Cougar repair

The replacement antenna potentiometer for my Cougar joystick arrived after about two weeks from the dispatch from Thrustmaster support in Canada. The replacement of the existing faulty antenna pot was pretty straightforward.

Undo the side plate of the throttle:

Undo the screws holding the throttle handle to the arm:

Undo the screws hold the two halves of the throttle handle, one (the one nearest the antenna dial) is twice as long as the others.

The dials come pull off the potentiometers easily, you have to remove both the antenna and range dials.

Two split halves reveal the potentiometer that had to be replaced (top left corner).

The range pot has to be removed in order to get the antenna pot out, this doesn't require unsoldering that pot. There was quite a bit of glue in the throttle to hold cables in place that was easily removed. Then I just pulled out and unsoldered the existing faulty antenna pot and put in the new one and reassembled the throttle.

Getting the cables in the throttle handle is a bit fiddly to ensure a cable isn't pinched by the screws or joints. All good, a fully functional throttle again. Bloody excellent.

Thrustmaster Support

One of the potentiometers on my Thrustmaster Cougar joystick is broken. I have been able to organise a replacement through Thrustmaster support surprisingly easily despite being out of warranty. This is how I did it. I registered with the Thrustmaster support site at:

http://ts.thrustmaster.com/eng/index.php?pg=email

I then submitted a support request indicating the problem and I supplied the part number I need. Here is a document that lists the available spares for the Cougar, the first column is the Thrustmaster part number.

Within a couple of hours they responded with this:

Thank you for your request. In order to resolve the issue you have encountered with your Hotas Cougar, please refer to our response herewith:


Spare part ordered: antenna potentiometer
Total price (shipping fees included): 8 US Dollars
Payment possibilities: money order, cash or Paypal.
Our address (for money order or cash):

Guillemot Inc.
C/o Technical Support
5800 St-Denis
Suite 1001
Montreal, Qc.
Canada H2S 3L5


For Paypal: [email protected] (DO NOT WRITE TO THIS ADDRESS, THAT IS ONLY FOR PAYMENTS FROM WWW.PAYPAL.COM).


After payment you will receive the part.

**** When you pay please note the following SPARE PART NUMBER: XXXXXXXXXXXX (VERY IMPORTANT TO NOTE THIS SPARE PART NUMBER PLEASE).

I had no problem paying by Pay Pal and I received another email within a day indicating that the part had been shipped. The part arrived in the post in two weeks. Great support.

Cougar U2Nxt

I've previously grumbled about the problems with the Thrustmaster Cougar joystick. I managed to get IJs U2Nxt gimbals mod and Cubbys HS2+ hall sensors for my Cougar, this is how it went.

The U2Nxt is a replacement for the gimbals that translate movement of the stick into turns of potentiometers. The HS2+ hall sensors replace the existing potentiometers with hall sensors. Potentiometers rely on resistance and involve friction and so eventually wear out or produce inaccurate readings (spikes). Hall sensors are contact-less and use magnetism and should last a very long time and produce consistent readings.

The old gimbals and the U2Nxt with hall sensors

Ordering

IJ was great to deal with and had my gimbals to me two days after I ordered them. The gimbals are exceptionally well designed, the construction quality and attention to detail is absolutely incredible. They are a work of art and I just looked at the gimbals admiring their form and finish for some time! My gimbals were supplied with a CD containing detailed instructions with photos, a spare spring and all the nuts, bolts, spring washers and washers needed including a small simple spanner to fit the hall sensors. The springs needed are pre-attached to the gimbals and IJ sells spares. All up amazing work by IJ and total satisfaction.

Cubby had issues with Internet access at the time I ordered and took a few days to respond. I received the hall sensors from the US about three weeks after my first email to him. The kit consisted of two hall sensors with wires attached, hardcopy instructions and cable splicers to join cables. It also contained a 3 mm hex (Allen) key and some new screws not intended for the hall sensors but for the joystick handle, more on this later.

I also ordered a U2Nxt identification plate from Red Dog. He was great to deal with even after I stuffed up by paying in Aussie dollars and then making up the difference in a second payment of US dollars. He posted the plate within a day and I had the plate from Belgium in about a week. He included a instruction sheet for removing the existing label.

De-construction

Pulling apart the Cougar following IJs instructions was pretty straight forward. It took about an hour to get it apart and pull out the old gimbals. You just need a phillips head screwdriver, needle nose pliers and a 2.5mm hex key. I was a little worried about either stripping the thread of the screws or damaging the circuit board, but it went fine. The biggest pain was the eight hex screws around the top of the joystick base. Mine had white gunky thread locking stuff on them that made them very difficult to remove. At the end of the disassembly there is a tiny spring clip that is a little tricky to remove and very easy to lose.

Installation of the U2Nxt

I found the installation of the U2Nxt a little fiddly. I had to file the base of the stick to fit the U2Nxt as per IJs instructions and I had some inital problems aligning the hall sensors until I realised my thumb was turning the pot end as I held it.

I then made my only stuff up. I cut the existing plugs off the existing potentiometer leads way too short (about 1 cm) having not read Cubbys instructions to leave several centimeters. This in itself wasn't a problem if I had soldered the leads. But I used the spicers supplied with the kit and they need a centimeter of lead to stick into them. I used the splicers to join the existing plug cable the the hall sensor cable and despite making sure the cable was in the spicer all the way before crimping and not stripping away the sheath it didn't hold the very thin hall sensor wire. That is I crimped the slicer and the hall sensor wire pulled right out. This happened to three different cables leaving me short spicers and forcing me to cut off the bad spicers now attached to the plug leads losing already limited cabling on the plug wire making it very, very short.

Wish I hadn't used the splicers

I soldered the remaining wires together and honestly, while I understand Cubby has provided splicers to make it easy so you don't have to solder, I wish I hadn't bothered with the splicers myself. I should have soldered all the wires as the splicers look very messy and hacked on. I was careful when soldering the wires to use pliers to provide a heat sink on the hall sensor end of the joint as Cubbys instructions warn the hall sensors are easy damaged by heat from soldering.

My U2Nxt installed. Messy splicer wiring hidden by circuit board

Reassembly of the stick with the U2Nxt was straightforward following IJs instructions. IJ has provided a very clever mechanism to adjust the centring of the stick using a hex key to ensure it stands upright after the U2Nxt is installed. IJ supplied eight new hex bolts, they were silver unlike the black originals. I think the silver looks a lot better than the originals.

Calibration and testing

The initial feel of the joystick was very good, noticably much better than the stock gimbals. I then reflashed the stick successfully only to have the joystick disappear from Windows which was a bit disconcerting. But a PC reboot fixed that. I was then a little alarmed that the minimum and maximum amount of deflection of the stick reported in Cougar Control Panel was very small, also the X and Y axes were reversed (ie left=right, up=down).

Inital problem with lack of deflection of the X and Y axes.

That was fixed by reversing the axes and altering the axis shaping in the Cougar Control Panel.

Cougar Control Panel Axis Shaping.

Then it was ready to go and it got it's first go in Falcon4:Red Viper. I've only had about ten minutes so far. It feels very good, still getting used to it.

Sexy!

I then found I had a Cougar problem I hadn't heard of before called the clunky stick. This is the problem that Cubby addresses with the extra screws that he helpfully includes in his HS2+ hall sensors kit and is described on this site. There is also a mention of the problem and a different fix in the U2Nxt instructions. Basically a loose fit of the handle causes the occasional clunk. I haven't yet tried the fixes, at the moment I just want to try out the stick and the fixes are destructive in that they permanently rethread the screw holes.

Took about two hours to install the mod and some mucking around in Windows after that.

I'm really happy I got the mod, and it is a relief - I wasn't very comfortable spending lots of money on it and there is a fair bit of risk involved - getting the components and putting them in successfully. It is an expensive mod and if you've seen my dodgey DIY rudder pedals you'd know I don't like spending money. But it was either mod my Cougar or get rid of it completely. Out of the box with the centre play of the poorly constructed original gimbals my Cougar was complete rubbish and a huge disappointment. The mod has fixed that problem providing a smooth and good feeling stick. There are still some niggles with the buttons and rotary dials and the feel of the throttle, but at least the major problem is fixed and I can use it without complete frustration.

Looking back I'm not sure I would go through this again. I definately wouldn't recommend buying a Cougar with the problems it has out of the box - unless you plan and are able to mod it and are willing to accept a lot of risk that your investment might not work out. I reckon you are better off using Saitek if you want an inexpensive, good value stick or CH Products if you want higher quality.

But with the U2Nxt mod, the Cougar is a completely awesome HOTAS.

Joysticks

At the risk of appearing as though I'm showing off my toys I'm going to talk about my joysticks.

I've owned the following joysticks:

• CH Products Flightstick



• Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro



• Saitek X-36 gameport HOTAS (hands on throttle and stick)



• Saitek X-52 HOTAS



• Thrustmaster Cougar HOTAS

The CH Flightstick was easily the smoothest, most accurate and best quality controller I've ever owned. It took an absolute hammering in space sims including X-Wing and worked faultlessly for a very long time. I stopped using it when I needed a joystick with a POV (point of view) hat. Years later when I was using the Saitek X-36 I pinched a potentiometer out of the FlightStick to keep the X-36 going after a X-36 potentiometer wore out.

The Sidewinder Pro offered a twist handle for rudder control and a POV hat. Aside from flight sims it also saw a lot of use playing Mechwarrior providing an easy way to rotate the mechs cabin. I found it and the twist rudder useful much later for flying the helicopters in Battlefield 2. I ended up butchering it for parts including using the gameport cable for home made rudder pedals.

My first HOTAS, the Saitek X-36 gameport (not USB) was great value, looked reasonably realistic but very quickly wore out. Also it used a AT keyboard pass through arrangement and was unable to be used reliably with newer PS2 motherboards or versions of Windows beyond Windows 98. It became obsolete as Saitek dropped support for it. But incredibly, I've since found third party drivers created by Alfredo Costalogo to run the X-36 gameport under Windows 2000, XP and Vista including 64 bit! You can find Alfredo Costalogos website at http://x36driver.byethost13.com/. He has some developers docs on the X-36 as well. I still have my X-36, but I haven't tried any of his drivers myself yet.

The Thrustmaster Couger I'd read a lot about. People talked about the incredible metal controller with the powerful Foxy software. The first and only time I saw it for sale in a shop was in a Hardly Normal store in Brisbane and they were asking an insane $650 (AUD) for it. On Ebay even the second hand ones seemed to go for $400+. Way too expensive, so I settled on a Saitek X-52 choosing that over the CH HOTAS because I couldn't get "hands-on" locally with the CH HOTAS before buying it and it was both more expensive outright and required delivery charges.

The Saitek X-52 was a good value controller that was incredibly easy to setup. With the exception of a dodgy Microsoft Windows update that caused problems it was all smooth sailing. The whole spacey silver with LEDs look didn't grab me at first, but playing with the lights turned down became cool. It was very easy to program and responsive, if a little too soft. I modded the stick by putting in a spacer to compress the spring to make the stick stiffer. You have to be careful though because if you compress the spring too much you might wear the base of the stick. I didn't mod the hall sensor magnets as others have done (Lockon.Ru Forums) to improve its input characteristics.

Compressing the X-52 springs

It was only when I saw an Aussie post on a Frugalsworld forum about buying a Thrustmaster Cougar directly from the US I looked at it again. I bought mine from Provantage and including freight it was a lot cheaper. I was also graduating from uni soon and that gave me an excuse to buy one. So after selling a whole lot of my old crap on Ebay including my treasured but not recently used eighteen year old Hewlett Packard 42S RPN calculator I had the money and placed an order. A week and a half later it arrived. Shortly after that I received an unexpected additional bill from the courier company for $50 (AUD) for "Australian quarantine fees" - I guess that customs must have thought it had a raccoon in it or something.

What is a Thrustmaster Cougar like? Well it is the most user-hostile computer peripheral I have ever experienced in all my time computing. I've used a lot of stuff so that is really saying something. It just isn't for people without a lot of commitment and perseverance. Many people get them broken out of the box, with a large batch missing the grease inside that is absolutely necessary to stop the poor quality metal insides (the "gimbals") quickly turning into a pile of metal shavings. (The gimbals are the part inside the base of the joystick that translate the joystick movement into the turns of a potentiometer). So first thing you have to do is pull it apart and check and possibly grease it. There can be an issue with the speedbrake that you have to check and fix before it breaks and some have an issue with the antenna knob potentiometer spiking. My Cougar antenna rotary dial has a large dead zone, that is movement at the end of the turn of the knob that doesn't provide input. The throttle has an incredibly loud annoying clicking indents that to remove requires you to disassemble and mod the throttle. The throttle intents are (I've read) in the wrong place anyway. The stick itself is incredibly stiff out of the box because of the rubber boot around the bottom of the joystick and the resistance springs, you can end up with a sore arm after a long session using it. The pinky toggle lacks feedback and feels a little weak like it could break at any time, but I haven't seen reports of this happening - it just feels a little flimsy. And the red button on the top of the stick doesn't feel very good - not providing effective tactile feedback that you've pressed it correctly.

And that is before you even install the software, plug it in and update the firmware. Once it has installed the eight devices in your computer you then have a very elaborate calibration to go through. You can chose to let the device auto-calibrate if you don't have issues with your rotary knobs. If you bork a step in the manual calibration you have to start right from the beginning. You've then got a calibrated Windows joystick. To use the programming capabilities you use Foxy which is completely intimidating. Here is some sample Foxy button code from Jastangs Falcon 4 Profile:

BTN H1U /I /H KU(X3) Trim_Nose_Down
/O /P KD(X1) DLY(100) KU(X1) /R Glance_Fwd_Rel
BTN H1D /I /P /H KU(X3) Trim_Nose_Up /R KD(X47) DLY(60) KU(X47)
/O /P KD(X20) DLY(100) KU(X20) /R Glance_Back_Rel
BTN H1L /I /H KU(X3) Trim_Roll_Left
/O KD(X23) DLY(100) KU(X23)
BTN H1R /I /H KU(X3) Trim_Roll_Right
/O KD(X24) DLY(100) KU(X24))

Even if you use an existing profile the setup is very involved. For example, take a look at the no less than twenty eight steps in setting up Jastangs Falcon 4 profile. And you will probably find things in the profile you need to change anyway requiring you to mod the profile code.

I knew that the Cougar wasn't for the faint hearted and was prepared to do the reading and learn Foxy. The one thing that I wasn't prepared for was the slop around the centre position of the joystick. I can't even begin to describe how much the centre play completely pisses me off. It totally detracts from the stick making it feel cheap which it is certainly not. It is completely unforgivable that a stick this expensive has this much centre play. If you've come from CH products you'd be astounded that it got past QA and left the factory in this condition. I found the cause on my stick is the poor fit of the stem of the base of the joystick into the gimbals. It has about 1.5 mm mismatch in the gimbals which doesn't sound like much but that translates to 6 mm of centre play at the top of the stick. By centre play I mean movement of the stick that doesn't translate into movement of your plane, it also feels very loose and sloppy. There is a document available in a zip file on the Cougarworld website (7 MB) that describes the three types of axis play you can experience with the Cougar.

To fix these issues people mod the Cougar either adjusting the existing gimbals or more commonly with complete replacements for the gimbals. The replacements the Uber II Nxt replacement gimbals and the hall sensors it requires or the RealSimulator force sensing kits are expensive and are DIY. The list of fixes and mods for the Cougar can be viewed on the Cougarworld site at Frugalsworld.

The Uber NXT II Gimbals
(image from FrugalsWorld)

So you are probably thinking - what a bloody whiner, send the frigging Cougar to me you unappreciative spoilt git! Well, the thing about the Cougar is the hype that surrounds it and the cost builds up expectations that are probably unrealistic. But even with its problems looking at it and Foxy you know that the designers have tried to give you the most powerful and amazing HOTAS they could. It just falls short of this goal because of the poor "made in China" build quality, poor quality control, poor quality metal for the gimbals and use of potentiometers (albeit high sensitivity pots) that eventually will wear out. But despite these problems the HOTAS just screams at you to fix it and realise its potential. So I'm sticking with it and trying to work out how the hell I can possibly afford a Uber II Nxt mod and get one while they are still available. The most realistic scenario is I'll have try to fix the sloppiness myself by mucking around with the gap in the gimbals. I'm a little pissed I sold my HP 42S for it, but at least I didn't pay the ridiculous price I first saw for Cougars in Australia and I've still got my Saitek X-52 if it all goes pear shaped.