Hi!
I can’t find any documentation from Thrustmaster, how to calibrate the Flaps. A document explains Spoiler calibration, but not the Flaps. Is anyone aware of the official way of doing it. I contacted support, but no answer is given to me so far. This is about the initial calibration before any use in the Sim. I installed all drivers, and everything works well except the Flaps.
This post may be of some help:
TY! I saw that and it did not work for me. I could also not find any document that it provided by Thrustmaster showing those steps as described in that posting. I am looking for a “source-of-truth”. It would be interesting how the User found those instructions. The Throttle calibration is done separately from the Spoilers in the official Thrustmaster document. Also the steps are different: Calibrating the Spoilers involves putting the Gear handle up and down after each “notch”. Completely different steps as described by the User.
I found those instructions through experimentation and trial and error and with common sense based off my 10 year experience in the IT industry and knowledge on how things designed and work. In other words, when official channels failed me, I try to visualise myself in the designer’s shoes so to speak, to determine how I think they designed the hardware and how each functions relate to each other to solve the problem myself.
I had to rely on that because following the “source of truth” that was published by the official manufacturer doesn’t work either for the flaps and spoilers addon, and also through that I find that the publication document doesn’t make any design and technical sense. So, I had to experiment through scientific means. Make a hypothesis, experiment it and document my findings.
At the end of the day, I had the same problem as everyone else, and when I discovered that when I conducted those steps, that solved my problem. Hence, that’s why I shared that post so it can help other people the same way it helped me.
As for the method with the landing gear up and down to be honest, I didn’t even know these existed. Because when I had the problem with my spoilers and flaps calibration. They haven’t even published these documents, so my findings on that post were purely through scientific experiments. Perhaps, it’s no longer valid anymore, or perhaps a firmware update that was pushed through to the hardware rendered my method obsolete. Either way, that method was what was working at the time when Thrustmaster didn’t have the documents published for me to follow.
So following my way of thinking, here’s several theories that I think you can try while still following the official guide to calibration:
Theory No. 1: I still think that step VIII - IX - X - XI doesn’t make sense, because it’s only calibrating the detents up to IDLE. My finding when I absolutely followed this step to the letter was that the Full Reverse axis values overflows. Because the hardware thinks that since IDLE is the last detent that you use to press the two red buttons, that it became the lowest value in the calibrated Axis. When it’s already lowest and you bring it even further down, it will go into negative value. But if the hardware wasn’t designed to process negative value, it can overflow back to highest value again. And I have evidence of this because when I pull the lever down to Full Reverse, my throttle in MSFS and in the Thrustmaster control panel too, the green bar goes all the way Full Forward.
So when I think about this theory, That means there’s a missing step here, so that’s what I did, after I press the red buttons at IDLE detent, I continue down to full reverse, and I press the red buttons once more, which I believed set the throttle so that the full reverse position is the lowest value in the axis. And once I calibrated that way, no more jumping to max throttle. Everything scales the way it’s meant to be.
Theory 2: While you’re following Step VIII-IX-X-XI and also adding that little step from theory 1 above, try to move both the spoilers and flaps together. There’s nothing wrong with doing something extra on top of what was written. It’s not like it’s going to make it explode or anything. So just give it a try and see if that works for you. My theory here is that because the hardware is technically a single contained unit, the processor inside the throttle hardware is actually processing the axis values from the addons, in other words, the addons here are simply “dumb” hardware, it only relays the level position that it has to the throttle quadrant, and the throttle itself is interpreting the actual axis to be sent to the PC. During the calibration process if the spoilers and flaps are in the up position while the red buttons are pressed, my theory is that it’s also taking the spoilers level position into account and interpret it to be at the detented position. Hence when you try to move the spoilers and flaps, they don’t do anything or doing weird stuff.
If my theory is correct, then you can follow it and get a calibrated spoilers and flaps, if my theory is wrong, then it doesn’t do anything. So there’s no reason why not moving the spoilers and flaps while you’re calibrating the throttle anyway. Might as well do it and see what happens.
Theory No 3: If you want to follow the landing gear up and down process as shown in the official document step XII-XVI, it only shows the spoilers right? But the flaps is shown to be in the same position all the time. And to me, again following my way of thinking, it doesn’t make sense. So I would try to move the flaps alongside the spoilers as you flip the landing gear up and down. My theory is the same, it’s receiving the position from the addons every time the landing gear is flipped, so why not move the flaps alongside the spoilers, nothing wrong with trying it out and see what happens.
And also notice that there are 5 steps here? From RET, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and FULL. This is the question that I ask, why 5 steps for the spoilers calibration, but only 4 steps for the throttle for my first theory above? This is why it also doesn’t make sense and why I calibrated the throttle in 5 steps instead of the official 4 which solved my throttle jumping problem.
Theory 4: If theory 3 fails and the landing gear up/down process only handles the spoilers, how to calibrate the flaps as your original question? Well, I would try to see the logic on the spoilers side. The landing gear switch is only an On/Off switch. You flip the gear up, you engage the on switch. You flip the gear down, you release the on switch making it off. If this can be used to calibrate the spoilers, what’s the similar thing that’s in the flaps? The parking brake switch. It also behaves the same way, you turn the parking brake switch clockwise and it will engage the on switch. You turn it counter/anti-clockwise, it releases the on switch making it off. So how do we apply the same method of the spoilers calibration to the flaps calibration?
Easy, you follow the same thing, but apply it on the flaps. Flaps Up, turn the parking brake on then off. Flaps 1, turn the parking brake on then off, and so on until Flaps Full, turn the parking brake on then off. After that press the two black buttons to confirm. Again, there’s no harm in not trying this out. What’s the worse that could happen. You’re already miscalibrated in the first place, so might as well try different things and see what would happen.
Sorry for the long wall of text, but you asked how I found those instructions? Well that’s my answer, that’s how my brain works, I think outside the box, be creative with my solution and use my imagination to try different things and experiment. Because when an official channel fails me to give me a solution, I make one myself.
Dear NeoKingRthur,
Thank you for taking the time to write everything you thought about in detail. I will be able to try out everything tomorrow. Meanwhile I got a support answer from Thrustmaster:
"No calibration is required, you can see the calibration process for the add-on here:
You will see that only one lever of the add-on is used during this calibration.
Best regards,
[removed Agents name], your Thrustmaster agent."
It seems odd to me how the flaps would “magically” calibrate themselves. In addition, a professional documentation would at least mention the flaps in some kind of way.
Again, TY very much for your different option scenarios. I will work through them and post results here. Your way of thinking seems very logical to me.
Ultimately this Post was applicable to my situation:
, where the Add-On was calibrated after an already calibrated Quadrant. Deleting the Calibration information after the Driver was removed as instructed in this post and re-installation and calibration resolved the issue.
It seems that with the current Firmware, the Flaps do not require a separate calibration step except for in-application calibration like in the Fenix and MSFS separately.