Very disappointed in CH

[Scca]

I emailed CH products today as I have a hat switch failure on my fighterstick.  I asked if they offered a repair service, or sold parts.  Here is their reply

I am sorry but we do not.  We also do not supply replacement hatswitches.

Nice way to stand by your very expensive product. 

Anyone want to buy a CH fighter stick with a bad hat switch?  SMH

[nrshida]

I emailed CH products today as I have a hat switch failure on my fighterstick.  I asked if they offered a repair service, or sold parts.  Here is their reply

Nice way to stand by your very expensive product. 

Anyone want to buy a CH fighter stick with a bad hat switch?  SMH

The little momentary switches are a standard part. I've changed mine out already. I thought I made a tutorial. If you're a bit handy and can solder (or know someone who is) it's not so tough a job.

[Gman]

After the 2 year warranty is up, CH's standard response is this -

I am sorry but we do not repair our products outside of the two year warranty, or provide replacement hat switches.

So, essentially tough rocks, and buy another controller.  Pretty ridiculous, expecting only 2 years of life and service for some of the most expensive units out there still. 

Surely there must be a source for the hats/buttons outside of CH where you can acquire them and just do it yourself as Shida has said, but I have no idea where such source would be.

[Bino]

CH was bought out by APEM in 2008. (see link ) They gave up on supplying replacement parts.

[nrshida]

I thought I had a vague memory of doing this tutorial. It's quite comprehensive it seems. Did I really have so much free time at one point?   

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,355746.msg4713336.html#msg4713336

The repair I did around the date of this tutorial is still in use incidentally.

Good luck 

[Chalenge]

With that stick sometimes the coolie hat softens up with use, and the stem bends closer to your thumb and cannot move those contacts anymore. So a very small widening of that hole is a good thing anyway. Or, you can make the rook hat position the coolie hat by modifying the hole in that spot so that it becomes an 8-way.

If you can do this kind of work you might want to go the Free Track direction instead. For about $30 you can have head tracking using the Sony PlayStation 3 Eye camera ($4.75), some small construction on the LED side of things. DIY videos are available on YouTube.

[Randy1]

I emailed CH products today as I have a hat switch failure on my fighterstick.  I asked if they offered a repair service, or sold parts.  Here is their reply

Nice way to stand by your very expensive product. 

Anyone want to buy a CH fighter stick with a bad hat switch?  SMH

This is pretty much across the board of all consumer products.  Old inventory. cost to repair and parts recovery cost is my guess.


As a side note, many, many years ago, you could carry your tubes from a tv to a convenient store like 7-11, self test and buy replacement tubes.

[Max]

Mthead send AckAck a PM. He used to work for CH and may have a lead on sourcing parts. Good luck.
 
That is a VERY bogus response. 

[The Fugitive]

I saved an old analog  (non usb) stick and took parts from that. Got tired of swapping out switches so I have switched to an x55 stick and throttle.

EBay has old analog sticks

[Drano]

Yeah if you're handy with a soldering iron there's plenty of sticks on eBay for cheap that can be slowly parted out. Keep ya going for a while anyway. Only thing that's truely scarce is the right pots. Not unobtainable but a general pita to track down. Thankfully I still have a couple from the last time I could buy them.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

[Gman]

AckAck has posted about the sale of CH, I know he was less than impressed with their products (sometimes) after that.  I've seen a couple horror stories of recent Fightersticks, and the one guy at SIMhq that took pictures, it looked like drunk children had assembled the internals. It was absolutely ridiculous how bad a job it was.  Bruv here's experience with a post 2008 Fighterstick wasn't great either IIRC.

I've had really good luck with mine, I've had several sets of CH, one gameport and I think I'm on #3 full set of USB, and the latest set is absolutely post 2008, I got them in 2011 I believe. 

Fingers crossed I guess, as I have a pile of other HOTAS, as in all of them but the X55 ATM, I just much prefer the CH for AH as I'm most accurate shooting wise with the CH stick. 

[Ack-Ack]

As I've mentioned before, the quality of CH Products has dropped since Chuck Hayes sold it to some French industrial firm.  Most of the company's emphasis appears to be the OEM market, which truth be told, has always been the money maker for CH.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that CH decides to make a consumer version of their OEM A-10 Warthog stick but it looks like when my CH gear goes that I'll be getting a different HOTAS setup, probably go the VKB route.

[swinger]

GET THRUSTMASTER WART HOG.

[SIK1]

GET THRUSTMASTER WART HOG.

The Warthog isn't all that great considering the cost. I've personally had issues that are directly related to the quality or lack there of, and I know others that have as well. I in good conscience wouldn't recommend the Warthog.

 
Sik

[Gman]

Ditto Sik1, on the surface it seems so fantastic, but the "Sticktion" issue is a real bummer IMO, the stick I have I've had to tear it apart every 4 months or so and re grease it following the typical procedure over at DCS forums that has been posted again and again.  There are other factors too.  I only use it too on a system and desk setup specific for DCS.

VKB - very impressed, but the issue is GETTING one, it's very, very difficult to procure one of the 2 most recent sticks, and the ones before that are out of production.  The Cobra is pretty basic but somewhat available, but the latest one Blade just got - if they built a similarly well constructed throttle, they could give TM and CH a serious run for their money.

I do like that idea of CH creating a retail new HOTAS too, however AckAck being the best source of intel  out there regarding CH since he worked there and all, it doesn't sound likely.  Shame too.

I hope that when Star Citizen goes live, and the numbers of players there reach berserko levels, that the already popular and expanding HOTAS market over there drives these companies to produce a seriously good "new" TM WH or full CH hotas replacement option.  And no, NOT the new "Star Citizen" little dinky one already being produced, but something in the WH price range.