Best place to find CH gear?

[stantond]

I used the sidewinders but found the FF2 was spiking in AH.  I switched to a CH Products USB Fighterstick and the problem went away.  I have had some trouble with the hat switch, but everything else is pretty solid.  The Fighterstick is not that easy to program, but I've done it.  All in all, even with the hat problems the USB Fighterstick is pretty good value for the money compared to previous Sidewinder products.  I tried TM (~10 years ago) and was disappointed.  The  TM had a nice metal base, but a plastic retainer broke after little use.  I made another from wood, but there was some other problem with it that I can't remember now.  

I replaced one of the USB Fighterstick hat switches myself. I am no soldering artisan (by any means), but it wasn't that difficult.  I bought a new 25watt soldering iron from Radio Shack and some desoldering ribbon.  My only problem was tearing a ribbon connector which went to the side 4-way hat.  That took more time to resolder than replacing the hat switch.  

Even with the hat problems, I like the CH products.  The CH Products Control Manager is used to program their products and an excellent diagostic tool to fix problems.  I now have two USB Fightersticks both bought from Provantage.com.  I also use the CH USB rudder pedals which I think came from CompUSA.  The pedals have been outstanding!  



Regards,



Malta

[DamnedRen]

One of the biggest differences between the analog and digial (USB) sticks is CH got stoooopid and decided not to hardwire a simple flash chip on the sticks MB. What happens is you use the mapping manager and save the set then every time you logon to play you gotta download it to the stick. Alternatively, you can program the stick within the game. It is fairly simple to do. If you are having any issues getting it set up just email me and we can meet in the TA.

The old analog sticks would take the saved program file you made using speed keys and download it permanently to the stick.
When you shut down your computer and restarted you still had the stick set.

I haven't figured out why CH omitted that flash chip ffrom the stick as it actually removes a convenient function that had already existed.