Unhappy with Saitek X52 Pro

[Ven]

I guess this is more for Saitek forum but was wondering what some of your opinion on this HOTAS is.

 

I received the X52 Pro from Amazon yesterday. Spent all night configuring profile and started a test flight. But due to the way spring mechanism work on the flight stick, it seems to get stuck on one position.

 

For example, I'm trying to land and I pulled back on the stick gently and was holding it there. And then when I was trying to drop the nose back down as I touched down, the stick felt like it was locked into that position I was holding for awhile. I put more forward pressure and it suddenly snapped out of that position. Causing me to drop my nose too much.

 

From what I can see, this is because there is a metal plate that's being pushed down from the stick. And keeping pressure against the black ring on the base. This I guess is Saitek's sophisticated centering mechanism. But it seems the spring is too stiff so it's applying too much pressure downward... giving me very sticky control instead of smooth control. It works fine when I'm moving the stick fast enough, but trying to do fine corrections is nearly impossible.

 

What I was wondering is... are everyone else who has this stick experienced this? Does this go away? Or should I return this? Should I put some lubricant between the metal plate and black ring?

[VMFA-Blaze]

Ven: A lot of guys seem to have that problem... And I think I heard some where that candle wax has been used to solve this problem... But the stick isn't that expensive so I guess these little problems are worth dealing with....

 

~S~

 

Blaze

[Ven]

Oh I donno, $200 may not be extreme but it aint cheap either. I'll try the candle wax but if there's no workaround to this, I'm returning it. All the glowing lights and programming is nice but I expect $200 stick to perform the most basic function of a flight stick.

[Pilotasso]

I guess this is more for Saitek forum but was wondering what some of your opinion on this HOTAS is.

 

I received the X52 Pro from Amazon yesterday. Spent all night configuring profile and started a test flight. But due to the way spring mechanism work on the flight stick, it seems to get stuck on one position.

 

For example, I'm trying to land and I pulled back on the stick gently and was holding it there. And then when I was trying to drop the nose back down as I touched down, the stick felt like it was locked into that position I was holding for awhile. I put more forward pressure and it suddenly snapped out of that position. Causing me to drop my nose too much.

 

From what I can see, this is because there is a metal plate that's being pushed down from the stick. And keeping pressure against the black ring on the base. This I guess is Saitek's sophisticated centering mechanism. But it seems the spring is too stiff so it's applying too much pressure downward... giving me very sticky control instead of smooth control. It works fine when I'm moving the stick fast enough, but trying to do fine corrections is nearly impossible.

 

What I was wondering is... are everyone else who has this stick experienced this? Does this go away? Or should I return this? Should I put some lubricant between the metal plate and black ring?

 

Use a thick lubricant, it will solve that problem. Use one that doesnt eat plastic such as the ones derived from petroleum. Silicone mass would be the best.

[Angelblade]

This is an issue with my x52 pro too, so I know exactly what you're talking about.

But it lasted many hours of flying for this problem to appear in the first place, until this point I was totally satisfied with that stick.

Some lubricant helped me out of this, just make sure you don't use something too liquid, this can even make the problem more worse.

 

I used some ball bearing grease and now it works like a charm again. So for me this is just a minor drawback on that otherwise really good piece of hardware.