I have their original MT-50, with a CM grip.
They have opened up for pre-orders, although it requires paying via a payment agency. I used it for the V.F.X. grip. Pretty straightforward.
Edit. Oh, you wrote VKB. Well, VPC are often out of stock as well, although they restock pretty often.
Ohhh. I may have it fixed!
It was starting to rain as I was heading out of the house for some errands so I thought that I would pick at the disassembled base a little and see if I could figure out how the Y Axis was attached and if I might be able to tighten it.
And look right here, below the rubber band that holds the 3 wires for the grip connection to the Y Axis ⊠a little hex key bolt thing. I wonder what that does.
Sure enough, tightening it removed the looseness from the Y axis (and the little bit of looseness in the X Axis)! I reassembled the base, reconnected it to my PC, re-calibrated and it seems like it may have fixed both the Y Axis looseness and the input that I was experiencing!
I will do some further testing later tonight to make sure that I am not adding any bias.
Sounds like itâs time for a tiny dab of LocTite!
Soon enough youâll be building your own joystick⊠
Pffft, in two weeks heâll have his own plane!
Doh! Same issue. This time I spent some time in X-Plane having to hold the stick left-of-center because this module/aircraft does not have aileron trim. After a couple of minutes, I tried moving the Y Axis and saw the same issue.
Note the little plateaus that should have been âsmoothâ Y Axis movement.
Time to secure those screwsâŠ
I would not expect this kind of issue with VKB or VPC bases honestly.
I had similar issue with my DIY base. Both X and Y axis were loose and slight movement of the stick wasnt translated into rotation of the bearings / magnets.
Once I disassembled it sure enought found many not tight screws which were proof of my silghtly not patient build.
So on point. On each screw I have spring washer to prevent the nuts from loosening.
Also self locking nuts could be good solution maybe.
The construction quality is, up to this point, pretty good. They have, admittedly, misplaced a number of locking washer (I think thatâs the ones that have a cut in them with a slight bend) in their grips but the base has them in most locations. This is one place where I am not sure a locking washer could fit. The hex key that was loose appears to be one of those âinsert in the holesâ ones where the screw head is part of the body and the âpointy endâ is meant to apply pressure to something. Hard to tell and I didnât disassemble it to that point.
You are correct however, in that I expected a little more (well, a little less) in the wear-and-tear department. I am still happy with the unit, and would recommend one to anyone asking, with the slight caveat that I have had to do some maintenance.
I am impressed with how much that can be fixed though. In a cheaper part, none of this would be likely.
If I read you correctly then I think you can still put there split lock / spring washer under the head of that hex screw. Usualy these washers are not bigger in diameter than the screw head I guess.
You just have to unscrew it all the way. Question is if you will disassemble it to that point 
Itâs hard to explain. A picture will help
I think that is what is making the Y Axis solid but I could be mistaken. I really donât want to disassemble the base down that far to check
EDIT: Apparently those are called âgrub screwsâ. I learn something new every day!
Ah that term makes sense. I was going to mention the more common term set screw (Set screw - Wikipedia) of which it appears the grub would be one variant.
Those little buggers are also usually why your faucet handle is loose (which usually match neither a metric or SAE hex key leading to much aggravation)!
Ah I see. Sure. This type of screws are used on bearings ( I use ) to hold in place anything going through the bearing. It is same in your case. That Y axis rod is held in place with the screw.
So I have to agree with above recommendation
Donât use the permanent Loctite (Red). It requires heat to be able to remove it and the temperature necessary would melt any plastic parts near the screw you were trying to remove.
Another option is self locking set screws. These have a nylon patch in the threads that make loosening them to remove them fairly easy but less prone to loosening due to normal use.
Edit:
No matter what you decide to use you should test it on something other than your joystick first. That way if it doesnât work the way you expect you wonât be wrecking your joystick instead of fixing it.
Wheels
I agree with @wheelsup_cavu . Caution is in place. If I think about it also patch of color on the thread can be used as kind of â lock '.
But sure also set screws should exist self locking
Bah! I am running into a black hole of tech support with VKB. I know that it is part of the risk when dealing with VKB and, according to posts on HOTAS sub-reddit, Virpil - both of whom are smaller companies.
It could be that there is nothing that they can do to fix the issue. Seeing as I have a Mk.1 Gunfighter, it may not be possible to replace the parts that need replacing without moving to the Mk.2 Gunfighter ⊠but then the 3 grips that I have (MCG Pro, Spacey One and my converted Thrustmaster Warthog (I am ignoring the WWII one because it is, really, pretty limited)). I canât (and donât) expect them to replace all of that. If thatâs true I just wish that they would say it.
It could be that it is summer vacation time and maybe they just are not in the office? Or understaffed? Or their tech support person is out sick? I donât know. It is the risk you run.
Luckily I ordered a Virpil T-50CM2 set two Mondays ago ⊠if only they would move the order out of âprocessingâ and into âshippedâ before their limited stock run out
Even simple nail polish can be used and removed just as easy as wellâŠ
Well my Virpil stick and base have shipped and are scheduled to arrive Tuesday (but I will be happy with any time next week).
And I am getting a bit closer to a resolution with VKB. The updated information on the issue is as follows.
Ron61 on the VKB forums recommended checking the âstopperâ (which is what I think that they call the hex grub screw in the base) and the metal disk. So, back to disassembling the base I go
I pulled everything apart and noted that the stopper grub screw was âlooseâ. I put that in quotes because it wasnât loose enough to be free spinning, but it was only slightly on the side of being anywhere near tight. It wouldnât be loose on itâs own but it only required minimal force to loosen.
Second task, after loosening the grub screw, was to tighten the metal disk. In the picture below you can see that the disk has been rotated clockwise slightly and the two black marks that I made no longer line up. I tightened the stopper grub screw again, reassembled the stick and went about my usualy testing routine.
This time the issue was less noticeable ⊠at least for a while. I was able to fight through the calibration and test it with the VKB Testing app and the âbumpâ was less noticeable. It did start to present itself again, so I put it into a position where it was repeating the problem and then carefully disassembled the stick (hoping to see if I could retain whatever was causing the issue). Take a look at the next picture and note the position of the two black ticks.
Closer together. Hmm. I checked the stopper grub screw and ⊠yeah, it is back to being just tight enough to seem fixed in place. It felt like it was back where it when when I started this testing iteration and it did not feel as tight as I had set it just prior to reassembly.
Instead of doing it all again, I tightened the stopper grub screw (and I will admit that I am hesitant to really crank it tight), put the KG12 (WWII) grip on and began moving the stick around the X and Y Axis. After about a minute I stopped and checked the position of the disk:
It has pretty obviously worked itself back to itâs previous position and, for those curious, the stopper grub screw was again not as tight as I had made it.
So it seems like the stopper grub screw is either not tight enough to hold the disk in place, or the interface between the two is not imparting the necessary friction to achieve the designed functionality. The stopper grub screw is also unable to hold itâs position and if I were to tighten it any more either the tine, thin hex key I have to use is going to bend, or the threads are going to strip.
Moving the stick just off to the side, like I have been doing in the testing seems to be putting just enough off-axis friction to pull the disk out of position. I have a feeling that in itâs normal resting position, the stick forces are straight and level against the disk but if I put a little side throw into it, I have a feeling that a little looseness in the stopper grub is allowing the axis friction mechanisms to come enough out of alignment to âforceâ a movement friction on the disk. Its hard to explain but if you were all here in person, I am pretty sure I could describe it on a white board
I am waiting to hear back from VKB. Knowing Murphys Law*, now that the Virpil stick has shipped, they will probably ship me a replacement part and I will end up with two very expensive flight sticks.
If you have learned anything from this it should be that itâs only prudent to have a back-up stickâŠ
Much better than having a stuck-up backâŠ
