Logitech Extreme 3D Pro

I am currently on my 2nd of these joysticks, and I would not be on the 2nd except that it was a Christmas present. There are hundreds if not thousands of posts on the internet talking about a host of problems with this product. Knowing a bit about electronics I took mine apart to see if I could figure out what was causing them.

First: The Rheostats used in the joystick are so cheap you buy them by the pound. This means they are highly inaccurate and prone to dropouts (or infinity resistances). What this means to the end user is calibration problems, or joysticks that will not stay calibrated as the resistance just went outside the learned range.

Second: The Joystick has a reported problem of the 'twist' or 'rudder' not working after a while. This is the result of a design flaw in the rheostat assembly that allows a section of it to break off. Once broken you can forget any type of glue to fix it as it is hopeless. Recalibrate it, live with the limit, or throw it away.

Third: Replacing the Rheostats with good quality products is impossible, or mostly so. They are molded into the assemblies and there is not enough there to even work with on replacing them.

Overall View: Total trash, spend half the money on a no-named stick, that will live just as long, and consider your money well spent.

I love this joystick and yes I suffer from the calibration issues as well.

I think I have a solution for everyone. Just play around with it. If it doesn't automatically recalibrate with the first few times of un-plugging and plugging it back in then...

try yawing it to the right just a little bit to "trick" the calibration while simultaneously plugging it in....

A few times of trying this and you'll be able to get the z-axis almost to the center. However, you will often notice that sometimes the z-axis (rudder) will jump all the way to the left when you plug in the joystick with very little effort. I've found that when this happens the calibration sensor has "kicked-in". Simply un-plug and plug it back in to check and see if it sets the proper calibration on its own (no yawing involved.)

Note, you have to have the windows game controller window open to see if the axis is centered or not. Most of you should know what I'm talking about. In addition, I never install / don't need to use the default logitech software for the joystick.

I've had this joystick approaching for 2 years now and so far this trick has always worked. So what if I have to play with it a little bit, the springs and feel of the joystick is still great despite some calibration issues compared to many of the other joysticks I've used, the majority of which have low durability as well.