Silicone grease of rather thick consistency (NLGI class 2), provides both lubrication (preventing fast weardown) and mechanical dampening (lowering mechanical snapback enough that the remainder is easy to eliminate with the PhobGCC stick filters).
Two types are available:
• Liqui-Moly silicone grease: comes in a syringe with an extra short 1.5 mm inner diameter / 1.8 mm outer diameter tip that makes application take very little force, as well as a small silicone cap to prevent leakage. Each syringe contains 5.0 ml of silicone grease, which is enough for around 200 stickboxes. Consistency: 265-295 milled penetration (noticeably more viscuous than Molykote 44 Light, which has 290-330 – the higher the number, the easier it flows)
Made in Germany, product link: Liqui-Moly Silicone Grease
• Molykote 44 Medium silicone grease: comes in a syringe with a long 0.84 mm inner diameter / 1.27 mm outer diameter tip that requires a bit more force, but is easier to dose sparingly. It comes with a hard plastic cap to prevent leakage. Each syringe contains 5.0 ml of silicone grease, which is enough for around 200 stickboxes. Consistency: 240-280 milled penetration (noticeably more viscuous than Molykote 44 Light, which has 290-330 – the higher the number, the easier it flows)
While these greases can also be used with stickboxes on OEM controllers, they need to be applied very sparingly, as applying too much will make it creep into the stick potentiometers over time, messing up stick inputs.
On PhobGCC, no stick potentiometers are used, and should the grease creep up to the magnet holders or magnets, that doesn't cause any problems – assuming that you've properly glued the magnets to the magnet holders as well as the magnet holders to the stickbox rails, as instructed in the PhobGCC build guide.
Especially when using older controllers (2008 JP white or earlier) as the base for your PhobGCC build, I highly recommend lubricating your stickbox with this stick grease after deep-cleaning it (full disassembly and washing in a sink with warm water and dish soap).
In my experience, the software snapback filters on PhobGCC aren't always strong enough to fully get rid of snapback at level 8 when using thinner grease (such as Molykote 44 Light), but level 9 is usually far too strong and causes the stick's return to neutral to be a bit delayed. Applying a bit more of a thicker grease (both types sold here are thick enough) usually helps dampening mechanical snapback enough that levels 6-8 are enough to filter out the remaining snapback, at least when applying at all the intersections of the moving parts and also adding a bit to the insides of the top rails where the stickbox shaft slides along.
