I have a new issue popping up with my throttle that I am stumped on
I have the Saitek yoke and throttle - the one where you need to plug the throttle into the yoke but I dont use the Saitek yoke, I have a Honeycomb. On pretty much every flight I do at some point the throttle is totally unresponsive. The prop, mixture, buttons all function as they should once this happens. Its becoming frequent enough where 2/3rds the flights I load I cannot even taxi long enough to take off
Thought maybe because its an older unit that something might be coming loose so popped it open and took a look, nothing visible. Tried a few flights in XPlane and the issue did not happen
Ive managed to find a pattern for recreate this issue pretty consistently IF it doesnt happen immediately on taxi. If I have quick drastic changes on the throttle - as in going from 0 to 50% a few times in a row - it will always happen and become unresponsive at 0%. But this also does not explain the sudden unresponsiveness when flying at a consistent %, or when taxiing
I just picked one up two weeks ago. It doesn’t act the way you’ve mentioned in MSFS. I had to do manual mapping but no tweaking of the sensitivity curves.
I’ve run the power throttles up and down repeatedly; I think I do the same thing you describe for example when I perform a minimum-power descent, where I’m in Cruise and I drop it down to near Idle in one move. It doesn’t act up that way. I would say the potentiometers might be faulty but the XP check is hard to contradict, unless you have some sensitivity curves in there that might be masking what’s happening in the other sim? I had to tweak the curves in FSX to use this same quadrant (it wouldn’t go true full throttle without some adjustments), hence why I mention it.
Yeah thats the one. I went through and manually mapped everything and tried…tried to get my sensitivities where I had them in Xplane but I am not sure if theres a bit of input lag or if its the sim itself but micro adjustments are difficult with this throttle
I dont think internally there is an issue though…or one that would cause this. I spent now well over an hour in Xplane and cannot replicate this, but as soon as I am back in MSFS its a recurring issue
Riding out my time until I can get a Honeycomb throttle but thats a good few months out at this point
You seem to indicate that it’s “an older unit”, which is what I use, actual original Saitek branded throttles, not Logitech branded throttle. What you are describing sounds like the potentiometers might be gunked up, as mine were. You can tell by looking at the smoothness of the throttle motion using the windows calibration window…if it intermittently jumpy, you can try cleaning them fairly easy, I posted how at the post below. Keep the spray handy, because even after you spray them and ge them working for a night, they might still gunk up a little again as it totally evaporates. But it’s a simple check and simple fix, at least for me. Logitech/Saitek throttle quadrants maintenance tip
I have both the one that connects to the yoke (they come as a set) and the USB Throttle. Neither one of them exhibit this bahaviour.
Ensure that you only have ONE mapping for the throttle and that no other axis is mapped to it.
While MSFS handles multi mapping better than X-Plane it can (and does) still have issues
As a guitar player I am quite familiar with pots going bad, just recently had to swap out the pots on my old 82 Gibson due to wear but this isnt what I would consider the result of a bad pot. I should still get some contact through the input even if there was a dead zone…right?
I had a few days off from work so I went into the hardware of the throttle unit and cleaned the electronics, checked the solder joints. Didnt see anything too bad. Got it back together, identical repeat of the original problem. First flight I loaded, I got halfway down the taxiway before the throttle became unresponsive in the sim. I went into the settings and started looking around, the throttle axis was recognized and moved as I moved the throttle…odd. Recalibrated the throttle unit, same issue on the next flight. Functioning axis but cannot adjust the throttle of the plane itself
I am having a similar problem with my Logitech yoke/throttle quadrant combination. It was new, out of the box. I’ve only been using it for a few weeks, and only in MSFS 2020. The throttle lever worked without problems initially. The only issue I had at the beginning was with how to set up the throttle axis. I had to reverse it, so that pushing the lever forward would increase power and vice versa, but that was it. Then one day without warning, I found myself on the runway with a non-responsive throttle. Either I couldn’t throttle up, or I couldn’t throttle down. I found that if I “escape” the flight when this happens, return to the main menu and start a new flight, that resolves the problem, until it happens again. Then: wash, rinse, repeat. I’ve run a search for “throttle” in controls and checked all the setting values to look for rogue values that might be creating conflicts, but I haven’t found any. I would like to get to the bottom of this, if anybody happens to know where it is.
Yeah the quit to menu and restart seems to be my only solution, and a slightly annoying one at that. Managed to get a Honeycomb ordered and will have that in 3 weeks probably, however I will say since the last update came out I have not had this happen to me. I seem to have isolated it down to a couple individual planes with the B58 being the worst one…which also happens to be the plane I like flying the most
Havent come across anything else yet to indicate what could be an issue. I took my unit apart, cleaned it, added some solder to a few thin connections, but my guess is its just the sim itself
I have run into this problem pretty consistently with the Cessna 152, but also with other planes. Is your throttle connected to a Saitek/Logitech yoke or directly to your PC via USB? I assume you’re getting the Honeycomb throttle quadrant? I hope you’ll update us re. whether you run into a similar problem with it. I’m also curious about the trim wheel on the Honeycomb throttle quadrant. I have the Logitech multipanel; it has a trim wheel. I am constantly re-trimming with it. (But then I’m pretty new at this.) I’ve been wondering whether trimming with the Honeycomb quadrant would be easier; more stable. I’ve noticed lately that prices for the Honeycomb yokes/throttles have gone through the roof; way above the original list prices I saw. Supply and demand I suppose…
I have the one where the throttle has to go through the yoke. I upgraded to the Honeycomb yoke but its taken longer than I anticipated to find the throttle so I have been using this awkward 2 yoke thing to get the throttle to work. I have also noticed prices are getting pretty high but I paid 250 for mine, just have to wait for it to get into stock, but I also really only set up for flight sim maybe once a week, so its not too bad
In a way of I wish I could take back the money I spent on the Logitech. It feels cheap, its very restricted movement wise - stiff and choppy and only a 45degree turn, I wouldnt recommend it whatsoever. Honeycomb just feels more solid. Wider range of motion, feels much more fluid. Not the ideal yoke but leaps and bounds ahead of the logitech and a great value for the cost
I think I’ve figured out why my Logitech/Saitek throttle quadrant misbehaves when I first start a flight. Most commonly, as I’ve noted, when I start my first flight of the day with the plane on the runway ready for takeoff, the engine will die with the throttle at 100 percent. My workaround has been to “escape,” return to the main menu, and start a new flight. But yesterday, I noticed that the fuel-mix rod in the cockpit was “pushed” all the way forward (100 percent), even though the fuel-mix lever (the one with the red handle) on the throttle quadrant was all the way back at 0 percent. I pushed the quadrant fuel lever forward to 100 percent and then pulled it back. The fuel-mix rod in the cockpit moved with it. Then I pushed the quadrant fuel lever forward to 100 percent again and the fuel-mix rod in the cockpit moved with it again. Then, with the plane’s fuel mix at 100 percent, both virtually in the cockpit and physically on the throttle quadrant, I mouse-clicked on cockpit’s the start switch, and voila, the prop turned over and the quadrant’s physical throttle lever worked as advertised from thereon out.
So my guess is that the problem is an overdose of realism in the sim. I’d supposed that when I elected to start a flight on the runway instead of at a ramp, the sim would set me up with engine power set to wherever my throttle lever happened to be and fuel mix at 100 percent, regardless of where my fuel mix lever was. That’s the way it worked initially. But more recently, it seems, the sim has decided that my fuel mix is zero to start, killing the engine. My solution: Don’t quit the flight; reset the fuel mix and restart the engine. I assume this will also work in instances when the throttle seems jammed at 100 percent power, which has also happened to me at the beginning of flights.