Short Review: SIMMAX.it TPM Single Throttle Engine Ver. 2.1 - Plug & Play

[Archer374]

Since I started with the new MSFS I have been looking for a nice affordable TPM throttle quadrant similar to the one Saitek used to offer. Unfortunately those can only be purchased used and unless you’re exceptionally lucky (which I obviously hadn’t been) they are sold in Europe for outrageous sums up to 450,-€.

With other products the situation is hardly better. There is an extremely realistic one that even offers you twist action and fine adjustment on the controls. It is offered by VirtualFly - but that will set you back a hefty 897,-€

Flight Simulation TPM V3RNIO PLUS | Virtual Fly

Then there’s a 3D-printed one by Flight Sim Stuff available on ebay which even includes a trim wheel and flaps switch. And even though it’s terrific value for money - priced below 200,-€ - well it shows. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think it’s a bad product at all, but I was looking for something that looked a little more classy. In fact there’s a very positive review about it on FSElite.net.
Cessna Style TPM Throttle Prop Mixture Flaps Trim Controller - For Flight Sims | eBay

In the end I found this one:

Link: https://www.simmax.it/negozio/prodotti-for-home-cockpit/hardware-switch-panel-cessna-c172/single-throttle-engine-ver-2-2-plug-play/
Actually I first found an old review of the predecessor on Flightsim.com.

There are three versions available:

• Version 2.0 is the successor to the version descibed in the review below. It features more realistic looking knobs and a connector on the back where you can connect an additional potentiometer. Prices start at 227,-€ (plus 10,-€ for suction cups)
• Version 2.1 basically a refined version of the 2.0 with slight visual improvements starting at 244,-€ (plus 10,-€ for suction cups)
• then there’s the TPM Deluxe. It features friction lock and the increment twist action fine adjustment like with a real Cessna or Mooney throttle and a back lit panel. Price is 698,-€

The prices aren’t exactly cheap but still I think they are reasonable, but what you have to keep in mind is, that - while the company is Italian - the manufacturing and shipping takes place in Indonesia. So you will have to add shipping and customs to that price!

So much for the preliminaries:
Long story short I received my Version 2.1 TPM yesterday and decided to share my findings with you. First of all the whole process went faster than expected having ordered it on November 17th. So I got it within about 3 weeks. Communication was very good. Questions were answered quickly and Simone & Massimiliano were very friendly.

The package was delivered with TNT (now FedEx) and was VERY VERY VERY securely packaged. Basically I couldn’t get it open without some serious knifework. The TPM itself was wrapped twice in bubblewrap. The throttle quadrant comes fully assembled with a high quality but very short 50cm USB 2.0 cable, as well as a little bag of screws, the purpose of which I haven’t figured out yet. My best guess is that they are meant to mount the plastic feet in case you order the suction cups (which I didn’t).

PLEASE NOTE: I put four velcro strips on top of the housing to mount it below my desk. So this tarnishes my pictures a little but is in no way related to the product.

Build Quality seems very good. I was a little surprised by the weight when I took it out. It looks far heavier than it actually is. Turns out only the base plate it metal. The rest of the housing is made of smooth PLA painted a shiny black. It sells the appearance of metal very convincingly. The front panel is made of acrylic, painted black and even engraved with the function of the three axes: Throttle (black) Propeller (Blue) and Mixture (Red). The three knobs appear to be made by a 3D printer, have been finished very well and feel very smooth, solid and high-quality. The stylish silver front “buttons” of the propeller and mixture are inoperable, but made of aluminium. The rods and supports of the three axes are made of aluminium as well and so the whole setup appears very solid and high-end.

Inside everything is kept simple, but also a lot of metal and very little plastic was used, so I would expect this thing to last. The cables have been glued into place with a glue gun. That looks a bit slapdash but should insure none of the cables will detach accidentally. The USB port is to the left. Would have preferred it on the back but the Aduino board used doesn’t allow that. Everything is solidly mounted with screws. No cheap plastic clips. So even in case it should go wrong someday, anyone handy with soldering iron and a screwdriver will probably be able to repair it.

The sliding action of the three rods is very smooth. And as an additional feature they can be adjusted. For that purpose there are three holes in the top of the housing. If you slide out the rods almost to the stop a little screw will become visible. This screw can be used to individually tighten or loosen the sliding action to your personal preferences.

After connecting it to your PC, you have to calibrate it properly with the windows calibration tool. Otherwise you may not get the full range of movement.

Using it in MSFS is straight forward. MSFS recognizes the TPM as “UnoJoy Joystick” and you can simply assign the three axes like with any other peripheral.
Usage in MSFS is also very smooth and feels pretty cool. I am very happy with it.

As I noted above I chose to mount the TPM below the desk with velcro. Mounting it on top didn’t feel right to me (that’s also the reason I didn’t order the suction cups).
Since the whole TPM is lighter than it looks velcro works quite well. You will still need some heavy duty velcro, otherwise it’ll move too much while operating it.

Conclusion:
Overall I am very happy with my purchase. The price (incl. shipping) was 283,67 EUR. Depending on your country (and your luck) you might have to add customs to that. For that you get a well designed and stylish looking, good quality product. It’s not cheap but compared to the 3D-printed solution or a used Saitek TPM, I think the price is very fair.

The only thing I really found rather inadequate was the length of the USB cable. 50cm simply isn’t long enough to connect it to a computer. My monitor has an USB hub, but it’s on the left side and in order to connect it to the PC I need at least 1m - 1.5m. But since USB cables are quite affordable I think we can let that slide

So the Simmax TPM is a clear recommendation.

[Sling380]

Not sure where you are looking for the Logitech quadrant but they are still for sale new and at what seems to be normal prices. Simmax do have some nice stuff though.

[Archer374]

The normal quadrant is available new. But I mean this one:

Haven’t seen it new ever in the past 15 months and the used ones on ebay are either gone immediately or more expensive

[Sling380]

Oh ok. You called it a quadrant but that’s not a quadrant which is why I couldn’t understand why you could not find one. Desktop aviator do the push pull style too but I think the one you have looks better quality.

[N316TS]

Awesome review! Thanks for sharing, and I’m really glad that it’s such high quality. It really looks like the real thing!

I’ve been working with Simmax for a long time on my home cockpit. I’ve mostly spoken with Simone and I can vouch for how nice he is to work with.

A few observations/things from my side.

1. The screws are probably meant for the mounting holes on the front faceplate. Simmax’s products are primarily designed to be mounted in a home cockpit.
2. That’s also why the product has a lip on it around all four sides. I’m willing to bet that if someone orders it and to asks them to trim the lip so that it was flush with the box that they could do that. (And they could probably move the lettering, too, and remove the mounting holes.)
3. As they’re meant for a home cockpit, that’s probably also why the USB cable is so short. I’m guessing they’re assuming that everything is going into a hub first before going to your PC.
4. Even though the expensive TPM is automatically backlit, I’m betting that the lettering on the front goes all the way to the back of the faceplate. Simmax products are designed to be backlit. You could put a flashlight back there, or if you wanted to, you could connect LEDs to your Arduino and program them to turn on and off when you turn the panel lighting on and off in the cockpit. (Although in this case, the lettering is partially blocked by the desk, so it wouldn’t work. But for someone else wanting to purchase these, that’s something to think about!)

[Archer374]

@N316TS

The screws are probably meant for the mounting holes on the front faceplate. Simmax’s products are primarily designed to be mounted in a home cockpit.

That makes sense of course. Thanks

@Sling380

You called it a quadrant but that’s not a quadrant

Ah ok. Sorry for the misnomer. English is not my first language.
Yes the one by Desktop Aviator was also one I had looked at. Was racking my brain when I wrote the review, but I simply couldn’t remember

[maatz86]

Thank you for the review!
I reached out to them regarding exactly this piece of hardware and one of their Cessna trim wheels.

Sometimes my Bravo unit feels out of place when flying a small GA aircraft like a Cessna

[N316TS]

Just a heads up: Things like their trim wheels are supposed to go into a home cockpit.
However, you can ask for product customization, like putting your trim wheel inside an acrylic box with rubber feet, and they may be able to accommodate you.

[maatz86]

That’s exactly what I requested thanks a lot!

[azpilot61]

Got mine about two weeks ago, total time from order to when it was delivered about 1.5 months. Works great as well…

[LTDanNukem]

I’m glad you got a good product from them. My experience was the worst. Simmax.it scammed me pretty badly. I ordered a custom Throttle-Mixture control with Flaps included. I paid them almost $1000 (USD). They were supposed to deliver within 30 days of ordering. 2 and a half month later, they sent me a non-plug and play monstrosity with a bunch of wires hanging out. I contacted them and asked what was going on and they told me I needed to get an Arduino board to make it work. Despite having zero desire to do so, I purchased three of them and tried hard to make it talk to my PC. No luck. So then, I contacted them again and asked them to send me a return label so I could send it back for a refund. They refused.
So, I contacted PayPal and opened a dispute. They immediately contacted me and told me that if I would close the dispute, they would send me a return label. No way I was going to do that. When I called PayPal to check on the case, I found out they had lied to PayPal and said that I wasn’t returning their emails and that they had agreed to help me. Of course, I sent PayPal all the evidence to show this wasn’t true.
So, now I wait. I’m stuck with $1000 of flight sim equipment that doesn’t work, and this company is lying to PayPal. The best thing I can do now is to warn others about the nature of their customer service.
BEWARE, SIMMAX.IT is a SCAM!

[Archer374]

Not wanting to dismiss your negative experience, I’d like to add that SIMMAX.it almost exclusively sell equipment for DIY cockpit builders. So their stuff is not ready to use and you would always need an Arduino board to make it work with a PC. That is also clearly stated on their homepage:

“VERY IMPORTANT:
to interface with your computer our hardware products that are not plug & play, you must use an Arduino Mega 2560 board, not supplied by SimMax.it.”

All their products that actually ARE Plug-and-Play - like the TPM - are in a special category on their homepage. The TPM with the Flaps lever actually IS available as Plug and Play:
https://www.simmax.it/prodotto/single-throttle-engine-deluxe-flaps-plug-play/

Also I had one of the plastic parts inside break and I contacted them and they immediately sent me a few replacements free of charge. In general communication with Simone was always very friendly and considerate and he always answered fast and explained the differences between their products. So in my experience calling them scammers is nothing I can even remotely verify.

[Sling380]

I decided to order one of these to complement my other controls and to help tide me over after I waited over a year for my pre Order Fulcrum throttle to never arrive. Never pre-ordering again after that. It will also allow the proper push pull control for the type of aircraft that use that. I have to say that so far my experience with Simmax.it has not been good and on the back of the Fulcrum debacle I was not in the mood for more fun and games sourcing equipment.
The communication from them is quite poor. They answer well enough but not at all pro active. It’s always chase chase chase from your side. The 30 days from order to ship was also non existent hence the need for the communication. It’s been 2 months now and still no throttle unit but at least it seems close now.

Will post again when it finally arrives with my first impressions. I hope it was worth the wait.

On a positive note I also recently purchased some gear from Virpil and they were a pleasure to deal with, even with a shipping issue thrown in. Just goes to show that some vendors can get it right.

[Sling380]

Hooray it finally arrived after a 2.5 month wait and some to and fro. My first impression after I fought to get it out of the box is it’s a nice unit. The action of each control is smooth and with an appropriate amount of resistance so it stays where you leave it. Signals seem clean, no jitter on any of the controls with the in sim equivalents following along nicely with the physical unit. Adjustment is precise too with small increments possible on all axis. Had it running in a couple of minutes after connecting the included usb cable. No special configuration was needed just plug it in, verify operation and calibrate in windows game controller app, then bind each axis to the sim throttle, prop and mixture axis. Note that all three axis required the reverse axis check box to be ticked.

A couple of small downsides are the length of travel which I measured at around 60mm which feels adequate but a bit longer would of been nice and the strange decision to have the USB cable plug in to the side of the unit. It’s towards the rear but nonetheless a little odd. It shouldn’t matter to me once I get it properly mounted though. If you don’t plan to mount via the holes provided in the front fascia plate you will need to consider how to hold it in place. I did this initial testing with a clamp holding it flat to a desk.

Overall I’d say I’m happy with what I eventually got just not what it took to get it. Now lastly back on to the 6 axis TQ solution.

[PlumbGlue67]

For what it’s worth you can easily find bended USB cables
Right

Left

Down

[Sling380]

Yeah I know. It’s just not the norm.