Saitek X52 Pro sticking

[Raven_Morpheus]

Hello

 

I have a Saitek X52 Pro.

 

It was suffering from the well documented and known "sticktion" so I set about trying to find a fix for it...

 

After watching a video by Frooglesim, about solving the same/similar issue on the X-55, I used Vaseline to lubricate the joystick's shaft.

 

That has made the "sticktion" worse.

 

Does anyone here have any tips on how to clean that area completely and hopefully restore the stick to new?

 

Or a disassembly guide so that I can get at that area easily?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

EDIT - please disregard this. I have resolved the issue by taking IPA 99.9% and some q tips, and generally cleaning around the inner spring area, I also very carefully holding the stick horizontally drizzled a little IPA over that area to "flush" it.

 

It started to stick again, but I went back at it with IPA and q tips and I also rubbed a 4B graphite pencil against the shaft, seems to have fixed it so far, the movement is nice and smooth now.

 

Don't know how long that will last for though before I get "sticktion" again.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Raven_Morpheus

[BeastyBaiter]

Any stick with that style of centering will have that effect. I always solved it with silicone grease on my old X-52 Pro (used 8 years without issue) and my newer X-55 (3 years). Typically the grease goes about around 6 months to a year before needing to be cleaned and reapplied, depending on how much I play. I've never tried Vaseline but that seems like a bad idea on plastic parts in the long term.

[Raven_Morpheus]

Yeah, I spoke to soon. About 30 minutes after having done what I did with the IPA and pencil graphite the "sticktion" returned. Presumably because everything had dried out.

 

Using IPA seems to have cleaned out what was there though after I had applied Vaseline and before that a bicycle chain Teflon spray (called GT85 here in the UK). The "sticktion" was worse before I cleaned the shaft with IPA.

 

I might try some silicone grease instead see how that goes.

 

It's really rather frustrating because I recently bought a 2nd hand Saitek X-45, only the joystick (to replace my old one which was suffering with really bad "sticktion") and it's as smooth as silk despite it being a used item. But the X-45 doesn't have as many buttons and I was only using my X-45 HOTAS because my X-52 joystick was suffering so bad with "sticktion"...

Edited April 5, 2018 by Raven_Morpheus