Joystick Recommendations…

[Winston]

Hello there all. About six mounts ago I spent around £80 on a Saitek x52. For these six months it has served me well. Controlling my Su-25 as I drop unguided bombs on the heads of insurgence everywhere I find them. It’s got great functionality and very easy to program. I’m still working on a Steel Beasts Pro PE profile. In fact it was just as I was in the middle of learning this excellent simulation when I adjusted the handle to fit my brother’s hand so he could have a go at shooting some tanks. He was very good, better than me even with some practice.

Anyhow, after some time he left after expressing his enjoyment of the simulation and the joystick. Then after I re-adjusted the handle back to fit my hand I went back to playing determined to improve my gunnery skills. However I was very sad to find that one of the most useful switches had stopped working. This particular switch acted like a ‘shift key’ on your keyboard, allowing you to map two actions to one button. I.e. button No.4 activated my night site while button No.4 + the shift button at the same time changed the polarity of the night site…White/hot vs. Black/hot you know the drill. All in all I was building a very effective and efficient profile.

Next day I visit there website and ask if there is anything I can do to sort this stick out. The only answer I get is to take it back to the store. Crap, I thought. Only last week I got rid of the box in to a skip and as I got it from an on-line retailer there would be all this rigmarole of sending it back bla bla ect…I decided in the end the open the bugger up to see if I can fix the thing, being a dab hand with the iron I thought I’d have a chance to sort it out.

Anyway, getting in to the stick with out destroying it seems imposable, lucky for me the switch was located on the outside of the stick and I managed to un-screw these three tiny little screws even though I was unable present to screwdriver tip to the screw head perpendicularly due to the design of the handle. After much prodding, probing and twisting I managed to get them out. Looking in to the housing I find that sure enough one of the wires had come lose after the total of three adjustments to the handle (on which the switch is mounted) over the last six months. So now I take the tiny switch apart and in the possess an even smaller spring falls out, after looking for that bastard for 5 minuets on my floor I solder the tiny wire back together (Also very difficult despite my small, steady hands). I was thinking of taking a picture but the objects were just too small for my camera to focus on.

After putting it all back together the bugger worked, Send it back my arse! Anyway, it seems to me that this stick was never intended to be repaired if something died on it. Though I never investigated the option I guess after I had sent it back to the online retailer they would have had to have got a whole new stick just ‘cos on one tiny wire coming lose. Out in some dustbin with it, what a gip! What a waste.

Now I have decided that the stick is an unacceptable risk. What if the bastard goes down again in the middle of combat and not just training? My tank would be immobile until I got sent a replacement! It let me down and to be frank I’m not happy even though it’s back at 100%

So I’m in the market for a new joystick. First off, I buy very few personal items other than books, DVD’s and the odd simulation so I don’t mind spending a bit to get real quality. It has to be robust and easy to repair. It has to be a good joystick that will allow precise aiming so that I might be able to deliver death to my enemy’s efficiently. Spare parts should be readily available so that I might be able to get it back in the fight if it goes down. I don’t mind having to spend time to look after things, I own a few analogue synthesizers so I often have too get the old iron out at times, hell I even enjoy it.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Also sorry about all that back story, just frustrated about how things are made these days. Really gets me down.