Info on repairing/overhauling 3d Pro?

[Avder]

So I recently pulled the ol' 3d Pro and USB adapter out to start playing some descent again, and I've noticed that it's really getting up there in age. I'm honestly surprised the trigger button still registers considering how little physical feedback I get from it. The whole stick is very very slack as well resulting in my having to adjust the deadzone settings upward a lot higher than I would like in D1-D3. A couple of the base buttons flat out do not work anymore. And the throttle is very sloppy.

So what I was wondering was if anyone still had the links to the old 3d pro repair web pages so I could see about replacing some of the triggers and working the slop out of it. Or failing that, if anyone would be interested in overhauling it for a fee.

[flip]

http://home.utah.edu/~dlg7/sidewinder/repair.html

[Avder]

Thanks. I'll be performing all those stems sometime here in the next few days.

Would really like to replace all the buttons tho. But the link to the manufacturer does not work anymore. Any idea if those switches are still made?

[flip]

The switches used are Omron 150g actuation tactile jobs. They are available from Digi-Key.

The ones for the hat are Digi-Key part number SW408-ND (Omron # B3F3122) and are $0.36 each (4 required).

The switches for the stick buttons other than the trigger are Digi-Key part number SW401-ND (Omron # B3F1002) and are $0.26 each (3 required).

The trigger switch is Digi-Key part number SW426-ND (Omron B3M6009) and are $0.71 each (1 required).

I put 300g switches for the hat and side buttons but i think for the hat it was a bad idea. Use the heavier duty switches for the 2 side buttons but the 150's for the hat.

[Grendel]

Lower force (100g) switches will last longer and give you hairline sensitivity.

Note that even when sloppy, the stick will track accurately.

[Avder]

Lower force (100g) switches will last longer and give you hairline sensitivity.

Note that even when sloppy, the stick will track accurately.

Yep. This is why I've had to increase my deadzone settings to compensate for slop.

What about the base buttons? Which ones are those?

[Foil]

Why would you increase deadzone to compensate for sloppiness?

[Krom]

Slop in the center spring, the joystick won't properly center itself so you have to increase the deadzone to compensate or you will drift all over the place. I have a couple precision pros that do it too, if I ever get back into playing I would probably have find a way to tighten them up again since even my best one was starting to loosen up a bit.

[Foil]

Interesting. I must be in the minority, as I don't want the centering force to be too strong and I don't mind trading a little drift for extra fine control. I actually like my 3DPro nice and "broken in".

[Avder]

The whole point of me fixing the slop is so I can use that extra fine control again.

[Foil]

...But increasing your deadzone reduces your fine control, so I don't follow.

[Krom]

There is a big difference between having a soft or broken in centering force and having no centering force at all in a significant portion of the stick.

[Foil]

Whether the centering force is fully broken or just weak ("sloppy"), increasing deadzone helps with centering... but it still counteracts fine control near the center, simply by definition.

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Interestingly enough, one of the better Descent players I've played in-person preferred to use a stick with no centering force at all (a force-feedback Precision Pro without power). He used zero deadzone, centered the stick by "feel", and was pretty darn accurate.

[Krom]

Yeah, once you are used to it you can get pretty close even without a centering spring helping, I never increased the dead zone myself but a newer stick with a tight centering spring was definitely more comfortable than older ones with a lot of slop. There is a minimum hard coded dead zone in the stick which was almost always good enough for me, the only time I'd drift was when I was typing a message in-game and had my hand off the stick.

Generally I used a stick until it was completely beyond repair (which took a very long time since I bought a supply of spare switches) and then I'd cannibalize them for spare parts.

[Avder]

Whether the centering force is fully broken or just weak ("sloppy"), increasing deadzone helps with centering... but it still counteracts fine control near the center, simply by definition.

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Interestingly enough, one of the better Descent players I've played in-person preferred to use a stick with no centering force at all (a force-feedback Precision Pro without power). He used zero deadzone, centered the stick by "feel", and was pretty darn accurate.

yes increasing the deadzone does work against the ability to use precision control closer to the physical center of the stick, but because of the way I use the stick I would have to completely re-accustom myself to holding the stick manually center on the three axes when I want to hold still. I could do that a couple of years ago when the slack was not as much as it is now and holding the stick center just meant giving it a very light touch in one direction, but at this point the slack has gotten so great that I felt it would just be simpler to sacrifice some of that precision control for the sake of not having to put so much effort into keeping the stick manually centered.

Once I get around to installing a washer that removes all the slack, I will have fixed the problem at its source and I'll have the best of both worlds again.

[Grendel]

The 3DPro doesn't have any deadzone on its own. D3 applies one that you can get rid of via the -deadzone parameters plus a .ctl profile.