Author Topic: Your Hotas - Let's talk time in service (Read 1077 times)

NHawk · « **on:** October 30, 2007, 05:41:24 AM »

I see alot of people saying product X is better than product Y and saying their stick has lasted 7 or 8 years. Well, if you only fly an hour or two a day, one or two days a week that would probably be about right. So, let's actually talk time in flight here.

When I'm not busy with our store I put anywhere from 4 to 8 hours a day in AH. Actual stick use time might be between 3 and 6 hours a day (more on weekends). At that rate I put about 1000 hours on my stick in about 166 days.

Because of this, no stick from any manufacturer has ever lasted much more than a year with me.

I'm currently using my spare X-45 and it has about 1500 hours on it now. So it will soon be time to replace it.

Where does your HOTAS come in time in service wise?

I know of one person who flies maybe 2 hours a week if he's lucky and he'll swear CH products are the best because they've lasted 10 years.

That means he's put a total of 1000 hours on the stick. So, as you can see years of service do not equal time in service.

The Fugitive · « **Reply #1 on:** October 30, 2007, 07:46:52 AM »

My first set of CH I used around 4200 hours (thats a conservative 50 hours a month for 7 years). The ONLY reason I replaced them is when I replaced my mother board last year it doesn't supply enough voltage through the DIM plugs for the keyboard to run the stick, throttle, and keyboard (they were all analog). New set is all USB with a powered USB hub with about 450 hours on it. I'll never buy anything else.....of course seeing I have all CH stuff now, I may never have too

Before the CH, I had a number of Thrustmaster, Suncom, and Logicrap sticks. Wish I had switched to CH sooner!

Ghosth · « **Reply #2 on:** October 30, 2007, 08:11:38 AM »

Well I don't do Hotas, I prefer hands on keyboard & hand on stick when needed.
Leaves me free to shoot my big mouth off that way.

But I've never seen anything that last's compared to Microsoft Sidewinders.

CH guys love their gear, but they don't love not flying for a week or two every year or so while pots are being swapped out. Come on be honest now, how many of you CH users have 2 sticks. So you can have one in the shop and still fly?

Saitek I don't think is built quite heavy duty enough to take long term hard use.

Logicrap, havn't seen a modern stick that lasted more than 3 months without problems. Yes there are some good old ones out there. But what you going to do to replace that with?

Reschke · « **Reply #3 on:** October 30, 2007, 08:16:19 AM »

I had a TM FCS, WCS and RCS in the early days that probably had close to 8,000 hours on it but that wasn't just online flying. That was Falcon 3.0 and a myriad of other flight sims. Less than half of that was online games back in the early days. Then I switched over to an F-16 FLCS and TQS with the same rudders and put at least another 8,000 hours on that setup before kids entered the picture and the job and then I switched to a TM Cougar that probably has 4,000 hours on it but it hasn't been used in over a year now.

The Fugitive · « **Reply #4 on:** October 30, 2007, 08:43:42 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Ghosth
Well I don't do Hotas, I prefer hands on keyboard & hand on stick when needed.
Leaves me free to shoot my big mouth off that way.

But I've never seen anything that last's compared to Microsoft Sidewinders.

CH guys love their gear, but they don't love not flying for a week or two every year or so while pots are being swapped out. Come on be honest now, how many of you CH users have 2 sticks. So you can have one in the shop and still fly?

Saitek I don't think is built quite heavy duty enough to take long term hard use.

Logicrap, havn't seen a modern stick that lasted more than 3 months without problems. Yes there are some good old ones out there. But what you going to do to replace that with?

My anolog sets NEVER went in for repair/replacement Thats 7 years trouble free! I'll let you know if this set needs any work........ ya going to be around awhile?

llama · « **Reply #5 on:** October 30, 2007, 01:35:21 PM »

Let's see...

The question isn't TROUBLE-FREE service time, but just time in service. I assume this means as long as in-home repairs are possible and performed, then that's "in service time."

So, my main HOTAS is a Thrustmaster FLCS, a Thrustmaster WCS Mk II Throttle, and a set of CH Pedals (non-pro).

All were purchased in May 1995, or so says my notes in the M50 programming files.

Average gaming time (include some space sims too) is 10 hours a week for 40 weeks a year (some weeks I don't play - magazine deadlines) is 400 hours a year. Times 12.5 years = 5000 hours. And that's probably very conservative.

Over that time I've had to replace the foam pad under the two-stage trigger twice (it degrades and compresses - a thick mousepad shaved down to fit is a good repair). I've replaced the S1 button on the stick once, had broken a hat shaft and replaced the whole hat (H3 if you must know), and replaced one plastic trim ring that holds down the rubber boot once. I've superglued the throttle handle to its shaft after it broke in transit to the 1999 WB Con, and then epoxied it at home when it broke again on the trip back, and what I thought would be a temporary repair at best has lasted to today.

Just this month, the CH rudder pedals started spiking, so I cleaned the pots with Tuner Cleaner and it has helped. New pots are arriving today and I'll replace them over the weekend. The throttle's pot could probably use a cleaning too, but the joystick's are fine.

And just in case, I have two spare FLCS's and two spare WCS's for parts or to be spares if these ever totally fail, two F22's and TQS's in case I ever decide to switch or get a set of Bob Church's digital StickWorks chips (if you have a set to sell, please contact me!!!). I also managed to get a very complete parts kit from TM the week before Guillemont bought them out. Obviously, I really love this stuff.

I already have patched gameport drivers that are Vista compatible if I ever have to switch over from XP, but I don't see me doing that for many, many years. I've tested all the hardware with a Vista box, and it all works fine.

And don't forget, this was *your* question. ;-)

-Llama

HomeBoy · « **Reply #6 on:** October 30, 2007, 02:31:01 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Ghosth
...
Come on be honest now, how many of you CH users have 2 sticks. So you can have one in the shop and still fly?
...

What?

As someone who does serious modding of CH gear and has been for over ten years, I can tell you I have run across VERY few pot problems. Most of the problems that are called "pot problems" are usually lousy power (most frequent) or loose connectors. If you were to hold the pots from the major manufacturers of game gear in your hand, you would see that the pots CH puts in their gear are hands down the best of any of the others.

CH gear does require good clean power and it is unfortunate that this "issue" I think you refer to is blamed on the pots. Personally I have never had any of these problems in my stuff because I use a quality power supply as well as quality USB interfaces. On the other hand, CH does use some light weight wires which can come loose (especially in the pedals) and begin to cause problems. I wish CH would use heavier wires; especially in the pedals. Whenever I do pedals repair, I always replace all the wires with a little heavier gauge.

NHawk · « **Reply #7 on:** October 30, 2007, 02:55:04 PM »

Homeboy, I'd have to agree with your statement even in regards to Saitek sticks. I can only remember once that I had an actual pot problem and that was on an old X35 or was it the X36?

On just about every stick I've had the hat swich is the thing that goes. Unfortunately Saitek is especially notorious for that.

I started this thread to get an idea of just how good the different sticks are. I also hoped for honest answers and I think I'm getting them.

llama · « **Reply #8 on:** October 30, 2007, 04:03:11 PM »

For what its worth, CH Pots are direct replacements for the old Thrustmaster gear. That's why I bought an extra when I bought replacements for the Pedals.

That said, let's note my Pot replacement history:

I have 3 12-year old pots in my Thrustmaster equipment: replacements needed = 0

I have 2 12-year old pots in my CH equipment: replacements needed = 2

I don't regard failures after a decade of service a problem.

-Llama

HomeBoy · « **Reply #9 on:** October 30, 2007, 11:22:03 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by NHawk
Homeboy, I'd have to agree with your statement even in regards to Saitek sticks. I can only remember once that I had an actual pot problem and that was on an old X35 or was it the X36?

On just about every stick I've had the hat swich is the thing that goes. Unfortunately Saitek is especially notorious for that.

I started this thread to get an idea of just how good the different sticks are. I also hoped for honest answers and I think I'm getting them.

Yes, you are correct. The pots in the Saiteks are pretty good. Not quite as industrial as CH but not bad. In most (I'd guess 90%) cases, the problems are power and loose connections.

However, we have Logitech. Now that's a different story. The first time I took a Logitech stick apart, I couldn't find the pots! I then took a closer look at the little plastic "clips" with wires connected to them and realized they were pots! Man oh man, I never realized you could make a pot that cheap!

If you are having "spiking pot" problems, I think you might be surprised if you either install a better power supply, use a quality USB hub, USB pci card, etc. as well as crimping the pot connectors tighter, the spiking just might go away. That's been my experience anyway.

HomeBoy · « **Reply #10 on:** October 31, 2007, 01:02:15 PM »

BTW NHawk,
I forgot to mention my website in the pm:

http://snomhf.exofire.net

Under the "Projects" link you will find all the various mods that are done to CH gear. Here you can get closeup views of the internals of these controllers.

Snubby · « **Reply #11 on:** October 31, 2007, 08:21:26 PM »

Had my X-36 .. USED in 01.. used it for 6 or so years playing lock on and various other flight and space sims.. never had a single problem..

sold it to a buddy a month or so and bought an X-52..

last I hard the 36 is still going strong.

NHawk · « **Reply #12 on:** November 02, 2007, 06:12:14 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Snubby
Had my X-36 .. USED in 01.. used it for 6 or so years playing lock on and various other flight and space sims.. never had a single problem..

sold it to a buddy a month or so and bought an X-52..

last I hard the 36 is still going strong.

Snubby, we're really trying to talk in hours here because years can be deceiving. In your case, if you only flew 2 hours a week that would be a little over 600 hours in 6 years. In my hayday I could put 600 hours on in 4 months (reference NghtHawk - Tour 33 - 154 hours). See what I mean?

In my case, the MTBF for Saitek hat switches is about 1000 hours. That includes the X35, 36 & 45 models.

If you ever have the opportunity to take apart an X36 or X45 you'll understand why the hat switches go so quickly. They are probably the cheapest items in the stick. And they are not easily replaced if they go bad.

TequilaChaser · « **Reply #13 on:** November 04, 2007, 11:48:21 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by HomeBoy

If you are having "spiking pot" problems, I think you might be surprised if you either install a better power supply, use a quality USB hub, USB pci card, etc. as well as crimping the pot connectors tighter, the spiking just might go away. That's been my experience anyway.

Totally agree with this, and even posted about crimping the wire connectors down tight on the spade terminals a few or so years ago......

CH Janes 565 Combat stick ( Analog ) in the closet for backup if ever needed used 1 year

gave a squaddie a CH Force Feed back Fighter Stick ( hated that thing )

CH Fighter Stick, Pedals, Throttle ( All Analog ) used since 95/96 and never had to replace anything because it was messing up or broken. I did replace 1 pot before I realized it was the wire connectors being loose.

have used same HOTAS for many years in 5 or 6 different flight sims with AW and AH being the main sims.

I could not even fathom how many hours of use are on them, but during the past 12 years I have been knocked out of work 3 times due to injurys, to where I played what seems like day and night for 6 months, and another time was almost 2 years in all the different sims......

I bought up a lot of the analog CH Fighter Sticks back when CH Products was selling them off at $20.00 clearence price.and gave them as Christmas gifts....kept 4 for myself, then sold them off......traded a complete CH Hotas setup ( Analog ) for an Ati X850 pro 256 meg AGP card to a squadmate........

will see where we're at in another 5 to 10 years.........

doc1kelley · « **Reply #14 on:** November 06, 2007, 11:01:59 AM »

I have a CH Fighterstick USB and Pro Throttle that I've had for about 8 years and a CH Pedals (analog) that I've had for 11 years and use a radioshack analog to USB adapter. I've never had a problem with any of them. I did have earlier analog fighterstick and had a cable to the keyboard go bad but CH replaced it free. I had tried Saitek X45 and went through them about every frew months and went back to the CH immediately.

All the Best...
Jay
awDoc1