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Bravo Throttle recalibration


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Hi, just wondering if it is possible to recalibrate the throttle axis of the Bravo?

 

I ran through the Windows controller recalibration but could not get it to sort the issue I am having.

 

Basically axis 4 seems to require a slightly higher lift before registering it has moved on the axis.  The max thrust values seem the same though.

 

The result of this is that even with axis 3 and 4 level the throttles are uneven in the sim by a few percent.  I didn't notice this (aside from my wonky landings) until calibrating for the CRJ which gives the raw values so I think that explains why I almost always drift to the right on landing.  

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Aircraft without a FADEC can work exactly the same way, though it this due to the engines rather than a flight sim controller, so for such aircraft it's fairly realistic. But to answer your question, no, there is no calibration software or procedure (other than Windows). 

 

 

 

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Thanks Dave, interesting that it is a problem in real planes too.  I have managed to configure axis 3 and 5 to work together well now, although they still don't match up perfectly the engines remain closely in sync.  

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3 hours ago, chili said:

Thanks Dave, interesting that it is a problem in real planes too.

 

Yeah, so long as the aircraft doesn't have  FADEC, though I suppose it's still possible even with a computer helping out. 

 

Each engine has a different amount of wear, different amount of wear on different parts, different oil pump pressures, different N1, N2, EPR and other related pressures, and of course slightly different thrust outputs.  While it's not something most flight simmers look at and therefore most developers don't bother with, there are a handful of flight sim airliners which do model this and in my opinion the one that does the best job modeling it is the Leonardo Maddog X.  Of course there is a reason why the Leonardo Maddog X and the Majestic Dash 8 Q400 Professional are in most everyone's opinion the two most accurately and realistic aircraft ever developed for desktop flight simulation.  As a matter of full disclosure, I must tell you that I was involved (am involved) with both of these projects.  The Dash 8 Q400 has a FADEC, but as I recall we did model each engine separately.

 

The differences noted above are with the engines rather than with the thrust/throttle levers on the aircraft, which as far as I know don't use potentiometers even with fly by wire aircraft. Potentiometers (pot) themselves will sometimes differ from pot to pot and I believe that is what you are experiencing.  As you already know, the Windows calibration is the best way I know of to correct for this as much as possible on the Bravo, though I am experimenting with a way to tighten things up more than what the Windows USB Joystick Calibration Tool allows for.  That tool is from Windows 95 and I belive is unchanged since then.  If I find a better way of doing this I will post in this forum and on the Honeycomb Website.

 

Best wishes!

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Hi @DaveCT2003, hope you are well! Just wondering if you had any success with a better way of calibrating the throttle axis?  I've now mapped all engines to just a single axis so they all move in sync, approaches in the CRJ are almost impossible otherwise.  Unfortunately I may have to look in to sending the Bravo in for repair unless there is a way to account for it.  

 

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18 hours ago, chili said:

Hi @DaveCT2003, hope you are well! Just wondering if you had any success with a better way of calibrating the throttle axis?  I've now mapped all engines to just a single axis so they all move in sync, approaches in the CRJ are almost impossible otherwise.  Unfortunately I may have to look in to sending the Bravo in for repair unless there is a way to account for it.  

 

 

Nice to hear from you!

 

I believe that I found a way to calibrate the Honeycomb Throttle Axis, however given how the firmware is designed there is a 30% chance that it would permanently wreck the Bravo.  You can wreck the Alpha in a similar manner, so I know the possibility is very real.  Since I don't want to wreck my only Bravo, I can't test this method so I contacted my former company (Honeycomb) and told them I believe I found a excellent and easy calibration method, and asked them to send me a returned Bravo to test the method on.  They said they would, and it's been close to 2 months and I followed up with via email about this several times... but received no response so I can only assumne they are not interested in this and as I've taken a position outside of the flight sim world (beyond my work for Aerosoft) I no longer have the the time to look at this.  Sorry my friend!  I did try!

 

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Thanks for your efforts@DaveCT2003.  That is encouraging that it might be possible, I'll contact Honeycomb about it and let you know what they say.  Best of luck in your new position!

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