I'm looking for any info anyone can provide on what a new Warthog gimbal ball is going to cost me? I've already called support at TM, and they wouldn't give me any info other than to say that once I send them an email with pics and info on the malfucntion they will review and let me know what they can do for me. The tech on the phone was very nice other than that, and said it will be next week before they can get back to me because they are very busy right now.





The pics show the ball glued back together, but the lines where it broke in half are next to the silver line I drew on it to show TM.

So, being the impatient person I am, I want to find out what this little disaster is going to cost me, and see if just maybe someone else out there might know of a replacement? I can't be the only one to have this problem right?

Now, you might be asking yourself... "Self, how did he break his ball?"

Let me just start by saying... Yes, I'm an idiot.

So, I decided to take a run at building my own stick extension for my 'hog using the Walmart hose coupler method. That came together pretty well, and I made my extension cable from an old keyboard extension cable. I even decided to take apart my 'hog and deal with the 'sticktion' issue I was having, where it was not very smooth anymore after a couple of years of yanking and banking.

I had no problems with that whole process, cleaned up all of the burrs, seams, bumps, and general rough spots on the internals. I got rid of the sticky, almost non-existent red grease it shipped with, and lubed it up with some great plastic safe white lithium grease. Everything was slicker than snot and moving wonderfully! I was feeling pretty pleased with myself about now.


So I put everything back together including my new extension which not only would give me more finesse and control, but made it dirt simple to rotate my stick by about ten degrees. I mounted it all back in the 'pit and was doing some range of motion checks when I decided I wanted the stick to be about twelve degrees offset, not just ten. So I grabbed the extension and gave it a gentle twist and that's when it happened... SNAP. I immediately knew what I had done, as I had thought the whole time I was working on this to make sure I didn't do EXACTLY WHAT I JUST DID. ()*#%&^**#__**!!

With my head hung low and several streams of four letter words quietly flowing past my gritted teeth, I took the whole thing back to the work bench and took it apart. Yup, sure enough, I but too much rotational pressure on the plastic ball in the middle of the gimbal assembly and split it into two pieces. I even managed to pop the magnet for the Hall sensor off of it's mount - but that would be easy to fix. I tried to superglue the gimbal ball, but to no avail, it immediately split again while trying to remount the stick.


So here I sit with big crocodile tears waiting on Thrustmaster to get back with me and tell me how much this improvement to my flight simulator experience is going to cost me. I think the worst part is when my wife saw my disapointment and frustration over the whole thing, she looked at me as asked... 'And this is supposed to be fun for you and a stress reliever right?". My answer was 'Sniffle, sigh... Yes' While in my brain I was screaming.. 'Leave me alone woman, how can I redesign this and do it all over again to make a better extension and maybe score some free parts from TM if you keep talking to me!"

I think I need help... or treatment.. or alcohol. Beer... that's the ticket!

Dud

Sorry to hear about this.... what story did you tell TM? Hopefully they have a gimbal in stock and won't be too expensive.

Happened to me too when disconnecting a stick extension. Difference being Thrustmaster said they couldn't supply only the gimbal and quoted me £150 for an entire base.

I ended up buying a broken Warthog stick and importing it from Canada to the UK

For such a high quality product it's a particularly bad place to be using plastic imo

I told TM the real story, I assumed that being over two years old, it wouldn't make a difference in their response.

I was surprised to find the whole gimbal was made of plastic myself, but I wonder if that is because of the Hall sensor. Would having a metal gimbal assembly interfere with the sensor's ability to read the position of the magnet?

I made another attempt at glueing the ball back together, this time drilling out a couple of holes to insert some plastic rod to try and reinforce the joint. I was super careful attaching the stick and extension to it, but it still broke during recalibration.

I heard back from TM... They have received my response to their request for info/pictures, and will be in touch. I must say it would be nice if you could just order replacement parts from their web site. I understand the need for this process if you are looking for it to be covered under warranty or claiming it was defective, but if you just want to pay for the part and to have it shipped out right away, a web parts store would be great...

Yes... I hate waiting, even when they aren't slow....

To be fair, I guess the part wasn't really designed to take the stress imparted by the modification. I've not played with a stick extension for a long time and I was using metalnwood's extension so maybe the design of the stick extension is also a factor. Metalnwood's design had a base unit that was screwed on first, then the extension itself was connected and secured with an allen screw.

No if use non magnetic metal - aluminum, brass... But this will need CNC machines service and so add manufacturing cost...

Injected plastic is more effective... for profit.

I broke mine using one of MetalnWood's extensions. The fault was completely mine but I think that naturally any extension gives you leverage to tighten above and beyond what you would normally achieve in comparison to just screwing the stick to the base.

What compounds the problem is that naturally when you unscrew an extension you'll hold the base and attempt to unscrew the extension meaning the gimbal is always going to take the strain, and being made of plastic will be the weakest part in the chain.

Should I be worried? My current pit setup means I screw/unscrew the stick itself to attach/remove it from the base.... but I don't use an extension, just the stick itself. I'm guessing the "coupling" setup on the base means I can hold onto the stick to counter any rotation as I tighten the collar onto the base?

Correct, the metal locator in the the base will prevent any twist on the gimbal. Extensions are simply a threaded pipe and mean you have no way of preventing the twist. Just gotta be careful with tightening it.

You could potentially drill a hole through the gimbal neck and put a small bar through it while installing/removing the extension, thereby keeping it solid.

Note to self. Never take the extension off.

So, I found some teeny tiny brass screws I had from back in my RC days and decided to use them to screw to two sides back together. After a bunch if delicate work with my Dremel and sanding sticks I got it back together and it was even still in the shape of a ball! After recleaning, regreasing, and reassembling the whole thing, I remounted it in the pit, and everything seems to be holding up so far. I will recalibrate and try it tomorrow... I wanted to end today on a high note so I didn't do any power on tests with it....

On a side note, I found putting just a dab of grease on the threads of both ends of the extension made it much easier to attach. I also remembered to use a small set of Vice Grip locking pliers I have to keep the gimbal from rotating as I attached the extension AND stick. The small set of pliers just fit below the extension... Regular size pliers or channel locks are too big. I thought about drilling the hole through it, and then thought about using the Drexel to grind flat spots on opposing sides so I could use a wrench on the top piece of the gimbal to keep it from rotating during extension attachment. But thankfully I spotted my small Vice Grips and they work perfectly.

I'll report tomorrow with success or failure of the screwed ball...
Dud

It worked! I spent about two hours flying today using my repaired gimbal, and I'm happy to say that it stayed in one piece, with not sticktion, catches, or play. I doubt it is a permanent fix so I'll still replace it once TM gets back with me, but at least for now, I'm in the air. I'll post some pics I took of the repair job tomorrow.
Thanks for all the good ideas everyone!
Dud

If it's working OK, why not use it as is, and save the replacement part for if it ever breaks in the future?

The guy there did the ball in PTFE:


On right side the original - broken and glued with CA.

http://forum.il2sturmovik.ru/uploads/monthly_12_2014/post-8261-0-11932300-1419237495.jpg

http://forum.il2sturmovik.ru/uploads/monthly_12_2014/post-8261-0-28562000-1419272364.jpg

http://forum.il2sturmovik.ru/topic/2420-hotas-warthog-zamena-vnutrennego-sharnira/

It seems you could get this cast in aluminum or some other stronger metal/composite material?

I think made out of cast metal you would need to sand and pollish the whole thing which would make it a bit smaller than it should be,drill the holes etc and then there is the the relatively thin wanding,it's only like 2mm thickness or something? And the need to find a company which makes the mold for a reasonable price. It would be easier and propably less expensive to machine the part out of a full block of material though. IMO below 10 pieces a casting mold would be too expensive.

Sokol,
Any chance that he is selling them? I'm getting a little push back from TM on selling me a replacement.

My repaired ball is holding for now, but I'm not sure how long it will last, so I have to find a replacement part, and buying a whole new base just doesn't fit in with the budget.

I do like the idea of having one machined out of aluminum, but I think that might cost as much as the new base... although I haven't priced it yet.

I ask for the guy and he say that all ones make at time (2014) was sold.

Everything I've heard is that TM looks like they are loathe to sell parts and would rather sell whole units.

Just curious, on what ground are they pushing back on selling one to you? I mean, I could understand a bit more if it was push-back against free replacement.

Similar history: http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2220432&postcount=9

From a manufacturers point of view, you cant blame them. Its not good customer support but that is what they do... They Sell Stuff!
I had this same problem. It was not expensive to fix but they are a trial to talk to. Once I got the parts I was impressed with their support.
My WT is put away at the moment and I am on the X-55. I would rather be back on the WT or the X52 Pro. But it is what it is.
Good Luck Man! Don't blame yourself, you cant make an omelet if you don't crack a few eggs. However, you may think about investing in a cheap stick as a backup.

Food for thought.

Just a quick update... After a few emails back and forth with customer support at TM, they agreed to sell me just the gimbal ball.

I believe a large portion of the problem was not knowing exactly what to call the item. It turns out, the ball in question is known as the 'Articulation Sphere' to Thrustmaster. Once I found that out and referred to it as such, they immediately offered to sell me one for 27 Euros, including shipping to me in Arizona. I jumped on it and it was at my door in about eight days. Which was a good thing because my repaired articulation sphere broke two days before the replacement showed up.

I greased and installed the new sphere in my Warthog (with the extension btw), and I am back to crashing... I mean flying again!

So, the secret word for today is 'Articulation Sphere'.

Thanks for all the input and advice!
Dud

Times like this make us wish they just had a parts catalog for the Warthog, like Cougar World had and also like CH Products used to before the APEM acquisition and site overhaul, doesn't it?

I mean something like this, just with Warthog parts:
http://cougar.flyfoxy.com/warranty_parts.php

As for replacement metal articulation spheres, I dearly hope it's not cast metal. That just makes me think of the soft pot metal TM used in the past (FCS Pro, F-22 Pro, Cougar), and that's just asking for center play when it wears down in such a high-friction environment. PTFE would probably hold up better than that stuff.

My Warthog gimbals replacement project is coming along... gonna be a few weeks until I have machine shop access again otherwise I would have a working example right now, but until I can mill a few slots in the support blocks I can't mount the printed part that holds the mx sensor in relation although I have the parts in hand.

Here's some pics so you can see where I'm going with this though. My initial gimbals use rocker arm/pendulum/tweezer centering like VKB/CH Products, except since Warthog has its sensor in the middle I was able to include provisions for centering mechanisms on both sides.


This allows higher spring tensions (there is a limit to how strong of a single spring you can use in this position) to deal with high mass grips like Warthog as well as extensions, although only a single set of centering mechanisms would be needed for normal centering strengths.

Current version fits in similar enclosure, but it will undergo another round of miniaturizing to make it fit better as well as be able to use the same bolt pattern, with the intent of being bolt-in replacement bases for existing installations.

Uses same form factor and overall dimensions and +/-20deg travel and relations between magnet/sensor, although due to the architecture will add roughly 1" to the arm of the throw of the stick even though it will sit at the same height (pivot point ~1" lower inside base to accommodate sensor etc), and my next generation of these will use cam centering.

That looks amazing LocNar! How strong are the centering forces? The springs look pretty robust and I've found that having the stick center to forcefully, it makes it hard for me to do delicate tasks like midair refuel. I'm assuming it's all aluminum; are you seeing any interference or change in the hall sensor readings?
And of course the final question... Are you planning on selling these once you get it all dialed in?

Keep up the good work!
Dud

Thanks Dud, the springs in the pics are just placeholders from my local hardware store but centering forces are directly related to spring strength vs arm length and there is a variety available in this size, and with double mechanisms can accommodate sticks with extensions.

With only a single one of these spring per axis it's a bit soft with a Warty grip on it but it will right itself in the x axis, but the fore-aft weight difference on the nose heavy Warthog grip is noticeable and it will stay pitched down if I let go. At those lower forces however the mechanism does feel quite precise even when crossing the centers.

All the metal in proximity to the Mx sensor is non ferrous and my next versions will have less steel yet. I've played around with a live MX to gauge how sensitive it is to ferrous disturbances and any steel is outside the interference proximity I determined, but I have to mill 2 slots before I can mount the sensor and test it live.

That said, for how highly regarded this thing is I was surprised at how affected the MX was to stray steel. The other Halls I've worked with (Alegro) are resistant to such interference (unaffected by ferrous metal) and even stray magnets had to be surprisingly close to cause a problem.

On my mechanisms I played around with direct metal/metal contact as well as with mylar buffers and it was much quieter with the mylar so will be incorporating this and again will also be delving further into cams.

I do plan on making these available once I've got the details worked out, as well as much needed Cougar gimbals. Contemplating extensions with an offset also, for correcting balance as well as the same ergonomic reasons real planes have them but I digress...

I think this might be what happened to mine. The gimbal rotates inside the base. I haven't taken it apart yet so I don't know for sure.

Rumplehart,
If you have a lot of rotational movement in the stick, or if it suddenly isn't accurate at all in the x or y axis, then it is likely the 'articulation sphere' that has cracked or broken on you. I would recommend taking the base apart and checking it out. If it is cracked or broken, take a couple pictures of it, then contact Thrustmaster Customer Support and tell them you broke it and would like to purchase a replacement 'articulation sphere'.

They may try to sell you on the idea that you need a whole new base for $150 +/-, but just keep bringing them back to just the articulation sphere and they should finally cave.

Good luck!

LocNar, my TM Cougar gimbal is broken and I'm trying to find solutions.

Are you going to sell this gimbal soon?

Thanks! (I'll also send a PM in case).

Announced in Il-2(ru) forum - flea market (need loguin) - Bronze "Articulation Sphere".

image hosting over 5mb
https://forum.il2sturmovik.ru/topic/5297-sharnir-dlya-vartoga/

2.000 Rubbles

Does that price include shipping to the US?

No, is just the piece.

FYI - The piece require fine "tuning" with sandpaper.

A guy in ED say that will offer similar option, "soon":

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2998716&postcount=27

That's me, I will be offering metal articulation spheres soon. First in pewter (budget model!), later bronze. One slight modification I am going to make is adding the wire relief notch to both sides so there will be no chance of putting it on 'backwards' and pinching wires. It's a few months out, so if anyone is in a pinch pick up one of the bronze ones, it's a reasonable price for how much work it takes to investment cast those things...

I'm working on a z-axis twist mechanism to that will retrofit into Warthog grips in the form of an alternate tailpiece/locknut, but will req mods to the base to accommodate. A metal sphere to handle the torque loads and optional alternate miniDIN to keep the wiring cleanly. Optional with its own USB, but would still req the metal sphere or different gimbals.

That isn't bad at ~$34 each US cost of manufacturing. Sokol1 do you think the guy still has any? I have zero clue how to navigate Cyrillic and that link you had there is coming up as not available. I have no idea how old this thread is either since SimHQ doesn't put dates in the post that I know of.

@Sokol1 For what he's selling I thought it would be sanded and ready to go. Or am I mistaken?

Seem this, the ball need a polish for use (I don't know Russian too).

But seems the guy cancel the sales.