Severe Gunfighter MkII Axis Glitches... Again

[Dirt]

In the below link I talk about an MCG Pro Gunfighter that was having severe axis glitches.
http://forum.vkb-sim.pro/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=3057

VKB was helpful and RMAed the stick and base with no charge for shipping. The replacement stick and base functioned flawlessly for a few months but now the issue has returned in a worse form.
This new issue makes the stick completely unusable while the past issue was tolerable to a point.



I am once again at a loss. The only thing I did notice is that if I loosened or tightened or otherwise adjusted the grip mounting screw, the signal normalized slightly.
I need an engineer's help again...

[Drano]

The grip should be tight on the base. It's a clamp basically. Regardless that wouldn't affect the x and y axii as they both come from the base. An easy thing to check is the little connectors for the wires going to the PCB on the base. You can get at them by removing the bottom cover. Try re-seating them. I had a similar problem but nearly as extreme as yours and that cleared it. As the problem seems to be happening with the one axis, that'd be a suspect. Otherwise you may have a wire loose on one of those connectors. Or even worse a broken wire. What are the chances you'd get two of them though? Something causing that erratic signal. To look at it you'd think it was a pot going bad! No pots here!

[rtrski]

Is there *any* chance the cable harness in the gimbal is getting tugged on as you actuate the stick? I had mine go all weird on me once, and carefully disassembled...unfortunately to even look you have to pull the bottom plate at least, but I swear the way one of the connections was looping the cable, I could imagine with it also sort of confined against the bottom plate, that it was getting wrapped such that as the stick moved it would get tugged, more on one axis (X I believe) than the other. I disconnected, rewrapped the way it looked in my head to have the most clearance (e.g. retwisted the wires a bit in the direction I thought made sense) and kind of held it over to one side as I put it back down on the base before rescrewing, and I have not had the issue sense. I know this description is incredibly vague - I was just going with what looked right after having moved the stick around while holding the housing in my hand to stabilise it and watching the movement of the parts, all upside down so I could see the wires.

Others have already pointed out about the clamp being tight, and making sure the stick is all the way seated down on the connector before tightening. That just looks so much like intermittent electrical connection. I am of course not VKB affiliated just trying to be helpful as another user, however, so all the above deserves a significant salting....

Did they replace the gimbal for you only, not the grip? Any remote chance the grip connector has been damaged, or one pin is not springing right to make good firm contact? Look for oxidation on one of the pins or scratches and debris on the contact pads at the connector that might point to an issue there, perhaps?

[Dirt]

Thanks guys!

I never disassembled this particular base due to being "gun shy" from the last bases' issues. But I re-seated all the cables in this base and noticed a cable that moved a large amount when the x-axis was moved. It was rubbing on the corner of a PCB board. I trained the problem cable to not rub and now the problem is gone.

[Drano]

Yeah that just shouted out it was some mechanical issue. Glad you got it straightened out!

[rtrski]

Awesome! Glad we were able to help and that you got it sorted!