Logitech Yoke - sticky pitch control

[matthorton23]

I’m trying to practice circuits in a C152 using my Logitech yoke which I bought used. This is to compliment my PPL training in which I’ve just started doing solo circuits. I’m finding it difficult with the Logitech yoke, especially for landing, because the pitch control isn’t very smooth when trying to make small adjustments. I’ve recorded a video to show what I mean:

I’ve tried putting some oil on the visible part of the shaft but it’s only made a small improvement.

i’ve also modified the sensitivity curves which seem to have helped somewhat when ive got the plane in trim and i’m making small movements around the centre position of the pitch control.

is this normal or os there something wrong with my yoke? is it worth opening it up and re-greasing the internal mechanism?

If this is normal, i think I need to upgrade the yoke.

[Terrylawdinn]

Yes, with a used item, it’s quite possible that it needs cleaning. Be careful, however, what you use as most oils and penetrant fluids (e.g. WD40) cause the plastic parts to swell.
They are not really designed to be lubricated however, just kept clean. I use silicon spray which doesn’t damage the plastic You might get away with it by just carefully spraying around the sliding bit, but if not it’ll probably need opening up and thoroughly cleaning, especially if someone has tried to lubricate it before.

[matthorton23]

i’ve also noticed that there is some play in the mechanism. can anybody tell me if this is normal or not?

after undoing the 14 screws in the base, the base came off revealing the mechanism.

it looks like lithium grease has been used to lubricate it.

it seems like most of the play is caused by the bearing at the back. (this bearing is lubricated with a lighter oil)

to me it looks like the lithium grease has been there from the factory.

the front bearing seems to be causing some of the ‘stickiness’, and only has a small amount of oil on it (that I added recently). Its tempting to remove the oil and try some lithium grease here:

[AlpineB4652]

The ‘sticktion’ on the Logitech yoke is a well known issue. It’s less to with the lubricant and more to do with the springs used to provide resistance on the elevator axis.

One partial solution is to replace the springs with rubber bands (it’s not hard to do and there are tutorials on YouTube).

I say partial, because I found that even with this change there was still a lack of precision with the elevator near the centre position and it was hard to achieve the level fine of control desirable for landings. My overall solution was to get another, better design, of yoke.

[matthorton23]

thanks for the tips. what yoke did you get?

[SteveKane]

I gave up on my Logitech. It had a fairly significant left-aileron dead zone from neutral, which made it very hard to control. Pitch was hard to control: I put in some new springs per some YouTube hacks, which helped somewhat, though it gave it a creaky sound.

I ended up splurging and getting the Boeing Thrustmaster Yoke, which is orders of magnitude better. It’s pendular, not a piston yoke, but it’s still great for all yoked aircraft.

[AlpineB4652]

I got a Honeycomb Alpha which was far better, but given that company’s current difficulties I’m not sure I would recommend. The device is great…if you can find one…but don’t expect any after sales support if a problem does develop.

What I really want is a Brunner force-feed back yoke. But for the price of one of those I could get many flying lessons!

[SeaBassSalt]

Use a little bit of furniture polish on the shaft of the yoke. It doesnt
solve the spring problem, but greatly reduces the drag of the shaft on the plastic frame.

Furniture polish doesnt leave any residue

[matthorton23]

so I added some more lithium grease, and replaced the springs and detent mechanism with elastic bands. it’s now loads better and I can land smoothly while feeling in control!

I did it two stages: adding the grease first made a very minimal improvement. the real difference came with removing the spring mechanism and replacing with elastic bands - it feels so much better.

Before I did the elastic band mod I had ordered a Honeycomb Alpha, but after the mod I cancelled the order. I might upgrade in the future but for now this yoke does the job.

[SeaBassSalt]

Matt. Can you post what size bands you used. I want to give this fix a try as well. Thanks

[matthorton23]

it was either 6 or 8 bands in total - 3 or 4 each side (i matched the ‘weight’ of the pitch control to the weight of the roll control)

band size was 140mm circumference (measured without stretching the band). the bands were square in section: about 1.5mm x 1.5mm

[SeaBassSalt]

Did you need to recalibrate?

Is the degree of pitch and roll measured by the tension or the distance traveled by the shaft? I suppose if it’s controlled by the amount of shaft travel that the tension really doesn’t matter.

[matthorton23]

no need to re-calibrate.

because there is no centre notch anymore, you have to feel where centre is like a real aeroplane, and trim accordingly. i think it’s a lot nicer

degree of pitch and roll are measured by potentiometers so its proportional to distance moved - there is nothing to measure force. however, when i had the springs fitted, i set the curves so that as pulling back got progressively harder, this would be reflected by progressively increasing sensitivity - this felt natural (see the first post for a photo of the curves). with the elastic bands fitted, the force is roughly the same as the springs so it still feels good. i feel like the ‘progressiveness’ of the bands is slightly less than the springs so maybe it would make sense to straighten out the curve slightly to match the feel of the bands - i’ll have to give it a try

[HG34AV]

I too recommend the “elastic band” mod for the Logi Yoke. Made a world of difference! Good improvement while we wait for Honeycomb to come out of whatever mess they are in.

[SeaBassSalt]

Thanks again Matt. I just want to ensure I don’t muck things up by creating too much or too little tension on the gears. Will give it a try tomorrow (US central time) and post the results

Brian.

[ne0nex]

Just got this yoke for my birthday. Bummed out at these exact same pitch issues (and it’s brand new!) have a link to the mod you did specifically? Looking to make this one a bit better performing.

[TheSevenflyer]

Did you adjust the sensitivty settings in the sim?

[AcquiredWings96]

I just want to share my experience here with this Yoke as I too have had this issue.

I’ve gone all in; i’ve replaced the sensors with Hall effect sensors & am using an Arduino Pro Micro instead of the built in Logitech Board.

What I discovered through this, is that the potentiometers are actually not at fault here! There is some filtering applied to the input range when it gets near the center with the default logitech board. This causes a lot of what you describe: hard to control/not responsive when near the center (deadzone) of the yoke, which makes landings a real tricky affair.

Yes, the thrust bearing is oversized and the shaft is tapered, so it does feel “grabby” regardless if the springs are replaced with rubber bands. I used rubber bands for about 3 months but got tired with them snapping over time, requiring me to open the yoke up & replace often. I went back to the springs, theyre not so bad on pitch imo. I did replace the Roll with rubber bands though as i find They don’t snap bands constantly and find the roll spring was very stiff.

But honestly, none of that will truly solve the issue. As someone already described, when using rubber bands there is no “detent” near the deadzone. The side effect of this, is that you can trim your plane to a neutral point that is outside of the logitech board’s deadzone, meaning you never run into this sensitivity filter that is a part of their board. So, voila, you get some sensitivity at neutral point making landing quite more controllable! But again, this isn’t actually solving the problem. As soon as you ride back into that “deadzone” even without the detend you will notice the sensitivity/responsiveness drop off, like when large deflections are needed to bring the plane out of a climb and level off for example. It will still be there, but you can avoid “resting” on it with trim.

It comes down to resolution and this signal filtering of the logitech board. I’ve gone back to using the same potentiometers that came with it, for roll and pitch, but connected to the Arduino Pro Micro instead. The Arduino Pro Micro has no such low-pass sensitivity filtering, and has a much higher resolution meaning more fine movement is captured.

The result is great; I can make very fine pitch adjustments during the flare etc. It does make this yoke quite serviceable. The things we can’t solve though really are the thrust bearing and tapered shaft, at that point, you may as well consider a different yoke.

There are tests on youtube demonstrating this sensitivity filer of the logitech board. I used an arduino pro micro, but a lot of people are using the Leo Bodnar as it is easier to setup from what I hear.

I’ll also add that i’ve lubed the ■■■■ out of the shaft with Lithium Grease, and it helped a bit.

This has been covered once before here Logitech/Saitek Yoke - Dead Zone - #2 by Archer374
But if your question is strictly about being sticky and nothing else, then the answer is yes it is sticky its because of the tapered shaft and thrust bearing. Some Lithium grease or synthetic grease may improve this slightly.