Platy
17th May 2007, 15:33
You know I'm bad, I'm bad :rolleyes:
First of all: DON'T OPEN UP ANY SAITEK PRODUCT SINCE THIS VOIDS ANY WARRANTY!!!!!!!!!!! You are better off IN ANY CASE to return it to the store where you got it from and get a replacement.
I received the X52-pro from a friend who won it in a competition. He didn't want it and so I bought it from him. After installation, I found that the throttle was spiking seriously. Especially around the 70 to 100%. This is very annoying. I play Il-2 1946 exclusivly with it and in this sim, it can be vital to have precise throttle settings and it can be highly annoying to know that the throttle doesn't always do what you tell it to do.
Anyways, I didn't have a receit as evidence that I bought it somewhere so, I couldn't return it for a replacement. After some asking around elsewhere on this forum, it was suggested to use contact spray on the pot-meter for the throttle. This of course implicated that I should open up the throttle first. As a last resort, I could take the pot-meter from my old X52 (non pro) since they are the same and that throttle works flawlessly. But that would render the X52 useless of course. Since I thought I didn't have any warranty anymore, I could happily open up the throttle and take a look inside.
So I did unscrew the bottom of it fairly easily and removed the lid. I did see the pot meter wich wasn't functioning properly. I wiped it a little with my finger and immediatly the orange wire came loose :eek: Looks like the wire stripping machines at the Saitek plant needs some adjusting? This can be seen in the first picture. In the middle, there was a red wire and on the left, a white one.
In picture two, I am measuring the pot-meter. One of the wires came loose so I wasn't concerned that the measurment was influenced by the electronic curcuit where the pot-meter was attached to previously. As you can see in picture two, it looks like a rather healthy 47K pot meter. I still had the measuring pins in it while I moved the pot-meter a bit. It does not appear like a normal lineair one. I realized that I had to do some soldering anyhow and after some consideration, I did cut the other two wires also.
In picture three, I removed the excess soldering stuff. There is probably a very good word for the stuff you solder with but since english is not my native language, I don't know that word :D It is now ready for re-installing it into the throttle. Before I did that, I sprayed the inside with contact spray as suggested elsewhere on this forum. I did measure it again but with my equipment, I couldn't find any diffrence in the pot-meter. Since the wires are rather short, I needed to install the pot-meter first and soldering the wires to it while installed. I did use some cloth to screen the rest of the throttle from accidentally falling drops of liquid soldering stuff. Stripping the wires is a very precise job because they are so thin. It is very easy to cut the wire instead of stripping it, making shorter then it allready is. Once stripped, there where some very small fibers of what appeared glasfiber inside. I trimmed that away with a sharp knife. I didn't think the glassfiber would help the soldering if I left them in place.
(the rest of the story will follow in next post)
First of all: DON'T OPEN UP ANY SAITEK PRODUCT SINCE THIS VOIDS ANY WARRANTY!!!!!!!!!!! You are better off IN ANY CASE to return it to the store where you got it from and get a replacement.
I received the X52-pro from a friend who won it in a competition. He didn't want it and so I bought it from him. After installation, I found that the throttle was spiking seriously. Especially around the 70 to 100%. This is very annoying. I play Il-2 1946 exclusivly with it and in this sim, it can be vital to have precise throttle settings and it can be highly annoying to know that the throttle doesn't always do what you tell it to do.
Anyways, I didn't have a receit as evidence that I bought it somewhere so, I couldn't return it for a replacement. After some asking around elsewhere on this forum, it was suggested to use contact spray on the pot-meter for the throttle. This of course implicated that I should open up the throttle first. As a last resort, I could take the pot-meter from my old X52 (non pro) since they are the same and that throttle works flawlessly. But that would render the X52 useless of course. Since I thought I didn't have any warranty anymore, I could happily open up the throttle and take a look inside.
So I did unscrew the bottom of it fairly easily and removed the lid. I did see the pot meter wich wasn't functioning properly. I wiped it a little with my finger and immediatly the orange wire came loose :eek: Looks like the wire stripping machines at the Saitek plant needs some adjusting? This can be seen in the first picture. In the middle, there was a red wire and on the left, a white one.
In picture two, I am measuring the pot-meter. One of the wires came loose so I wasn't concerned that the measurment was influenced by the electronic curcuit where the pot-meter was attached to previously. As you can see in picture two, it looks like a rather healthy 47K pot meter. I still had the measuring pins in it while I moved the pot-meter a bit. It does not appear like a normal lineair one. I realized that I had to do some soldering anyhow and after some consideration, I did cut the other two wires also.
In picture three, I removed the excess soldering stuff. There is probably a very good word for the stuff you solder with but since english is not my native language, I don't know that word :D It is now ready for re-installing it into the throttle. Before I did that, I sprayed the inside with contact spray as suggested elsewhere on this forum. I did measure it again but with my equipment, I couldn't find any diffrence in the pot-meter. Since the wires are rather short, I needed to install the pot-meter first and soldering the wires to it while installed. I did use some cloth to screen the rest of the throttle from accidentally falling drops of liquid soldering stuff. Stripping the wires is a very precise job because they are so thin. It is very easy to cut the wire instead of stripping it, making shorter then it allready is. Once stripped, there where some very small fibers of what appeared glasfiber inside. I trimmed that away with a sharp knife. I didn't think the glassfiber would help the soldering if I left them in place.
(the rest of the story will follow in next post)