CH Products Flight Sim Yoke and Pedals

[jonmac807]

I have used the Ch Products Flight Sim Yode and pedals for nearly a year with no problems. Just plugged them into the USB ports and they worked perfectly. All of a sudden things changed about three weeks ago for no apparent reason. Pedals slew wildly to the right was fixed by using the CH Products calibrate software = CH Manager. Still another problem is that the quadrant on the yoke has developed a mind of its own. The three slides have changed their function and I cant calibrate again. I am flying FS 2004 and when I go to the Control assignments, the FS Yoke is not seen. Windows XP Pro with SR3 sees it no problem. Mixture control becomes maifold pressure, the centre slide causes a banking action, and the left slide controls Prop rpm.

I have the FS 2004 patch installed (FS9.1) and did a complete clean reinstall of FS2004. I am using the No CD patch.

Would appreciate some thoughts from others using the yoke and pedals before I go back to CH products.

Cheers

John

[HardCorePawn]

Have you recently:

1. Added a USB hub and are now plugging the controls into the hub?
2. Changed/swapped which USB port you plug each control into?
3. Added in FSUIPC (or played with the joystick calibration in FSUIPC?

Firstly, contrary to popular believe, not all USB ports are created equal... aside from (sometimes large) differences in current, each USB port will often install it's own 'copy' of a device... like my USB to parallel cable for my printer... it installs a seperate copy of the printer driver if I plug it in a new port!

As for FSUIPC, this might be remapping your controls and conflicting with the Windows/FS9 setup... my advice would be to ditch the CH Manager, disable the joysticks in FS9 and use (a registered copy) of FSUIPC to setup your controllers... its a bit fiddlier, but the payoff is a much better overall experience, as you can customise the buttons/axes for each aircraft... which is a real bonus if you fly several different types... (you can even fake reverser's using the yoke quadrant... but you need to make your own 'detents')

Also, have you tried unplugging the devices and leaving them out for 10 or 20 seconds and plugging them back in... or even unplugging them and turning your PC off... and then on again (not a restart... a complete shutdown)... sometimes USB ports get a little 'weird'

[jonmac807]

Funnily enough I had been using a USB hub for the yoke but took it out when the problem arose. It was an unpowered device so my first thought was just that.

I had not swapped USB ports until the problem arose. The yoke and pedals were connected permanently for over 5 months

Yes. I did disconnect all items from the USB ports and restart the computer with nothing connected then shut it down again and replugged on the yoke and pedals. No printer, or web cam.

Have managed to get things going again but cant get FS to remember the mapping for controls on the yoke. Holds it for the session then as soon as I close FS down it looses it! Bloody annoying!!! Ch Products Manager was suggested to me however when I looked it up and spoke with Peter in Napier there seems to be two very definite schools of thought on it uses. Some swear by it while others have nothing good to say about it.

Dont know about FSUIPC. Will look it up on the net when I get a spare moment.

BTW I have a copy of FSX but this computer wont run it - need to upgrade sooner rather than later I suspect - so have stuck with FS2004 in the meantime.

Thanks for your input. Really appreciated.

QUOTE (jonmac807 @ Jun 7 2008, 03:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have used the Ch Products Flight Sim Yode and pedals for nearly a year with no problems. Just plugged them into the USB ports and they worked perfectly. All of a sudden things changed about three weeks ago for no apparent reason. Pedals slew wildly to the right was fixed by using the CH Products calibrate software = CH Manager. Still another problem is that the quadrant on the yoke has developed a mind of its own. The three slides have changed their function and I cant calibrate again. I am flying FS 2004 and when I go to the Control assignments, the FS Yoke is not seen. Windows XP Pro with SR3 sees it no problem. Mixture control becomes maifold pressure, the centre slide causes a banking action, and the left slide controls Prop rpm.

I have the FS 2004 patch installed (FS9.1) and did a complete clean reinstall of FS2004. I am using the No CD patch.

Would appreciate some thoughts from others using the yoke and pedals before I go back to CH products.

Cheers

John

[HardCorePawn]

Hmmm sounds like it is not saving the settings to your fs9.cfg file properly... you might want to setup your controls, and then (with FS9 still running) save a copy of the cfg file... so if it does get lost, you can just copy it back in

and yes, there are definitely 2 camps when it comes to CH Manager... The "don't use it" camp, and the wrong camp... Seriously tho, it is not so much an issue of which one is best... but which one works for you...

what I do know, is that if you try to use FS, CH Manager and the joystick calibration features of FSUIPC you will come unstuck... they'll all start fighting each other and 'really weird s**t'™ will happen!

[jonmac807]

Oh the joys of computers and games!!!

QUOTE (HardCorePawn @ Jun 9 2008, 09:12 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hmmm sounds like it is not saving the settings to your fs9.cfg file properly... you might want to setup your controls, and then (with FS9 still running) save a copy of the cfg file... so if it does get lost, you can just copy it back in

and yes, there are definitely 2 camps when it comes to CH Manager... The "don't use it" camp, and the wrong camp... Seriously tho, it is not so much an issue of which one is best... but which one works for you...

what I do know, is that if you try to use FS, CH Manager and the joystick calibration features of FSUIPC you will come unstuck... they'll all start fighting each other and 'really weird s**t'™ will happen!