warthog, I can "easily" move in steps of 6 to 10, but with patience and practice, observe changes in the reported axis value changing by only 2, the absolute limit of its 15-bit resolution.

 

So you can tell me 12-bits is "plenty", but I can easily exceed this level of precision with the Warthog (typically seeing steps less than 16), but I can only reach its 15-bit limit by concentrating hard and barely moving the stick... it takes both hands if I am near the center.

 

But even if 12-bits really is enough, I would still rather be well past the limits rather than right on them. The real world is analog until you get down to a quantum size and the higher resolution will allow me more closely approach the analog response of reality.

[Sokol1_br]

Very interesting, thanks for post.

 

So Tm "resolution hype" make sense - even if their announced value is marketing. :)

[klem]

I've had X36, X45 and X52. All considered good value for the money but the support went down the drain with MadCatz.

 

It's getting near that time when I ought to upgrade and would like to find a really good FFB stick but of course there isn't one. Lets hope Logitech can marry their driving wheel FFB to a good stick.

 

Still using the X45 ("re-packaged") for prop control and various switch/button controls alongside the X52.

[streakeagle]

Very interesting, thanks for post.

 

So Tm "resolution hype" make sense - even if their announced value is marketing. :)

 

I see the value in 15-bit the same as anti-aliasing with displays. A 1600x1200 display really looked good compared to a 1024x768 display, but a 1024x768 display with 4xanti-aliasing on a Voodoo 5500 looked better than any other video card of that time frame at 1600x1200.

 

The 14/15-bit resolution of the Warthog is oversampling compared to the 13-bit resolution practical limit that I can realistically use while flying a helo or sighting in a steady state target with a P-51 or F-86 gyro sight in DCS World.

 

But without the extension, i.e. using a stock stick, 12-bit is probably the useful limit.

 

Sensitivity/precision/resolution of the signal processing is one thing, but the smoothness and feel of the F-4 stick with conventional springs was absolutely amazing even compared to the Warthog with an extension. No center detent or bump, no sticktion, extremely smooth and precise near the center and due to my choice of spring, you could get fatigued if you had to hold the stick all the way back with one hand for any length of time. Some day I might buy another warthog and gut it to use all of its great features with my real stick. But the modern aircraft need the full A-10 grip features. Of course two of the aircraft I fly the most, UH-1 and F-86 use B-8 grips and as DCS World catches up on the plane set between the P-80 Shooting Star and the F-15A, most of those aircraft had B-8 grips :)

Edited September 21, 2016 by streakeagle

[streakeagle]

I've had X36, X45 and X52. All considered good value for the money but the support went down the drain with MadCatz.

 

It's getting near that time when I ought to upgrade and would like to find a really good FFB stick but of course there isn't one. Lets hope Logitech can marry their driving wheel FFB to a good stick.

 

Still using the X45 ("re-packaged") for prop control and various switch/button controls alongside the X52.

 

When they closed down the forums that had helped me overcome the many software/driver issues that had crept up over the years, I knew they were heading in the wrong direction. You can't cut costs by eliminating critical support that is needed to even make your product usable by the average customer.

 

I transitioned from Win98SE to WinXP to Win7-64bit and got everything from the X-36 and up to work well on all of those operating systems, but their software/drivers didn't make the migration easy. In fact, I held on to Win98SE for quite some time to keep both my Saitek stick fully functional. I needed the advanced profiles to make all of my combat flight sims work the way I wanted, especially for allowing the extra analog knobs on the throttle to be mapped to critical key/button functions. But between the forums, steadily improved software/drivers, and a lot of patience, I worked my way through every glitch to get back to the functionality I loved and used every day.

 

I hope Logitech and Saitek do what a merger is supposed to do: make everything better for both companies, their employees, and their customers. But it is more likely, Logitech will fire/replace most/all Saitek personnel and simply exploit the brand and existing products if they can, and finally close it down when it starts to lose money. Buying out the competition allows you to shut down the competition.

[RFC Rudel]

Finally

[MAD-MM]

My first real high price SIM Joystick was X-52, and he served me for Year's it's shows slowly his age by malfunction of twist knop potis. But was lucky me before Mad Catz take over.

Still using the X-52 Throttel with my Sidewinder FFB2 real good combination.

But it's showing his age but there is no valid option, hopefully Logitech and Saitek bring a new good qualitiy FFB Joystick.

But I getting carefully with my buy's, TM Warthog was costing also good stang of money when you look inside there is nothing left of the high production quality what they say.

[the_soupdragon]

With a bit of luck Logitech will make some different handles for the X55 Stick. But I wont hold my breathe :(

 

SD

[Sokol1_br]

Difficult, the most costly in joystick project is the molds for inject plastic parts, they cost like a medium car.