Honeycomb Bravo faulty operation in FS2020 with PMDG DC-6

[Tony Vallillo 4]

Previously, the Bravo worked fine with the DC-6, using a profile that I set up for mostly just the throttles, with the spoiler axis as the propeller control (the DC-6 has only one prop lever for all 4 engines).

I had to send the Bravo back to Honeycomb last month for a replacement (which they very quickly provided, good on them!) due to a broken wire in one of the thrust reverser connections.  The new one worked fine when I first installed it, but today it is all messed up, possibly as a result of one or the other of the recent updates from MS/Asobo that appear to be wreaking havoc all over the simulation world.  Specifically:

- The throttles are all way out of "calibration".  I say that in quotes because I cannot find any way to calibrate them!  There is no calibration function within MSFS202 that I can find, and the Windows calibration really does not work for the Bravo since it is not a joystick.  I don't get full travel out of the throttles, and it varies from one to the other.  2020 does not recognize the detent as the bottom stop of throttle travel, as indeed it should since I do not use the last few millimeters beyond the detent for anything. 

- One of the throttle axes does not get anything like full travel at all, and another goes smoothly to 50% and then jumps all the way to max in the next nanometer!

 

Of course, it is possible to fly it this way since with the AFE you really don't need to control the throttles until the very end, but the results when you pull the power to idle in the flare are entertaining in the extreme.  Suffice to say no decent landings result, nor even staying on the runway!

 

So -- how does one  A) get back to whatever calibration these may have come with from the factory, and b) calibrate them at all, at least in FS2020.  Note that they work fine in XPlane 11.  This is an MSFS 2020 problem.

 

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[SimWare 729]

11 hours ago, Tony Vallillo said:

Previously, the Bravo worked fine with the DC-6, using a profile that I set up for mostly just the throttles, with the spoiler axis as the propeller control (the DC-6 has only one prop lever for all 4 engines).

I had to send the Bravo back to Honeycomb last month for a replacement (which they very quickly provided, good on them!) due to a broken wire in one of the thrust reverser connections.  The new one worked fine when I first installed it, but today it is all messed up, possibly as a result of one or the other of the recent updates from MS/Asobo that appear to be wreaking havoc all over the simulation world.  Specifically:

- The throttles are all way out of "calibration".  I say that in quotes because I cannot find any way to calibrate them!  There is no calibration function within MSFS202 that I can find, and the Windows calibration really does not work for the Bravo since it is not a joystick.  I don't get full travel out of the throttles, and it varies from one to the other.  2020 does not recognize the detent as the bottom stop of throttle travel, as indeed it should since I do not use the last few millimeters beyond the detent for anything. 

- One of the throttle axes does not get anything like full travel at all, and another goes smoothly to 50% and then jumps all the way to max in the next nanometer!

 

Of course, it is possible to fly it this way since with the AFE you really don't need to control the throttles until the very end, but the results when you pull the power to idle in the flare are entertaining in the extreme.  Suffice to say no decent landings result, nor even staying on the runway!

 

So -- how does one  A) get back to whatever calibration these may have come with from the factory, and b) calibrate them at all, at least in FS2020.  Note that they work fine in XPlane 11.  This is an MSFS 2020 problem.

 

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Dear Tony,

 

The Windows calibration will perfectly work for the Bravo throttle.
Eventough it has the physical appearance of a throttle qudrant, it is recognized exactly the same way as a joystick.
It is a USB board sending analog (axes) and digital (buttons) signals to the simulator via Windows.

Therefore, you can use the Windows joystick calibration untility with Windows.

There is a little trick however with the first two axes of the Bravo as these are recognized as X & Y axes.
X & Y axes. are symmetrical axes and need to be set to the center position after calmibration.
Please see the procedure below : 

Best regards.

[Tony Vallillo 4]

Ahhhhh!  I will try that.  Thank you!

[SimWare 729]

43 minutes ago, Tony Vallillo said:

Ahhhhh!  I will try that.  Thank you!

Hi Tony,

 

Please let me know if it solved the issue.

Thanks.

 

[Tony Vallillo 4]

Sad to say, it did not solve things.  It changed them a bit, but still faulty.  My setup is - left lever (spoiler handle) is prop control, the next four from the left are throttles 1-4 and the flap axis (far right) although recognized, is not assigned to anything (for the PMDG DC-6 I use the Cessna-style flap lever for up one/down one type operation, although the AFE usually takes up that task for me!

 

Now what is happening is that throttles two and three will stop at half travel, while one and four go full travel.  See the illustrations below.  I had originally calibrated things according to your instructions, but when that failed to work, and following other guidance online which seems to suggest that the Windows calibration tool can wreak havoc with the Bravo, I tried what, for others, had been a cure - resetting to default in the windows calibration.  No luck, although the indications in both the windows calibration and the basic FS2020 controls window are that things should be working fine.  Only the sensitivity page of the controls settings of 2020 shows abnormal behavior, with no response to movement from 2 and three.  As seen below.

 

Again, everything works fine in XPlane 11.  The screenshots from the windows calibrator below show idle and full throttle on the Bravo.  Upper axis is the unused flap axis.  The idle is a bit right of the edge since I do not use the area below the detent, which is how I want it.

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[SimWare 729]

Hi Tony,

Can you make a short video (with your smartphone for instance) showing the Windows joystick utility along with

you moving the throttle levers ?
So that I can see what the response of the throttle is at the system level.

Thank you.

[Tony Vallillo 4]

I'll try.  Further examination shows problems in XPlane also, again apparently related to either calibration or how the computer "sees" the axes.  In XP11, as well as FS2020, on all 6 axes there seems to be a dead zone at the far (fwd) end of the axis travel.  Thus, for example, the spoiler lever does not "move" in the sim until the lever on axis one has been moved around 1/2 inch from the far end stop (full forward is, of course, stowed for a spoiler).  The throttles exhibit similar behavior, which also involves a dead zone in the far forward 1/2 inch of physical travel on the Bravo itself.  This would not be a problem, since for jet engines you never go to the stops in any case, but the last axis is the flap axis, and the problem becomes important since I have a set of those flap detent add-ons that fit into slot 5.  With the FlyJSim 727, the detents no longer line up with the correct flap positions, since from the up detent to the flaps 2 detent is the dead zone!  I imagine this behaviour will be manifest in all of the airplanes and with all of the several flap detent units that I have, specific for certain planes.

 

XPlane has its own calibration feature, but no amount of calibrating seems to correct the top-of-slot dead zone. 

 

I will try to make a video and upload it.

[Tony Vallillo 4]

I made a video but the system won't allow it - its too big.  What is happening is that all of the axes show fully extended on the calibration tool 3/8 inch prior to the Bravo reaching the physical stop.  This is at the top end of travel, at the end closest to the row of buttons and the autopilot.  I do not recall my previous Bravo exhibiting this characteristic, and it certainly did line up with all of the 5 flap detent add-ons that I have.

 

The bottom picture illustrates the throttle axis positions at the point where the windows calibration app shows full travel and stops moving. The top picture shows the number one and four axes at the full physical stop for comparison with the others that are still at the point of calibration limit.

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[RF pilot 35]

Why dont you try my setup for the dc6, which is to bind throttles 1 and 2 on one thrust lever, and throttles 3 and 4 on the second lever. Yes I know this means you cannot control each individual throttle independently, but how often would you need to do that anyway? Works very well for me.

[Tony Vallillo 4]

Well, if I did that I would have to use the two that work, which are the number one and four positions.  Actually, with the sole exception of the reduction to idle in the flare, one really does not need control of the throttles at all in the DC-6, since the AFE does that; and indeed, that is how it worked in that airplane in real life - the FE was a human autothrottle, even on approach at some companies. 

 

But since I paid a decent buck for this setup, I would like it to work properly!  I have sent a ticket to Honeycomb about it too, and they were very responsive with my first Bravo unit, so hopefully they can get this sorted out.  Seems to be two separate problems, one ( the throttle two and three behavior) that affects only FS2020, and the other (dead zone at far travel) that affects everything, even how Windows sees this system.  Curiouser and curiouser!

[SimWare 729]

Hi Tony,

 

Ok, let's go back to the basics.
Can you please check the basic functionning of the throttle at Windows level, so that we are sure 

the signals sent to the simulator is ok.
If it is not, then the result in the cokpit will be wrong too of course.
Please check this tutorial : 

 

[Tony Vallillo 4]

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OK.  Here is what I did, and as you can see I was able to shoot a much shorter video that was uploadable.

I connected the unit to the computer directly - previously it was connected like all the other controls through a powered hub.  Restarted computer.  Called up the Windows calibration tool.  First, reset to default.  Then tested again - the results are the same as they have been since I noticed the problem and are as indicated here in the picture and the video.  In a nutshell, Windows (and therefore all of the sims) does not see the last roughly 3/8 inch of axis travel.  That is, the indications in the calibration tool stop moving (and if in the calibration page with raw data checked stop changing numbers) at a point uniformly about 3/8 of an inch less than full Bravo physical travel, as you can see in the video and the picture.  The picture shows the position of the axes at the point where calibration is showing maximum and no further increase registers.  I then did a calibration in accordance with your instructions about the first two axes, the ones on the graph that have numbers assigned, and have to be positioned at the midpoint prior to calibration.  The other axes were calibrated as instructed.  This resulted in no change in behavior.

 

I also notice that although the axis travel below the detent on the Bravo is supposedly treated as a switch or button, and not as axis travel, the Win calibrator is in fact showing it as axis travel.  In fact, without positioning the axes all the way back beyond the detent to the stop it is not possible to get a zero reading for the x/y calibration.  This is how I did the calibration, with the center determined not from the detent but from absolute aft movement of the axis levers.  I don't know if this is correct or not, but that is how I did it, and that calibration changed nothing in terms of how the Win calibrator saw the axes - still dead in the last 3/8 inch of physical travel.

 

Now the FS2020 installation has this same behavior, as does XP 11.  But in addition, and for no apparent reason, with the DC-6 in 2020 axes 3 and 4 (again, throttles 2 and 3 in my setup) also cannot move the virtual throttles beyond the 50% range.  This sort of problem has occurred to others, and there are various supposed fixes for it, none of which have worked for me.  The throttles are assigned to their particular axis in 2020, and not to the 0-100% option, or any of the other options that are available.  None of this matters. In NONE of the calibrators or configurators do axes 3 and 4 show any abnormality - they appear to move fully and smoothly, with only the last 3/8 inch problem in evidence, which should not produce the 50% reaction I see in the sim.

 

As you can see by now, I know very little about FS hardware and software beyond how to turn it on, and how to hook it up (and even that may now be suspect!). But I did fly many of these planes, including the jets, in real life, so I have that going for me, for what apparently little it is worth!!  By now this is starting to look like a Bravo hardware issue to me.  I wonder if they somehow got the potentiometers, or whatever they are using to measure axis rotation, physically installed incorrectly?  Is it possible that that is why the output is like it is?  I cannot imagine that a software issue would have such a uniformly erroneous result....

 

In any event, it appears that, with the exception of the DC-6 throttles two and three in FS2020, what the sims are getting is what Windows is getting.

[Tony Vallillo 4]

This just in!  The DC-6 throttle issue is solved - there is apparently a control lock that goes hand in hand with the control lock that affects the flight controls.  This is capable of limiting two of the throttles to around 50%.

The dead zone issues remain.....

[SimWare 729]

Hi Tony,

The videos are not accessible unfortunately.
Please simply upload them on Youtube and give us the link.
 

Without seeing the joystick utility response along with you moving the lever, it is quite difficult to understand what you mean.

I really want to see what the response of the throttle is at the system level.

Thank you.

[Tony Vallillo 4]

I'm afraid that, although I spend months every day watching YouTube, I don't know anything at all about uploading videos.

In any event, it is not possible to show the throttles on the Bravo and the utility on the screen at the same time - I am using a 40" UHD TV as a monitor and the utility shows up very small on the screen.  You would not be able to discern what the utility is showing if I shot it that way...

 

I wonder why the video is not accessible - I can see it?.....

[SimWare 729]

Dear Tony,

 

Simply create a free Youtube account and upload your video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtF2AgFSLAw
 

Make a zoom on the throttles on the screen, and just film it with your smartphone for instance.

 

Thank you.