CH pedals weird behaviour

[lluisdc]

Good evening,

I am using Windows 7 (64 bits), FS2004, the latest version of FSUIPC for it, CH yoke, pedals and throttle quadrant. Everything working fine always but now, without reason, the pedals have an strange behaviour: trend to turn aircraft left. I have reassigned the axis in FSUIPC without any change.

I have read a post on this:

http://flyawaysimulation.com/forum/topic/37138/winzip-in-64-bit-windows-7/

which is referring to this forum, but I could not find the post where it is explained. Unfortunately, I do not understand which is the section of the FSUIPC.INI file called "axis" in that post: "...delete the settings under "axis", and start from new."

Any advice will be warmly welcome.

Regards,

Lluís

[Pete Dowson]

I am using Windows 7 (64 bits), FS2004, the latest version of FSUIPC for it,

What exact "latest" version? 3.99, or 3.998d, or something in between?

CH yoke, pedals and throttle quadrant. Everything working fine always but now, without reason, the pedals have an strange behaviour: trend to turn aircraft left. I have reassigned the axis in FSUIPC without any change.

Re-assigned from what sort of assignment, and how assigned in FSUIPC?

I have read a post on this:http://flyawaysimula...-bit-windows-7/

which is referring to this forum, but I could not find the post where it is explained.

Sorry, I don't see anything there relating to anything here?

nfortunately, I do not understand which is the section of the FSUIPC.INI file called "axis" in that post: "...delete the settings under "axis", and start from new."

Any advice will be warmly welcome.

If you've actually assigned things in FSUIPC those assignments will be in a section called [Axes], or [Axes... with aircraft or profile names if specific.

Pete

[lluisdc]

Good evening,

What exact "latest" version? 3.99, or 3.998d, or something in between?

Version 3.991

Re-assigned from what sort of assignment, and how assigned in FSUIPC?

Sorry, I mean I have deleted all assignments for that device (CH pedals) and reconfigured and calibrated it "de novo" using FSUIPC but still the same weird behaviour. What I have observed is that the figures in the boxes change rather slowly and although the pedal is stopped in its forward or back position, the figures keep changing.

Sorry, I don't see anything there relating to anything here?

Quoting a member of that forum called "setupcity" and in his post dated on Wed Jun 15, 2011 6:28 pm it says: ... was an fsuipc problem, actually I dealt with Pete Dawson on his forum. Unfortunately, I could not find this "original" message in this FSUIPC forum to avoid asking again the same thing.

If you've actually assigned things in FSUIPC those assignments will be in a section called [Axes], or [Axes... with aircraft or profile names if specific.

Thank you. I've found that section. Now I have to understand what does it mean and if I can modify something to make the pedals work again perfectly as always.

Thank you for your time.

Lluís

[Pete Dowson]

Sorry, I mean I have deleted all assignments for that device (CH pedals) and reconfigured and calibrated it "de novo" using FSUIPC but still the same weird behaviour. What I have observed is that the figures in the boxes change rather slowly and although the pedal is stopped in its forward or back position, the figures keep changing.

Sounds like jitter. Are the changes up and down, or all it one direction til they get to an extreme and stop?

Jitter (up and down jumpiness) is caused by bad power supply, humidity, heat, worn components or, just possibly, a faulty USB connection. For the latter try another, a USB socket on the PC not on a hub. If using a hub, use a powered one.

Quoting a member of that forum called "setupcity" and in his post dated on Wed Jun 15, 2011 6:28 pm it says: ... was an fsuipc problem, actually I dealt with Pete Dawson on his forum. Unfortunately, I could not find this "original" message in this FSUIPC forum to avoid asking again the same thing.

Hmmm. I don't know of any "FSUIPC problem" which would by itself have caused input figures to change on their own.

Thank you. I've found that section. Now I have to understand what does it mean and if I can modify something to make the pedals work again perfectly as always.

Hmmm. Good luck. If they were okay then suddenly went "weird" it does sound like something failed though, doesn't it?

Regards

Pete

[Bob Church]

Hi lluisdc.

Are they just off-center they were mis-calibrated, or do they drift left over time, finally ending up at full let?

If it's the former, center calibration in FSUIPC and maybe a little added deadzone would help. Windows calibration has never tried to calibrate center for anything but the X/Y axes and the pedal are the Z axis.

If it's the drifting left problem, then it's a bit more trouble. The rudder pot probably has "push on" connectors going to the pot. Those get dirty over time and if they disconnect the pedals will exhibit the constant drift until they get minimum. If that's the case you need to open the pedals and tighten up the connections, solder them, or even just remove and reconned the connectors a couple of time to clean the contact. The only problem there is that taking the pedals apart isn't a lot of fun, and if they're less than two years old and you open them, You'll void the warranty.

A couple of other things come to mind. If the pedals got a "Reset Defaults" somewhere along the line, the FS Sensitivity and Deadzone setting have probably changed. Find the Sensitivity/Null Zone screen and set Sensitivity slider all the way to the right and the Null Zone slider all the way to the left. Let FSUIPC take care of the calibration and deadzone. Windows will calibrate them as if they have no center and then just assume that the midpoint is halfway between the min and max, which is hardly ever true.

You can check for jitter pretty easily. Start through a Windows calibration and check the box that says "Show Raw Data" that you'll come across. It should be producing numbers between 0 and 255 (more or less) for full pedal travel. See by how much the raw values bounces around. One count either was is the best you can get, it doesn't do fractions so if it should be producing something like 127.5, it will likely bounce continuously 128, 127, 128, 127, 128, 127.... in an effort to average out the 127.5.

It's easiest to check the raw data, I'm not sure whether FSUIPC shows that anywhere, though. The larger values have already been scaled and it's harder to see because a 1 count change at the stick will produce a 256 count change at the user level. If it's much more than a count or two of raw data, then there's probably something wrong, but if you watch the scaled values they jump in relatively large amounts. The percentile change is the same though, so nothing is really lost.

The most common problem sees to be noisy USB power. Try it on a motherboard port if it's on an external hub and see if that makes any difference. Also noisy power lines running in close proximity to the pedal cable and cause them to be erratic. The pots themselves have very little tendency to spike with the CH USB controllers. The circuit configuration is such that what used to cause spiking on gameports is essentially cancelled out.

Good luck with it!

Best regards,

- Bob

The StickWorks

http://www.stickworks.com

[lluisdc]

Good morning Pete and Bob,

Thank you for your advise. My holidays are over and today I am back in the office, so this evening I will try to find the time to follow your indications and see what I can do.

Regards,

Lluís