Mini-Stick Drifts!

[Dracon]

I have had this CH Pro throttle for several years. Right out of the box, the ministick drifted. I have it programed for Pan View in FB. It mostly drifts up and right. In order for it to return to center I kinda have to "flip it" then it centers. I feel as if a drop of light oil might fix it?

Comments? Anyone else have this?

Thanks for any advice.

Dracon

[Bob Church]

You should be able to fix it with deadzone and calibration. Put the CM into Direct Mode and go to calibrate the throttle. Do as it says until it gets to asking you for the center position on the ministick. Push the stick gently left until you feel it start to work against the return spring. Note the value that axis is showing in the Raw Data display. Do the same for the right, top, and bottom, note the values all four times. Next put move the ministick until it splits the difference. For example if:

Left Raw = 120
Right Raw = 142

Up Raw = 118
Down Raw = 138

Put the ministick so the X axis is at 131 (halfway between 120 and 142) and the Y axis at 128 (halfway between 18 and 138).

That will be optimum center position. Now you need to figure out how much deadzone to set for each axis. The X axis is +/- 11 around the 131 center, and 11/131 is around 8%, so set the deadzone for maybe 10%. The Y axis is +/-10 around 128 is only around 7%, but it's not critical so I'd set it to 10%, too. You need to set the deadzone in the Map itself for Mapped Mode. For Direct Mode, you can set it on the "Axis Settings" tab in the calibration screen. Anyway, if it still drifts, try going up with the deadzone a percent at a time until it stabilizes.

It's easiest to experiment in Direct Mode. Just flip to the Axis Settings page, set a new deadzone, then switch back to the test page. When you've got enough deadzone to cover the center, the yellow X/Y cursor should stay dead center until you push the ministick far enough that you're into the return springs. Once you know the deadzone for the axis, it shouldn't really change, you can just dial the same number into all of your maps and it should stabilize the cursor.

- Bob

The StickWorks
http://www.stickworks.com

[scout]

I have the exact same problem. Mine too was right out of the box that way! Michael offered to check it out. Problem was I'd have to send it to him. I fly almost every night and really don't want to do without my throttle for who knows how long. Plus I'd have to pay to send it and its a valuable item too me so I'd have to insure it. Also, it seems to me the appropriate solution would be for CH to send us an fully operational unit with a box and label to return the defective gear. I am really a sceptic having seen folks burned through forum pals before. Michael said i could bring mine to the shop and he'd check it out there. I'm heading to San Diego on business next week. Hopefully the offer is still good :D
But I know exactly what you're saying Dracon. It is a real irritation when you trying to fine tune the direction you are searching in and you have to "bump" it the other direction to stop it from drifting! :rant:

[scout]

Bob- if Drac's issue is anything like mine your suggestions, though appreciated won't work. I tried as you'd mentioned above. It works like a champ in the CH Manager program but not in-game or even on the desktop. It still drifts if you input up and/or right until you "bump" it in an opposing direction.

[Bob Church]

Are you setting it in the map as well as in the Axis Settings page? Axis Settings are only active when you're in Direct Mode, once you go to mapped mode the deadzone is controlled by the settings for the axis that are made in the map.

If that won't stabilize it, then you might want to talk to CH and see about getting it checked out. The ministick doesn't generally "drift", I've certainly never seen it. The cursor drifts if you've got it assigned to the mouse, and your view will drift if it's assigned there, but it's just that the ministick is not being seen as centered. If the ministick actually drifted, e.g. the value started at some point and then wandered away from that point, the drift in the view or mouse cursor would increase in speed continuously because the value coming from the ministick would get further and further from center. You don't really say, but I think what you guys mean is that the cursor wanders off at a relatively constant speed which means the ministick is delivering a constant value, just not a centered value, so the return springs aren't pushing you back into the deadzone area as they should. The centering routine I described minimizes the width of that zone. If it's wide enough and there's not actually something faulty with the ministick, it should be coming back into deadzone, delivering a center value, and the thing should stop.

What exactly are you seeing in terms of speed and direction.

- Bob

The StickWorks
http://www.stickworks.com

[Dracon]

Bob, Scout,

Scout is spot on! We have Exactly the SAME problem. This is not a calibration issue. This is a mechanical problem. My Mini-Stick, STICKS!! I am going to try adding a drop of very light weight oil to the gimbal.

I am certainly NOT whining here. I, like scout, would rather put up with this problem then send my throttle anywhere. I too fly every night in AH and FB.

As always, thanks Bob and thanks for your reply scout. I will keep you informed as to what the oil does! I will truly only be adding 1 small drop via a syringe!

Dracon

[MichaelCHProd]

Scout my offer is still good. :)


Dracon, shoot me an e-mail and I will set you up with a RMA so I can have a look at the mini stick.

[Revvin]

Scout> Check you're PM's please

[scout]

my email addy has been updated :D

[Revvin]

Thankyou ;)

[Raploc]

Well it's an old thread but besides the Fighterstick center problem I also have the ministick problem. I've set the stick as Mouse in the CM manager and I have to put in a deadzone number of 18 in the Y axis to keep it from moving my cursor up if the ministick is centered. The centered value for Y is 135 but if i slowly move the stick up to about 118 and then release it it will stay at around 118. FYI the throttle is 3 months old.

[snomhf]

Wow! This is amazing. I have had this problem ever since I took my PT out of the box five years ago. I too have "fixed" it with a great deal of dead zone.

I thought I was the only one.

[Dace]

Actually I got my PT for a discount because it was returned to the dealer for the same mini stick stickiness.

I jump in and said I did'nt mind as long as I get the hats... snip
...

If I moved the Ministick to an extreme in one direction its would be fine and return right away, however moving it to the edge and then rotating would cause what felt like the spring to disengage.

It would go completely slack and not recenter, untill I flick it to reengage the spring. I have subsequently modded it slightly and screwed it up some too.. Only to find that a bit of wear seemed to fix the problem.

Mine only took about a 2 weeks of wear to sort itself out tho, so if you've used your longer you should probably let someone have a look at it.

[Raploc]

Mmmm so this is a "feature" not a defect? I've had both the Fighterstick and Throttle for 3 months now but until recently I almost had no time to use them. FC and F4AF are my only games that utilize the ministick so it might take a while for the ministick to settle through wear alone :( .

[snomhf]

I am going to try adding a drop of very light weight oil to the gimbal.
[/b]
Dracon,
Please let us know what the oil does. I think there are many of us out here with the exact problem you cite. I've always loved the concept of the ministick but have been very disappointed with the implementation of it. Not only does the thing stick as you describe, I have pretty much quit trying to use the mode button as it is just too hard to press. The stick seems too long and rather than the button pressing, it pops out of position and goes full deflection. I've thought about sawing the stick off a little but I'm afraid I'll mess up the stcik movement if I do that.

The ministick needs some serious redesign IMHO.

BTW, you know me Dracon. We used to fly together some in AH. That was probably two years ago.I was flying as HomeBoy or Bodeenma then. Nice to hear from you again.

-mark

[Raploc]

Dracon,
Please let us know what the oil does. [/b]

snomhf I don't know if Dracon will answer, it's a pretty old trhead that I had to dig up for the ministick problem. But I do want to know what Michael thinks about this problem.

[Thunderbolt56]

If I understand the problem properly, I had the same problem with my first one a few years back. Mine was definitely NOT a software issue but a spring compression (or something of the sort) issue. Occassionally, I would change modes on my throttle and the mini-stick would lose its centering tension. After some unscientific manipulation it would 'pop' back into center and wouldn't drift at all. I was a bit concerned and ultimately sent it back to the vendor (I think it was Flight Sim Central) who promptly sent me a replacement. It's happened a couple times on my current PT, but not in a loooong time. Of course it could be that I seldom, if ever, change modes on the PT anymore.

Nonetheless, It seemed to me to be the centering tensioner spring and that it would lose its control after compression.


Anyway, I hope this gets worked out for you.

TB

[snomhf]

snomhf I don't know if Dracon will answer, it's a pretty old trhead that I had to dig up for the ministick problem.
[/b]

I guess I should pay closer attention huh? Yup, two years is a pretty good while. I suppose he never tried the oil.

Personally, I think the main problem is the ministick is not up to normal CH standards.

[boathead]

Wow!
what a coincidence, my ministick will not return to center either(not a calibration problem) the springs both went kaput last week, it's just flopping around all willy nilly. Mine is out of warranty, so I took it apart and removed the circuit board that it is SOLDERED to and thought maybe I could get the springs fixed. No parts available on the website, anyone having any luck repairing this?

Paul

[snomhf]

I have to say that the ministick on the PT is certainly not of the quality of the rest of the CH components. I have really just this year begun to realize that. I have owned the usb version of the PT (as well as the gameport version before that) since they first came out, but during that time I always flew WW2 sims where there wasn't much need for a ministick. I have only this year begun to get into jets where the ministick takes center stage as your radar cursor control.

One guy (won't mention his name) solved this problem by buying a trackball to control his cursor. I think that's sad (no offense meant, I just hate that a guy has to do that to overcome an obvious quality issue). I have to admit to having thoughts about that myself though. This particular issue pretty much drove me from Lockon to Falcon4 because F4 has very elaborate config settings for an analog cursor control and I was able to get my ministick working pretty well there. Even with that, I still have to add a bunch of deadzone to keep it from drifting. If I didn't have to do that, I could get the TDC working smooth as glass. Now, it's just adequate.

Ok, I'm griping. I realize that. Surely you folks that know me also know that I think CH stuff is the best equipment on the planet. I'm just mouthing off here because I really think the ministick deserves some attention. It would be nice if CH offered a replacement ministick that was worthy to be in a PT. Maybe even a trackball! What about a DT225 built into the PT? Now, that would be slick as guerrilla snot!

All right, I'll get back to gluing and sanding now. Just ignore me when I get like this. :)

[Dace]

All right, I'll get back to gluing and sanding now. Just ignore me when I get like this. :) [/b]

Thats OK i'm sure everyone knows what resin and glue fumes can do to a man :P . I do however want to bump your trackball idea, I have no idea why all the console makers went bos on analogue sticks when a small trackball would have made FPS games playable, the same holds true for the PT.

I do however think that a price comparison between an average track ball someting with two mini sticks can shed shome light on the matter.

So I think we are back to waiting for ghost to implement a Franken Roller. I know the Panther XL crowd (joystick with trackball in the base) Have had some luck replacing old track balls with optical sensors and such but I dont know where you would find the space for the circuitry in the PT handle? I suppose you could mod it to put the sensor on a wire from the base of the PT but then youd have to desoldier it so .... Hmmmm

Last thing that puts a hold on this is that you really would want it to be a DT255 so that you could keep the programability, but who's gonna offer up one of those to testing this idea???

Ghost some help here? :P :P :P

[ruggbutt]

One guy (won't mention his name) solved this problem by buying a trackball to control his cursor. I think that's sad (no offense meant, I just hate that a guy has to do that to overcome an obvious quality issue). I have to admit to having thoughts about that myself though. This particular issue pretty much drove me from Lockon to Falcon4 because F4 has very elaborate config settings for an analog cursor control and I was able to get my ministick working pretty well there.
[/b]
I fit that category, I don't know if you were talking about me though. I got the DT225 because I wasn't happy with the accuracy of the minijoy in Lock On. It's a problem with Lock On. I had the same issues with my X45 and it's minijoy. The devs for Lock On fixed the problem in the newer a/c, primarily the Su25T. The minijoy works great for it and I'm still screwing around with the sensitivity on the DT225 for that particular plane because of the change.

I too never had any issues in F4 with the minijoy. This should tell you it's a problem with Lock On, not with the minijoy.

[Raploc]

Ruggbutt I wish it would just be another Lock On problem like my Fighterstick deadzone thingy. Even in Windows with the minstick set as a mouse the cursor drifts up if I don't set a large deadzone.

[snomhf]

I too never had any issues in F4 with the minijoy. This should tell you it's a problem with Lock On, not with the minijoy.
[/b]

Sorry to disagree with you my friend. Lockon may have its problems with the cursor axes but the PT ministick is most definitely not up to standard. None of my CH devices require any deadzone whatsoever except the ministick. It sticks, doesn't center well, and is noisy. It's just poor quality, period. Now, I'm not saying that it is unusable, it just requires so much deadzone that it loses a lot of precision. A TDC requires much more precision than the PT ministick can provide because of the deadzone. I have experimented with setting no deadzone and setting maximum exponential (soft in the center, fast at the edges) and if the signals were clean, it would be very nice indeed. Once I dial in enough deadzone to stablize it, there goes the precision and I start "chasing the blip." The only reason it works pretty well in Falcon4 is because of the extra configuration features in SP4. AF does not offer such configuration unless you enter the darkside and use the "illegal" and much maligned bfops.cfg file. Since they outlaw the bfops config file in online play, I won't play online due to the lack of a decent TDC.

I have recently had three brand new PTs pass through my hands and I can tell you with certainty that the problem is the same for every one that I've tested.

[Raploc]

Stil waiting for an answer from CH :huh: