Joystick Question,

[Deagles]

I've got the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro and am wondering if it works well with IL-2?

[Crocogator]

I think it should work well, yeah. You'll need to use the game interface to bind different commands to the joystick, like gear, flaps, throttle, rudder left/right, engine.

[1Sascha]

I was at my squad's LAN-event in May where we held a 2v2 dueling ladder contest using 109 F-4s in IL-2. My squad's former CO stubbornly refuses to upgrade any of his old school setup, which is a keyboard, an old TIR with a disgustingly unclean reflector-cap and a Wingman 3D. He and his (WinWing and VR-equipped) wingman won the event and in at least two matches they were up against guys with $2000+ HOTAS setups (mostly Virpil stuff). He also hadn't played IL-2 in years, while most of the competitors were regular IL-2 and DCS pilots.

 

Is it the best stick you can get and will it give you the best experience and the most control over your plane in-game? No... not by a long shot. Can you still be competitive with such a low-end setup? I guess you can.

 

"It's the pilot - not the plane".... or in this case: "It's the pilot - not the HOTAS"... ?

 

 

Would I recommend this stick? Hell, no ... but it'll beat having to fly with your keyboard and mouse.

 

 

 

S.

[dburne]

@1Sascha

 

So you just removed the Gunfighter clutches and put the Nyogel on the clutches themselves?

Can this be done without removing the cams/springs?

[1Sascha]

1 hour ago, dburne said:

So you just removed the Gunfighter clutches and put the Nyogel on the clutches themselves?

Can this be done without removing the cams/springs?

You can't take the clutches off I think, but what you need to do is remove the clutches' "brake pads".

 

As I've stated in another post:

My GF which I bought new from VKB in Sept 2022 was manufactured in Sept 2020. When I first tried it in games out of the box, the axes felt sticky with any sort of clutch applied. So I went and stripped the gimbal down to get to the clutches and took the "brake pads" off to inspect them. I found the factory grease had gone gunky and sticky after two years of sitting on a shelf, so I cleaned the pads and re-assembled everything. Then I tried the stick without any dampening grease (basically "dry clutch"). Which worked better but still didn't feel good once I applied a bit more clutch. So I took everything apart again, raided my Gladiator Evo's stash of dampening grease (not sure what's in there, but it looks and feels like Nyogel 767A) and applied a bit of that stuff to the clutches. My tube of Nyogel was still in the mail and I got impatient, so ... ?

 

 

So I got to experience the GF with

1. dampening grease that had gone bad,

2. with no grease on the clutches at all ("dry clutch") and

3. with fresh dampening grease applied.

 

The way you do this is you take the pads off the clutches' barrels, then apply a bit of the stuff onto the barrels' contact ares with the pads (their "rims" basically), then put the pads back on and wipe off any excess grease. To do this on the X-axis is not a huge deal, since the clutch is sitting in the open once you take the gimbal out of its housing. The Y-axis clutch however sits behind a PCB that you have to take off in order to get to the clutch.

 

Here's a VKB video showing the whole procedure:

 

It looks scarier than it actually is. I used nothing but this video as my guide and I managed to do it twice without breaking anything .. . ?

 

It does take a bit of time though, simply because of the sheer amount of steps involved to take the gimbal out of its housing and then get to the actual clutches. Plus the time for re-assembly of course.

 

 

The disassembled clutch looks like this:

 

The steel "wheel" in the back is the barrel and those two plastic looking parts are the brakepads. This pic was taken with the rotting factory grease still on them before I cleaned them up.

 

I don't recall 100% whether or not you *need* to remove the springs. I didn't remove them (as you can see in the pic) and it wasn't an issue. Besides: Taking off the springs is a piece of cake compared to taking off the cams. And I'm quite sure you don't need to take off the cams, either. It's just that one PCB that needs to come off for the Y-axis clutch...

 

 

S.

Edited October 16, 2022 by 1Sascha

[dburne]

Yeah I have no problem really removing the springs, the cams I was hoping I would not need to and sounds like I will not.

Thanks much for the info, I may make use of some of my downtime currently and do this - already have a tube of the Nyogel here.

[dburne]

Well crap, not going to be able to get the pcb off the side of the gimbal to get to that clutch - seems one of the screws apparently got stripped when it was assembled, I got two of them out no problem, this last one is wallowed out to where my wrench just turns in it.  In that VKB video it stated in MK III it was not necessary to remove the PCB but I do not see a way to get to the dry clutch without doing so.

 

Hmm or maybe I can , will take another look.

 

No upon further inspection I see no way to get that clutch out of there without removing that side PCB and there ain't no way I can remove that PCB due to the condition of that one screw in the PCB. Someone must have really torqued that thing at assembly for it to be in the shape it is in. So much for that. Guess I will go ahead and at least get the Nyogel applied to that one axis I have that I can access.  Thanks a lot VKB ugh.

And of course it is the pitch axis that I can not access and that is the one that needs it the worst lol.

Edited October 16, 2022 by dburne

[1Sascha]

47 minutes ago, dburne said:

this last one is wallowed out to where my wrench just turns in it

@dburne You might want to take another look at those screws. Unlike for all the other screws on the gimbal, you need a different size screw-driver for one of them. Not sure which way around it was, but IIRC two of them need the standard driver (2.5mm hex IIRC) and the other one needs one size smaller (2mm). Or the other way around (2.5m for one of them, 2mm for the other two).

 

I bet that one screw on your gimbal isn't stripped... it just needs a larger size hex-driver. No need to torque these screws super tight anyway. In fact, I bet you could ruin that PCB if you tightened the screws too much.

 

They don't show or tell this explicitly in the video I think, but you can see the guy using two different drivers when he removes those screws (one with a silver/beige grip, one with a blue one).

 

Go to 2:10 in the video. He uses the one driver he uses for everything else on the bottom screw (blue grip) and another driver for the two screws on the left (silver grip). So blue must be 2.5mm, silver 2mm.

 

I know I had to switch to a smaller driver bit when I took off that PCB - so it's not a bug or defect, it's a "feature". Albeit, unfortunately, a not-very-well-documented one.. ?

 

 

 

S.

Edited October 16, 2022 by 1Sascha

[dburne]

4 minutes ago, 1Sascha said:

@dburne You might want to take another look at those screws. Unlike everything on the gimbal, you need a different size screw-driver for one of them. Not sure which way around it was, but IIRC two of them need the standard driver (2.5mm hex IIRC) and the other one needs one size smaller (2mm). Or the other way around (2.5m for one of them, 2mm for the other two).

 

I bet that one screw isn't stripped... it just needs a larger size hex-driver.

 

They don't show or tell this explicitly in the video I think, but you can see the guy using two different drivers when he removes those screws (one with a silver/beige grip, one with a blue one).

 

Go to 2:10 in the video. He uses the one driver he uses for everything else on the bottom screw (blue grip) and another driver for the two screws on the left (silver grip). So blue must be 2.5mm, silver 2mm.

 

 

 

 

S.

 

Thanks but no already checked that. Yes those two PCB screws are one size smaller than the other screws, however the one PCB screw was all wallowed out unfortunately. There is no getting that thing out.

[1Sascha]

5 minutes ago, dburne said:

Thanks but no already checked that. Yes those two PCB screws are one size smaller than the other screws, however the one PCB screw was all wallowed out unfortunately. There is no getting that thing out.

That is super odd, since (as I've stated up top in an edit), I'm pretty sure torquing these things up like crazy wouldn't be necessary or might even be downright dangerous for that PCB. Might want to take a pic of that screw, contact VKB and ask them for advice. Try VKBOperator on the HOTAS discord. He's very helpful and knowledgeable.

 

https://discord.gg/szqaJE7

 

Or go to their official forums if you don't have discord.

 

S.

 

Edited October 16, 2022 by 1Sascha

[dburne]

Ok thanks - so dang frustrating

Been tempted to try out the new Virpil CM3 anyway...

 

Edited October 16, 2022 by dburne

[Dallas88B]

6 hours ago, dburne said:

must have really torqued that thing at assembly for it to be in the shape it is in. So much for that

 

Well hell. That is no good at all.

For the money they charge for these things I would expect better.

I wonder what VKB would say if you raised a ticket with them?

[dburne]

36 minutes ago, Dallas88B said:

 

Well hell. That is no good at all.

For the money they charge for these things I would expect better.

I wonder what VKB would say if you raised a ticket with them?

 

Likely they would offer for me to send it in to be repaired I suppose.

Not sure I want to go that route just for this. I did put some Nyogel on the one axis side I could get to in order to remove the clutch, can't say it really made much difference for me. Sure it has more damping if I tighten that clutch up some more but at the expense of it not centering as good as it was.

 

So at this point I will just chalk it up to not worth it at least on my end. Both VKB and Virpil should apply the appropriate grease to these things during assembly before shipping them out even.

Edit: There is a thread over on the Virpil forum with similar issue on new CM3 stick, and the vid posted by the guy showing how to get the grease in there looks even more complex procedure than the VKB was.

Edited October 16, 2022 by dburne

[Dallas88B]

Thanks for the extra information.

 

4 hours ago, dburne said:

There is a thread over on the Virpil forum with similar issue on new CM3 stick

 

Shame its so difficult

 

Yes , would be good if they used Nyogel 767A when it was constructed. Guess they don't cause its extra expense.

4 hours ago, dburne said:

can't say it really made much difference for me. Sure it has more damping if I tighten that clutch up some more but at the expense of it not centering as good as it was.

 

So at this point I will just chalk it up to not worth it at least on my end.

probably for the best. 

[1Sascha]

9 hours ago, dburne said:

Sure it has more damping if I tighten that clutch up some more but at the expense of it not centering as good as it was.

 

If you change springs or damping, you have to adjust the whole thing to work properly - just like with any spring/dampener combo. Both elements have to work in "unison", not against each other. Meaning the spring shouldn't be overpowered by the dampener (clutch) or vice-versa. When I set my GF up I did what I did with the Gladiator before and had the VKB config SW open to check centering behavior while I was adjusting the clutches. My "method" was to first select what sort of spring tension I wanted, put in those springs and then I assembled the stick minus the dust-cover so that I could have it in its gaming position on its deskmount while I was manipulating the clutches.

 

Just like on my Gladiator, I started out with an overly tight clutch (where the spring would struggle against the clutch to pull the stick back to center), then I started to loosen the clutch in very small steps until I was satisfied with the stick's action. All the while I was also checking return to center behavior in VKB's SW. Given the fact that you get over 65000 positions per axis, I am not too worried about the occasional couple of hundred positions off center I might get sometimes when I let the stick return to center on its own. It doesn't make a huge difference in sims plus letting go of the stick while you're flying and letting it return to center on its own isn't usually done while you're flying anyway... Although looking at my video, I don't think I'm getting any of those with my current spring/clutch combo.

 

This is what my current setup's behavior looks like in VKB Config when I pull the stick to full deflection and then simply let go of the grip. I'm using the MCG Pro without an extension, mounted on a UCM-S. Gimbal settings are 30+30 springs on Y with pretty strong clutch and 10+20 on X with medium clutch setting. And I didn't like the Avia cams so I swapped in the Space S ones (linear cams with no hard center detent). Note how both axes will always return to dead center (32767) when I let the grip re-center on its own. I had to use the stick in its parked, side-stick position on my desk in this clip, not in the usual central position I have it set up for, that's why you see some axis "bleed" in some of the movements I make.

 

 

 

And this is how that looks in the real world. Although this second video was shot with 20+30 springs on Y ... I've since upped it to 30+30 on Y and that's what the axes-video shows.

 

 

The main point is: Your clutch setting has to match your spring strength.

Stick struggles to reliably return to dead center on release = under-sprung/over-clutched

Stick snaps back to dead center and wobbles there a couple of times before resting = over-sprung/under-clutched

 

I think my Y-axis is set up just right while my X-axis might be a tiny bit under-clutched ... which doesn't bother me in sims, so I'm not going to go through the whole process of disassembly again. Getting to the clutches is really pretty awkward on the GF and I wish they had an easier way for the user to access those adjustment screws.

 

5 hours ago, Dallas88B said:

Yes , would be good if they used Nyogel 767A when it was constructed. Guess they don't cause its extra expense.

 

I think there's more to it than money. Remember that these things are manufactured in China and I know from an older VKB YT-comment that dampening grease might be a sort of "restricted" product when it comes to export - as silly as that sounds. IIRC they said something along the lines of that they have the right to use the stuff in their sticks, but they don't have the right to export/sell it stand-alone.

 

Besides: I'm using whatever dampening grease they put into the Gladiator Evo (it comes with a supply of replacement grease, stashed into a dedicated little compartment inside the stick) and it works just as well as 767A. Haven't actually used my genuine 767A since it arrived, because I'm more than happy with the Gladiator's grease's performance in my Gunfighter.

 

 

S.

 

Edited October 17, 2022 by 1Sascha

[Dallas88B]

3 hours ago, 1Sascha said:

I think there's more to it than money.

Yes you may well be right.

Thanks for going to so much trouble to share the information in your post too. 

[dburne]

Yes fully agree thank you very much. I think at this point am just going to leave mine as is, may adjust the clutch a little more will see. Kind of losing my appetite for making those adjustments. Maybe mine is different because I do run the 200mm extension but I never could previously get it to where it was just right for me. But I am picky on it returning to exact center when done.

Edited October 17, 2022 by dburne

[1Sascha]

46 minutes ago, dburne said:

Maybe mine is different because I do run the 200mm extension

Going to need pretty stiff springs and high clutch settings with that one I'd say (you're applying force on the gimbal through a much longer lever). I mean.. there's gotta be a reason why VKB ship the extension with #50 springs - which are not included in the stock GF package. #40 are the strongest that came with my GF.

 

Just to put things into perspective: According to VKB, the single #20 springs that are mounted on the gimbal from the factory are only meant as a place-holder and they don't recommend using the stick (without an extension) with that little spring-tension. Since I've played around with different spring-strengths, I'd say I wouldn't consider anything lower than 40 (#20+#20) for the Y-Axis. Even without an extension, that long and top-heavy MCG grip (even the plastic version I have) requires at least that much spring-force on the gimbal. With an extension, I can only guess, but I reckon even my 30+30 on Y wouldn't be enough for my taste with the 200mm one installed.

 

With the 200mm extension, some folks go as high as 50+50 on their springs, which might be near the limit of what VKB recommend spring-wise... not sure what the limit of the GF's gimbal is.

 

I also know that some folks prefer the H or hard center cams for this sort of extension. Can't comment on that, since I don't use an extension (yet! ? ) but it seems to make sense. With that huge extension on it, the "bump" you get with the H-cams is probably way less noticeable than it is on my extension-less setup. I tried the Space H cams and I didn't like the pretty pronounced bump you have to push through when you pass through 0/0.

 

Some 200mm-users also recommend a stronger dampening grease than 767A (Nyogel PG44A) because, again, with the longer lever you'll need to beef things up a bit. Longer lever = forces on the gimbal are increased and clutches need more "help" to do their thing. I *think* Nye rate their 767A as "medium strength" while PG44A is rated as "high strength". It's supposedly so strong that most people will recommend it *only* for sticks with long extensions.

 

Of course... this is all a question of taste, too. I know I prefer a well dampened stick for a controlled motion and I also prefer substantially more resistance an the Y-axis for better control of my elevator input. But I'm sure other people have other preferences.

 

S.

 

 

 

[dburne]

Thanks for all the info. Yes I use a #50 combined with a #40 spring on each axis. I have adjusted the clutches till I am blue in the face. 

Much amount of clutch and it will have a dead spot around center which I do not care for. I like my stick to return to same spot in center. The more clutch force the bigger the dead spot. Not good imho.

I use the Avia S soft center cam, pretty sure I tried the hard center back when I first got it and did not care for it.

 

But I am done at this point taking it apart and putting it back together. It would not be so bad if one could access those clutch adjusting screws from the exterior.  I have adjusted enough and now just looking forward to when I can start flying once again.

I was able to grease the one clutch hub, just not the other due to bad screw. I had actually considered trying the new Virpil CM3 stick but after reading forums seems it suffers a similar problem as well.

[1Sascha]

3 hours ago, dburne said:

But I am done at this point taking it apart and putting it back together.

I hear ya. Especially when you mount it to the UCM (which is my set up), getting to the gimbal is a bit of a PITA... plus if if you want to adjust the clutches in your flying position to really dial things in, you have to take it apart, re-assemble it without the dust-cover on, make the adjustments, then disassemble it again and re-assemble it with the dust-cover on. Think it took me more than an hour to do all that, even on my second or third "session" when I was familiar with all the steps. If only that dust-cover was of a different design and had, oh... I don't know, two holes in it to access those adjustment screws.. ?

 

S.

[dburne]

1 hour ago, 1Sascha said:

I hear ya. Especially when you mount it to the UCM (which is my set up), getting to the gimbal is a bit of a PITA... plus if if you want to adjust the clutches in your flying position to really dial things in, you have to take it apart, re-assemble it without the dust-cover on, make the adjustments, then disassemble it again and re-assemble it with the dust-cover on. Think it took me more than an hour to do all that, even on my second or third "session" when I was familiar with all the steps. If only that dust-cover was of a different design and had, oh... I don't know, two holes in it to access those adjustment screws.. ?

 

S.

 

Yeah being able to access those two clutch adjustment screws from the exterior would be ideal for adjusting and testing in between. Currently it is far from ideal for that.

Edited October 17, 2022 by dburne

[LukeFF]

On 10/16/2022 at 6:22 AM, 1Sascha said:

You can't take the clutches off I think, but what you need to do is remove the clutches' "brake pads".

 

As I've stated in another post:

My GF which I bought new from VKB in Sept 2022 was manufactured in Sept 2020. When I first tried it in games out of the box, the axes felt sticky with any sort of clutch applied. So I went and stripped the gimbal down to get to the clutches and took the "brake pads" off to inspect them. I found the factory grease had gone gunky and sticky after two years of sitting on a shelf, so I cleaned the pads and re-assembled everything. Then I tried the stick without any dampening grease (basically "dry clutch"). Which worked better but still didn't feel good once I applied a bit more clutch. So I took everything apart again, raided my Gladiator Evo's stash of dampening grease (not sure what's in there, but it looks and feels like Nyogel 767A) and applied a bit of that stuff to the clutches. My tube of Nyogel was still in the mail and I got impatient, so ... ?

 

 

So I got to experience the GF with

1. dampening grease that had gone bad,

2. with no grease on the clutches at all ("dry clutch") and

3. with fresh dampening grease applied.

 

The way you do this is you take the pads off the clutches' barrels, then apply a bit of the stuff onto the barrels' contact ares with the pads (their "rims" basically), then put the pads back on and wipe off any excess grease. To do this on the X-axis is not a huge deal, since the clutch is sitting in the open once you take the gimbal out of its housing. The Y-axis clutch however sits behind a PCB that you have to take off in order to get to the clutch.

 

Here's a VKB video showing the whole procedure:

 

It looks scarier than it actually is. I used nothing but this video as my guide and I managed to do it twice without breaking anything .. . ?

 

It does take a bit of time though, simply because of the sheer amount of steps involved to take the gimbal out of its housing and then get to the actual clutches. Plus the time for re-assembly of course.

 

 

The disassembled clutch looks like this:

 

The steel "wheel" in the back is the barrel and those two plastic looking parts are the brakepads. This pic was taken with the rotting factory grease still on them before I cleaned them up.

 

I don't recall 100% whether or not you *need* to remove the springs. I didn't remove them (as you can see in the pic) and it wasn't an issue. Besides: Taking off the springs is a piece of cake compared to taking off the cams. And I'm quite sure you don't need to take off the cams, either. It's just that one PCB that needs to come off for the Y-axis clutch...

 

I was having issues recently as well with stickiness on my Gunfighter and after seeing that Nyogel 767a was a good solution, I purchased some this week and followed that video from VKB about how to apply it. Long story short, my brake pads looked much the same as yours - very dry, not much lubricating material left on them at all. I've had my GF gimbal for 5+ years, so it really didn't surprise me that it looked the way it did.

 

Anyways, after cleaning off what was left of the old grease and reassembling everything, it was as if I had a new stick. I was able to tighten the friction more than I had before I cleaned the pads, and it still returns to center with no issues at all.

 

For those in the US, this is what I purchased. It comes with an applicator, too, so I didn't have to hunt around the house for something to use: ??

 

Nye Lubricants Nyogel 767A Synthetic Damping Grease (25g Jar)

[1Sascha]

18 hours ago, LukeFF said:

Anyways, after cleaning off what was left of the old grease and reassembling everything, it was as if I had a new stick. I was able to tighten the friction more than I had before I cleaned the pads, and it still returns to center with no issues at all.

Yup.. that was my experience exactly.

 

With the gunked up stuff that was on there from the factory, the axes were "micro-sticky" and small corrections or precise elevator input to get guns on a target were impossible. With the old gunk cleaned off and the clutches totally dry, it was better, but still not as good as my Evo. And when I finally applied the dampening grease, it transformed the stick and made it perform just as I'd hoped it would.

 

This stuff is magic, I tells ya!

 

EDIT: But I do think it would be wise to re-grease the clutches every year or so - seeing how the stuff that was on mine went bad from "just" two years of sitting around on a shelf in the VKB warehouse. I'm pretty sure that wasn't Nyogel on there (VKB did use some dark brown looking Chinese stuff in the past, at least that's what I've seen them use in some of their older re-greasing videos), but I suppose none of these greases will last forever.

 

 

 

S.

Edited January 28, 2023 by 1Sascha