Cams & Springs

[dukat]

Hi all,

Haven't played flight sims in almost 20 years and never owned a high end stick.

Received the Gunfighter 3 Space Pro today!

MS Flight 2020 won't be out for a few more weeks so I'll be waiting a while before I can try it out.

I assume for flight sims the preferred cam is Avia-S or Avis-H. Pretty sure this stick came with Avia-S pre-installed.

Which cam, the S or H do most of you prefer? What about spring tension? Default ones good for most or do you recommend a stronger one?

Since I have a few weeks of waiting figured it's a good time to change out hardware depending on everyone's recommendation.

Haven't finished watching all the videos on VKB's youtube channel. If they don't show where to apply the dampening grease I'll be asking that next.

Thanks!

[Stonehenge]

I`m only playing Star Citizen and for this, my GF uses Space Sim Cams with Soft Center and one 20 Spring each Cam. So there is very soft center but also very smooth X and Y Axes. For me...it`s PERFECT

[guytrance]

Every time i use Space cams, no matter which spring, the stick is hitting the inside walls. in other words, when i move the stick to its end in either axis i can hear a small clank/metal hit. is this normal to the cam? this dose not happen on Avia cams.

[fallout9]

Difference between the Avia and Space cams is that the first ones have a more steep angle to simulate air resistance and the second ones are almost linear. There's also a difference between S(oft) cams and H(ard) cams - center and axes detent are more significant on H type cams (both Avia and Space).

[evil-rage]

Related question: What size / weight /rating are the springs included on the GF MKIII? I want to make sure I put them back in the correct bag.

[fallout9]

The springs the GF base comes installed with are #20. Should be easy to identify as each bag contains 8 springs.

[kolba]

will hijack the thread a bit.

Since gunfighter mk1 and mk2 had a different set of cams (which are smoother than new avia-s cams) is there a way to buy those these days? anyone knows?

[fallout9]

They're out of production, but try to to see if there are any left around at sales@vkb-sim.pro. Another chance is to post a request to buy the original set on Reddit or on Hotas Discord, there are lots of people who made the upgrade and don't use the original sets of cams anymore.

[mitth_raw_nuruodo]

I am also struggling to get my head around all the optional equipment, being used to toy-like joysticks (Extreme 3d pro, X52 pro etc) until now.
Is it normal when using the the soft-center cams that the x-y axes can be ever so slightly off center (the degree varies everytime, but always minute < 0.2%) when I take my hand off the grip?

[fallout9]

When it comes to joystick returning to center there are 4 factors to be considered:

Cams - there are soft cams and hard cams. For a precise return to center hard cams are recommended;

Springs - there are 5 sets of springs and each cam could load 2 springs; this means a lot of combinations. For a precise return to center harder combinations are recommended;

Dry clutch - these could be adjusted to cut off the stick oscillations. For a precise return to center the dry clutch has to be completely released;

Deadzone - by default it comes set up to 0.5. I could be easily increased to 1.5-2 without losing any input around center.

Best option guaranteed for the most precise return to center is hard cams with hard springs and dampers completely released. But this could still be achieved with soft cams and hard springs and no dampers. Or even with soft cams and softer springs and larger deadzone. As you could see, there are lots of options. VKB products are made to be messed with by the user. Whatever works for a person wouldn't fit in someone else's preferences, so you could adjust your device perfectly to your liking.

[Drano]

In my experience, I'm using the newer Avia-S (soft center) cams with a single #30 spring or a #20 I forget honestly, but a light throw. I completely removed the dampers when I upgraded my orig GF1 to a GF3. I found that feature fairly useless for me as even a slight amount of damping seemed to give me a bit of stiction and because of this I was running then fully loose anyway. It may be because I'm running with such light springs that it' was so noticeable tho.

So does my stick return exact dead center every time? Mostly. By mostly I mean within a few tens of what would be exact center value on the test screen and that's within tolerances. Sometimes it does exactly. I can say with the dampers on even slightly it hardly ever centered exactly but again that's with light springs. I attribute the slight drift from center to the soft center cams in my case. Either way I'm not noticing my plane drifting in pitch or roll that wouldn't be something that can't be trimmed out. I usually tweak that in flight with the dual use master mode hat where I have the axii mode set for elevator and aileron trim. Long press, adjust trim as needed. A short press in that mode recenters both the trim axii. Problem solved. IMO that's the easiest way to deal with it.

As fallout9 was saying there are ways to make it center better. The hard center cams don't work for me as I don't like the pronounced bump going thru center while flying preferring the softer center ones. But they will tend to center better. While there's still a slight bump with the soft cams, I've tuned it out using curves. You could add a small deadzone but that would be like the hard cam and put a bump in the center. You could put a ton of spring force on it but I've been saying all along that as a mechanic looking at all that force on that little pin I can't imagine that being a recipe for anything but a catastrophic failure at some point!