Thanks, CFOSSA...being the inquistive type, and being an electronics engineer, I popped the back cover off to assess the damage. The first problem has to do with the somewhat "floating" circuit board that the external transmitter jack is attached to, which has two pin holes to align with corresponding posts molded into the controller housing. They are located at the top of the transmitter internally. One was not seated into its hole, which skewed the jack so that the included plug for an external transmitter could not align properly. The bottom of the circuit board simply rests on two rails (not secured) at the bottom of the transmitter housing, to make the circuit board assembly somewhat floating so the plug will align properly. This was an assembly error at the factory, the plug on my included cable would not fit the misaligned jack until I seated it properly.

Problem #2:

The throttle/rudder gimbal assembly had a center pivot alignment pin that was supposed to be equally divided between the upper and lower gimbal saddles. The pin was not centered between them allowing a very small segment of the pin to "try" to align the upper gimbal saddle hole. This was a result of improper assembly at the factory, which also explained why my rudder/throttle control stick was not centered in the gimbal. One of the saddles had not been "snapped" into its slot properly, allowing the misalignment, and causing the centering pin to "jump" out of its hole.

I'm happy to say my throttle/rudder gimbal/stick is perfectly centered/aligned now, and my Futaba external transmitter cord/plug will now fit the jack on the back of the interlink controller.

This wasn't a shipping issue, as the interlink controller was well packaged and cushioned, with no signs of trauma.

I still stand-by my assessment that this controller is cheaply manufactured and assembled...it has to be to be competitive. The problem is that QC at the factory should have caught this problem, but, I'm guessing that only a small "sampling" of controllers are completely tested in the QC department and many will, and do get out the door with problems.

Hope this helps if anyone else has problems with their interlink controller.

Charles