Nice!

Now that, looks like an object of utter beauty!

That's awesome.


Virpil are my favorite controllers

Pre-orders have gone live today for end of June deliveries!

https://forum.virpil.com/index.php?...-controller-lineup-preorders-open-today/


I've pulled the trigger on the TCS Collective Base, SharKa-50 Grip and the chair mount.......like a kid waiting for Christmas!

That looks like an awesome system!

Arrived today.....3 days to ship from Lithuania and no import fees!

Nice!

Virpil Collective / Grip / Chair Mount mini-review

So several people have asked me to provide a mini-review on the collective and grip as there doesn't seem to anything on Youtube/online.....I don't know if this because I got lucky with one of the first deliveries, or early models just haven't made it out to proper reviewers. I’m no Youtuber, and there is no fancy video!...Credit to Virpil for their instructions which I've taken a few screenshots of to assist with the following content so anyway, here goes;

My intent is to provide a heads-up on the 3 components I purchased, these are;

• VPC Chair Mount (€39.95) - Link
• VPC Rotor TCS Base - the lower priced version without throttle (€189.95) - Link
• SharKA-50 Grip (€189.95) - Link

Total: €419.85

I received a 10% discount as part of the order which was €41.99 but shipping was €31.95. So overall, a total of €409.81 which converted to £367.12 (UK) at the time of purchase.

I can get the easy bit out of the way first……this is a great combination of kit, provides awesome immersion in both ‘normal’ flying and with a VR headset. The action is buttery smooth and the ability to put small, incremental adjustments to the collective is great. I seriously don’t think I need to go much beyond that in terms of functionality, but I would like to tackle each component so people know what the pros and cons are and possibly for anyone sitting on the fence to decide whether it’s worth purchasing or if the little niggles are big enough to deter committing. If all you want is immersion and functionality…..go ahead and buy it right away, no regrets. 😊

VPC Chair Mount
I’m starting with this component as the mount (or a mount that fits your chair/rig) is fundamentally essential to have the collective up and running. The TCS base isn’t ridiculously heavy but it’s one of those things that doesn’t naturally fix to your chair/rig as it obviously needs to be mounted on the left side of the chair you’re sitting on and very few chairs (approximately none!) are designed for this sort of hardware to be connected.
The mount is split into 3 x pieces, 2 of which I’ll call the ‘support’ arms….if you look down at your seating position, these are secured underneath the chair in a left to right orientation and are fixed on the two sets of screws via stand-offs that secure your chair to the supporting plate.


(Image above is part of Virpil’s chair mount instructions)

The third piece of the mount is the bracket that enables the collective (Rotor TCS Base) to be secured in the correct position and braces the two support arms. Let’s call this the ‘brace’.
The key thing to take into account when buying this mount is the distance between the screws on the underside of your chair. The instructions give the min/max dimensions, see below;




The max distance that the ‘support’ arms can be apart is 26cm/260mm as shown in the diagram. It just so happens that the bolts on my chair are exactly 26cm apart and that gives a little bit of a problem in that there is no flexibility for the ‘brace’ to slide left and right across the support arms, which is key when determining where you want to position your collective. With my ‘brace’ only just reaching each support arm, it only allows the ‘brace’ to be secured with 2 screws at each end rather than the 4 shown in the diagram. What’s slightly frustrating about this is that the ‘brace’ could be a few inches longer and this wouldn’t be a problem at all and would support configurations with a wider screw mounts on these type of chairs…..now, I’m no office chair expert and I’ve no idea if there are certain standards for the distance between screws on the underside of the chair but one thing is for certain….if your front/rear mounting holes are more than 26cm/260mm (even 5mm above) then the Virpil chair mount isn’t going to fit because the ‘brace’ isn’t long enough to bridge the gap.


‘Brace’ only just long enough to bridge the two support pieces at max size of 26cm/260mm

To position the collective where you want, it’s simply a case of securing the bracket that is already fitted to the Collective unit onto the brace with the screws provided. The screws are pushed through the top and secured with 2 x washers and a nut on the underside of the Virpil mount. It’s not mentioned anywhere in the instructions, but an 8mm spanner is required to secure the screws or of course a small adjustable spanner. The only pain in the backside when securing these screws is that the bottom of the chair can get in the way and you can have a bit of a wrestle to get the screws in the correct position.
The answer to the problem above, is to work out exactly where you want the collective to be secured and build up the mount with the 2 x support arms and brace and then just secure it to the chair with the 4 x screws however, this is a bit of a chicken and egg situation because to work this out in the first place you need 6 arms, a bucket of patience and the ability to curse under your breath.

Pros

• Rock solid – feels like it would support a metric tonne
• Comes with a nice selection of nuts/bolts/washers for different sized screw fixings
• Over engineered, heavy for what it is….but guaranteed, this isn’t going to break
• Cable clips provided to keep the USB cable tidy as its routed along the chair mounting plate
• Lots of options to mount collective at different heights/positions

Cons

• Instructions are incorrect for the largest provided bolts – wrong washers are shown but it’s obvious that the split-rings should be used as they’re the only ones that fit with the largest size washers
• Quite expensive for what it is.
• ‘Brace’ should be longer to provide more flexibility for various office chairs. This is a very simple oversight.

VPC Rotor TCS Base
Not a great deal to say about this bit of kit really. It’s made of metal, feels solid with a nice weight to it without feeling too heavy. This is typical Virpil quality kit.
What was a bit of a surprise and that I do like is that all the photos from Virpil that I saw had a very shiny silver collective lever, however what I’ve received is matt black with an anodized look to it.

Virpil Image


My Base



As previously mentioned, the action is buttery smooth. On delivery, the collection action was light as a feather, the smallest amount of pressure would move the collective and it stayed put at whatever angle it was positioned at. Over the course of an hours testing, it started to slump a little bit, probably expected as the movement wears in on the bushing……there is a rubber cover on top of the unit that you can see on the image, there is also another on the bottom. A turn of the allen key bolts under these covers and you can adjust the friction to your preference. I secured the bolts to add a little more friction and it holds perfectly. Over time, I assume there will be more chance that the friction will slacken off a little but the ability to easily retighten will always be there as long as the bushes don’t wear out.
There are 3 x cam plates that come with the collective, one of which is pre-installed…..this turns out to be the one that offers the least amount of travel (30 degrees). I measured this to be 22 cm of travel. Compare this to the Thrustmaster throttle which offers 12cm of travel with much shorter leverage.
The other 2 cams cover 40 and 50 degrees. I’ve not yet installed those or measured the amount of travel each one gives.



The Collective unit also comes with a super long (5 metre) USB cable – one end has the mil spec push-fit connector which connects to the bottom port on the rear of the collective (the top port is ‘Aux’ connector to connect other Virpil controllers), the other end has dual USB connectors – one normal black and one red. I was a little confused here, I’m computer savvy and assume that this may be to offer additional power when plugged into a second port due to the length of the cable but there is no mention of it at all in the instructions and it all works fine for me whether connected to a USB2/USB3 or powered USB2 port without the secondary red connector plugged in.



Pros

• Great build quality
• Entire unit is made of metal
• Super smooth action
• Plenty of friction adjustability
• Good value at retail price (in my opinion)
• No stiction at top and bottom of range

Cons

• No mention of the dual headed USB cable in the instructions

SharKA-50 Grip

This is the one piece of kit that I will aim most criticism. It looks lovely…it is lovely and it does feel solid, however it is made of a durable plastic rather than a light aluminium like the other parts of the Collective unit. The buttons and switches feel great and it also comes with English and Russian sticky labels and some nice long plastic tweezers to help put them on. The grip also has little indented strips where you put the stickers above or under the buttons/switches so it’s not really a case of trying to align them nice and straight….the donkey work is done for you but a steady hand always helps!

As you can see, I’m not a complete sadist so I used the English stickers.






Now onto my biggest bug-bear, the connector!

This is the ‘KA-50’ grip, however the other grips available from Virpil are undoubtedly all the same. I do own a Mongoose T-50 base with a Warthog grip on it and the same connector is in use…..Virpil, please change this crappy thing! There a million alternatives….an RJ45 style connector with male/female snap-in, inline clip, mini mil-spec connector, BNC connector etc.



The problem I can see, especially with this grip (and anything else that uses this type of mini-din connector) is that the cable is undoubtedly soldered to the buttons at the business end, and it’s all too easy to bend or snap the pins at the exposed end when connecting the grip to the Collective unit…..the main problem being that generally you attempt to line up the units together (and there is a helpful set of arrows on the connector and female end to which it secures to ) but then you are slightly blind and if you’re like me you tend to put a little bit of pressure on and give it a slight rotation until you feel that it’s in the right place and it wants to be pushed home. Now, that bit in itself isn’t the worst thing in the world…it just takes a bit of care and a bit of patience, but something I will touch on in the ‘Hooking up and Testing’ section of this mini-review gives this another element of potential problems and it could be an issue for those people that aren’t particularly familiar with Virpil software.



The arrows highlighted in red in Virpil’s instructions are actually present on the devices but in a hard to see matt black. Until I looked closer, I thought the arrows in the image above were just an indication of the required alignment and were showing the little notch on the male connector lining up with the notch on the female interface.


Hooking up and Testing
Bear in mind that the TCS Collective supports multiple grips, those being the dedicated SharKA-50 as mentioned in this mini-review, a UH-60 (Blackhawk) grip in the near future and also the following 'joystick' grips;

• VPC MongoosT-50 Grip (All Variants)
• VPC Constellation DELTA Grip
• VPC Constellation ALPHA Grip

I may be wrong here, but I imagine that a lot of people when they receive their delivery will get the kit unboxed, mount the collective or will just have it temporarily in a position where ultimately, they can test everything works OK for peace of mind before making the collective a permanent fixture on the rig, The grip is connected to the collective via the mini-DIN connector and then the USB cable will be plugged in, I believe many people especially those unfamiliar with Virpil software will probably rush into the Windows Game Controller settings to move the collective around and push the buttons on the grip, watching the collective axis move up and down and expecting the grip buttons to light up to confirm everything is functional.



Virpil software effectively combines the two devices (collective and grip) into a single controller by creating a profile but if you don’t do this and go rushing into the Windows Game controller GUI what you will see is the collective going up/down but none of the grip buttons will work……Windows has no idea that these 2 devices need to act as a single device and also has the 32-button limitation per device. I believe at this stage, the first port of troubleshooting logic for many people will be;

“Ooh, the USB connection to the collective is obviously working because the axis responds so the problem must be the mini-DIN connector from the grip to the collective” …..and guess what, they will disconnect the connector, have a look at it, think it’s currently positioned incorrectly, disconnect it, give it a twist, reconnect it and go back into the Windows game controller GUI and see exactly the same issue not realising what the problem really is. I’ve no doubt some people will do this multiple times and I can bet my mortgage some unlucky people will break the pins on the connector and have an unusable grip before they’ve even got started. There will undoubtedly be posts on the Virpil support forum about people having grips that either don’t function or have broken pins on the mini-DIN cable not knowing that the Virpil software and associated configuration is a hard requirement.
The solution, and for those that are aware of the Virpil software is to open the Configuration Tool, navigate to the ‘Profile’ section and select the correct Collective Base and the correct Collective Grip and create a new profile…..this combines the two units into a single device and updates the onboard EEPROM.



Pros

• Performs great, looks the part
• Can give a slight adjustment to the angle of the grip if required
• Buttons, hats and switches feel great with distinct clicks
• Comfortable

Cons

• Made of a hard plastic rather than a light metal
• mini-DIN connector is utter pants and can easily bend/break pins (appreciate that the product range has these connectors and it enables connectivity with other products)
• Not as good value compared to the collective. I’d price this at €150 maximum
• Not a single mention of the absolute requirement to configure the collective/grip with the Virpil software

Shipping/Delivery
I received an email on 26th June stating that my units were to be shipped by FedEx and that estimated delivery would be 2nd July. I received another email on 28th June stating that the delivery would be the following day (29th June). I knew I would be at work so primed my daughter to take the package or delivery note as I was fully expecting to have to pay import charges before I could get my hands on the kit. FedEx delivered the package, requested my daughter sign for it…….no import charges! Given that the UK is now outside of the EU following Brexit, I was expecting a 25% charge, possibly more if additional tariffs were invoked but nothing, zilch, nada!
So, great service….and 3 days from Lithuania to my doorstep in the UK. Impressed!

Conclusion
I think the collective base unit is an absolute work of art, the SharKA-50 grip is good but a tiny bit disappointing it’s not manufactured with a lightweight metal but understandably so to keep the price down.
The collective movement is super smooth and this really does create that extra level of immersion and helo control. The only niggles really come from some missing comments in the instructions of all the separate components, especially those people who may not be familiar with Virpil products. Overall, I believe it’s worth the asking price.
I’d recommend anyone who is looking at the chair mount to take a look at the measurements of the bolt pattern/spacing of the existing bracket on their chair and check it against the instructions that Virpil provide to ensure there isn’t going to be any compatibility issues.
https://support.virpil.com/en/suppo...-chair-mount-collective-base-user-manual



Happy flying!