Question Could I ask for some help with my MS Sidewinder Force Feedback 2?

A year or 2 ago I unfortunatly spilt some coffee over my Sidewinder FFB 2 while it was plugged in, I immediatly plugged it out and did my best to dry it off etc.

Unfortunatly though, when I plugged it back in, the stick was stuck being pulled in one direction with the rumble motors stuck on, with a very heavy heart I put it back in it's box and left it in my cupboard until now.

It still does the same thing as before when I pulg it in, but I was wondering with all the advancement's made with opensource direct drive wheel's, if it would'nt perhaps be possible for me save the joystick and its FFB, even if that mean's replacing the PCB's with something like an Arduino + motor driver.

While I am no expert, I did take a look inside the joystick and as far as I can tell nothing looks burnt or broken, window's picks it up as it should and all the functions "work", it's just that the FFB is stuck on & pulling in one direction, so it's not dead dead, but it's such an epic joystick, I would love to save it if I can.

As mentioned I am no electronics expert, but I've messed around with some diy button box type stuff etc, so I think I can manage, I just need some guidance.

I have tried my best to find an answer on google, but was unable to find anyone who has done something similar to this, so I figured if anywhere this would be the best place to ask.

Thanks in advance for your help.

I'm happy to post a video of exactly what I described above, aswell as pictures of the PCB's.

Try cleaning out the pots or replacing them... sounds like the pots are sending erroneous signals to the motors making them think they need to be in a different position than they are. You can swap the x/y pot and see if the behavior follows the bad pot for a 'quick' test

MS did a great job with the brains of that stick as far as its ability to interpret DirectInput signals to command the motors and it's unlikely you're gonna beat them at their own game with your own controller. For a kickass project, the MS controller running bigger motors is an upgrade, but a new brain and the stock motors/gears is a waste of time imo.

Roland van Roy did an excellent breakdown on modding this stick and why it's a keeper http://simprojects.nl/ms_siderwinder_ff2_hack.htm

Currently I'm running a modded FFII that runs double the standard current by changing the resistance in the current sensing circuit and upping the power supply, though I've doubled the length of the shaft so it feels about the same but now with proper sailplane kinematics (roll axis coupled 50mm shorter than pitch) using my own gimbals and grip.



My next iteration will be 400% the torque running much bigger motors/belt drive. Both mods are derived from Roland's work. The controller is part of this stick that's the keeper though.

@mechsicko Thank you so much for your reply, I really do appreciate it.

I stripped the joystick, I havent swapped the pots yet as it looks like that would require me to take apart the gimbal, but I will be doing that next.

While, I was dissasembling, I tested by unplugging each of the component's and noticed the following.

It seems that it is only 1 of the motors that is causing the issue, perhaps confirming your thought's about the pots? What I did notice aswell though was that the pot's seem really well sealed.

I did'nt know that there was an IR beam in the handle, which is discussed on the website you linked, Thanks again , when I break the IR beam however the rumble seem's to stop, however the motor keeps pulling in the same direction. So it seems to be doing the opposite of what it should.

With the motor's unplugged from the PCB, there is no issue with calibration, all button's work, throttle & "rudder" as well as the joystick picking up its full range of motion.

With the motor's plugged in the main "brain" PCB gets very hot, very quickly. I think because of the motor being stuck on full, but could it be maybe that the PSU is gone and so it's trying to draw all the current through the USB?

I'm not 100% sure how the internals of motors work, but could it perhap's be one of the motors be causing this? Maybe something shorting internally, which could be fixed by swapping the motors out?

And then lastly is it possilbe that the firmware maybe got corrupted by a short somehow when I spilt the coffee?

Again thank's so much for your help, I'm going through the website you linked & have decided to make a project out of it.

So I looked at the bottom of the PCB again after noticing it get so hot and I think I found the problem. There's a "trace"? labled R54 which seems to be blown / lifted on my PCB which I had not noticed before.

It's very small, but I am going to attempt to replace it if I can find the part locally.

You're quite welcome, good eye and likely the blown resistor (R is a resister designation, C is capacitor D for diode) is the problem though it's still possible one or both the pots got some coffee in them... a single drop at the base of the shaft would be enough for it to capillary wick through the opening and corrode the internals.

As to the resister, I'm not sure what value R54 is but if it's one of the tiny 1RO (1.0 ohm SMD type) resisters like from the current sensing circuit I have a bunch of extra and would be happy to send you a few... at the size of a grain of rice they'd only cost a stamp to get there but I had to buy like 100 of them to get the few I needed for my mod.

If you need, I can look to see what the value of R54 is supposed to be, usually when they let the magic smoke out the designation gets burned off and I can't quite make out the numbers in the pics on Roland's site though can see it's position on the board.

@noorbeast, thanks for the kind words and I'd be glad to make a proper post about my current mod, as well as the steroid version that will replace it