I have been having trouble with spontaneous rudder inputs from a Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS X. On a group fly this last weekend I discovered what was causing the issues - moving my hand near or away from the stick without even touching it would actuate the rudder full travel each way kind of like playing a Theramin.
In looking around online and actually taking my handle apart (easy), what is going on seems pretty simple. The pot for rudder is up in the stick handle itself and is a tiny little plastic piece. The bearing for the handle isn’t really much of a bearing and appears to transfer a lot of axial misalignment to the pot shaft which reportedly squashes the wiper and makes the electrical connection more tenuous and allows the wiper to “float” electrically when the stick isn’t being held in hand.
That floating input is likely the issue and noise and static potential on my hand can then influence the rudder position.
This seems to be a common issue with these sticks and there are youtube videos on how to do things like use transparent tape to make the shaft bigger in diameter to take the slop out of the assembly to help protect the pot. I found one video that gave a Mouser part number - (Access to this page has been denied.). That part isn’t in the part data sheet though so this is a bit of an experiment. That last 2 in the part number given is undefined in the datasheet and appears to be between 40 and 60 degrees which seems to fit from the twist angle on the stick. Parts will be here soon to find out if it works right and will report.
Testing for the problem is really easy. Just move your hand close and away from the stick without touching it and see if your rudders move. If they do, check back and I’ll post if that particular part fixes the issue.
Hi, I read your post, consulates you are not the only one having problems with Hotas X, after the last update I can no longer use it.
Rudder remains fixed on the straight, especially on the ground, so I can’t move at the airport, throttle does what it wants, accelerates by itself for no reason, they say it’s only my problem, (?) But coincidentally it works perfectly with FSX, and with MSFS 2020 only after the last update I have problems.
Who knows why …
I have tried all the settings and calibrations but … nothing
It’s really depressing …
For the moment I uninstalled MSFS, went back to the good old FSX, if I want to fly, it’s a shame because the MSFS graphics are gorgeous, not what can you say about the flight models, not counting the almost 300 keyboard commands (? ) then who knows…
You have to take the pilot’s license to use it …
I have no idea the quality of pots used in the stick, but the ones linked above from Mouser look ok. If you are handy with a soldering iron, they are pretty easy to change out. Here’s the datasheet. They say good for one million cycles (for this particular brand). Mine aren’t here yet for me to try but will be soon.
I don’t have a good explanation of what you’re seeing, though. It doesn’t sound like what I was seeing and the issue I was seeing was on just the rudder axis which could be due to handle misalignment thanks to a small amount of slop. Yours sounds like some other issue to me.
Is your stick plugged into a hub or directly into your computer? That’s probably technically a hub too but slightly different. But USB hubs can introduce problems. I’ve also seen problems be fixed by plugging into other ports on the computer (on a different USB interface chip) and even moving other stuff on the same chip to a different one. No idea how robust the USB coms are. It’s pretty easy to design a bad circuit and write bad firmware.