Thrustmaster T.16000M Tester

Testing a T.16000M

The T.16000M FCS is a single USB joystick with 16 buttons, an 8-way hat switch, a twist for rudder and a throttle slider. Thrustmaster’s H.E.A.R.T. magnetic sensors on pitch and roll give it a resolution Thrustmaster puts at 16,000 × 16,000 values (Thrustmaster). The tester recognises it as USB id 044f:b10a and preselects the twist and throttle the way Chrome and Edge usually number them: twist on axis 5, throttle on axis 6, with the hat switch on axis 9.

What to check

• Centre check. Magnetic sensors don’t wear, so a healthy T.16000M rests very close to centre and the reading barely jitters. That makes the centre check a good way to spot a tired centring spring: the stick settles a little off and in a different place each time you let go. Run it two or three times.
• Range test. Push into every corner. All four directions should reach 100%.
• Twist and throttle. These are the axes to watch: run the axis smoothness test on each, slowly from end to end, and look for ringed spikes or jumps on the plot.
• Buttons and hat. Work through all 16 buttons and the 8 hat directions; each gets a mark when it registers.

With the TWCS throttle and rudder pedals

In the T.16000M FCS HOTAS the stick comes with the TWCS throttle, a separate USB device (044f:b687), and the set has 30 buttons and 2 hats in total by Thrustmaster’s count. The tester shows both devices, each with its own button grid and hat rose. The TWCS’s main lever and its rudder rocker are ordinary axes: use Find next to Throttle, then the axis smoothness test, to check them one by one.

How Chrome numbers the T.16000M's axes

These are the slots Chrome and Edge usually give it: they place each axis by its HID type on Windows and macOS, and the tester preselects them. Firefox on Windows uses the same slots; on Linux the numbers differ, so use the Find buttons there.

USB ids the tester recognises: 044f:b10a (Thrustmaster T.16000M), from the Linux kernel's device list and SDL.