Noticed that the joystick for my legacy PC was getting just a bit too loose moving back and forth, with a loose trigger button as well. I opted to open up my Gravis Blackhawk Digital Joystick and see if I could fix such problems. Hell the damn thing must be around 27 years old...and is more mechanical than electronic. Where some very basic parts are bound to wear out with time and use.
Seems all of them have a similar design and engineering with four distinct springs for the horizontal and vertical movement referred to as "drift". I took the springs out and stretched them, plus I added a felt a felt pad to compress each spring a bit more to make the feel of the joystick more stiff as it was brand new.
Also found that the joystick itself was getting a bit loose, so I used electric tape as a sort of "spacer" to fill in gaps that were creating excess movement. (A good joystick won't have so much play in it.)
Lastly the trigger button was loose, with too much lateral slack. It worked fine, but was becoming noisy. For this I simply used some very small plastic tubing, sliced off two very thin pieces and used them each as a washer to place on both sides of trigger button that allow it to swivel. Now it still moves as it should, but with no noise or excess movement at all. Success!
Not quite like "new" again, but it all worked to make it function much better than it had gotten over the years. Good for me, given there are fewer and fewer new joysticks out there that work for very old operating systems like Windows 98SE and Windows XP. And IMO they aren't the sort of thing you really want to buy used unless you are desperate.
The trick? If anything just make sure you take a long look at how "Humpty Dumpty" is put together BEFORE you start disassembling what are a few loose, moving parts inside. Certainly more complex than an old mechanical mouse.
Seems all of them have a similar design and engineering with four distinct springs for the horizontal and vertical movement referred to as "drift". I took the springs out and stretched them, plus I added a felt a felt pad to compress each spring a bit more to make the feel of the joystick more stiff as it was brand new.
Also found that the joystick itself was getting a bit loose, so I used electric tape as a sort of "spacer" to fill in gaps that were creating excess movement. (A good joystick won't have so much play in it.)
Lastly the trigger button was loose, with too much lateral slack. It worked fine, but was becoming noisy. For this I simply used some very small plastic tubing, sliced off two very thin pieces and used them each as a washer to place on both sides of trigger button that allow it to swivel. Now it still moves as it should, but with no noise or excess movement at all. Success!
Not quite like "new" again, but it all worked to make it function much better than it had gotten over the years. Good for me, given there are fewer and fewer new joysticks out there that work for very old operating systems like Windows 98SE and Windows XP. And IMO they aren't the sort of thing you really want to buy used unless you are desperate.
The trick? If anything just make sure you take a long look at how "Humpty Dumpty" is put together BEFORE you start disassembling what are a few loose, moving parts inside. Certainly more complex than an old mechanical mouse.
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