Well, this is a bummer

[andersel]

I fired up thye 'puter a few minutes ago to put in a little flight time and discovered that my CH Flight Yoke USB has, apparently, fried itself. It don't work no more. I thought It might be the airplane's faiult (I had loaded the IRIS S-3 Viking) and none of the switches worke3d. The spot view defaulted to an overhead view of the plane and even though the hat switch pulled the view down to ground level, as soon as it was released, back to an overhead view itn went. I trie4d several other, different planes and the same things happened.The yoke is not, by any stretch of (even my) imagination new. It's way out of warrenty. I have an older yoke somewhere around here that has a broken (I think) mixture lever and I was thinking of trying to cannibalize the O/S one for parts and seeing if I can get a single working one out of it. Has anyone evr had any success doing this kind of surgery? If I can't accomplish this I'm going to have to either buy a new one or find a decent used one that I can glom on to. Any advice or suggestions? Anything will help.

LA

[Willy]

I use an old Microsoft Sidewinder Precision Pro stick and have a couple more that I've kept for spare parts. But as I take it apart yearly and clean it, I have yet to replace a part in it.

[Milton Shupe]

LA, are you certain it is dead? As it is powered by USB voltage, I doubt it is fried.

Are you sure you are not in slew mode?

Did you try unplugging the USB and plugging it back in?

Have you tried renaming your fs9.cfg and allowing FS to recreate it?

Sounds like it may be confused.

[Terry]

My Saitek quit a couple days ago, just a dirty connector. Get a can of contact cleaner and try cleaning your connections.

[Duckie]

LA, if you use the CH PRO-Throttel that has a mini-stick on the right side at the thumb position, that may be causing the problem. Ocassionally mine will get stuck a bit off center and will cause exactly what you described. Try recenter this mini-stick and see if that helps.

When this happens to me (very infrequently) I have fogotten all about it and I go into panic mode before I realize what is going on.

Good luck,

Steve

[andersel]

LA, are you certain it is dead? As it is powered by USB voltage, I doubt it is fried.

Are you sure you are not in slew mode?

Did you try unplugging the USB and plugging it back in?

Have you tried renaming your fs9.cfg and allowing FS to recreate it?

Sounds like it may be confused.

See, this why SOH is so great. I've got a problem and all my SOH friends are trying to help me solve it. I WILL NOT freak out. I willcheck all of the things that you have suggested. THEN I will !freak out. lol

Thanks guys

LA

[andersel]

OK - I tried all of the things that, if applicable to my Yoke, you all suggested. The only exception was Milton's advice about renaming the FS9.cfg. I'm not clear on exactly where to locate it and I'm sort of hesitant to mess the "guts" of my FS. A little further guidance would be helpful. THX

LA

[Willy]

In XP, it's at "C:\Documents and Settings\your name\Application Data\Microsoft\FS9"

Not sure if it's the same location in Vista or 7 as I'm a steadfast XP luddite.

[andersel]

thanks, Willy. I'm pretty sure that even in W7 it will be similar, if not the same. Investigation is in order.

LA

[Sunny9850]

Not sure if you have tried this one yet, but before messing with the Fs9.cfg I would use the software for the controller to see if it works as it should outside of FS.

http://www.chproducts.com/retail/tech_control_manager.html

Creating a new Fs9.cfg file is a good step in many cases, I just would do one more step before that, since a new cfg will require at least some readjustments.

Cheers
Stefan

[andersel]

Thanks, Stefan. Checking

[andersel]

Well I took Stefan’s advice and downloaded the newest version of the CH Control Manager software, installed it, and no joy. I ran the calibration utility and found out that there is good news and bad news.

Good
The Yoke centers properly and maintains center
The Throttle, Pitch and Mixture levers are functioning as they should
Most of the button do what they are supposed to do

Bad
The following buttons are in-op:
1 - Brakes
5 - Gear up
9 - Change view

The aforementioned buttons are stuck in an ON position and I can not figure out what to do to make them work properly.

I have not been able to locate my FS9 cfg in Win7. Yet

So things are kind of in limbo. For now

I’ve got a couple of thing to try before I totally give up and stick big, hollow needle in to my eyes.

LA

[andersel]

Hey! Anybody out there got any big, hollow needles? My only apoparent option now is to unplug the sucker and throw it against a wall and hope that it miraculously fixes it self. Maybe I should toss it out in to the front yard and hope that when the approximately 5 feet of snow out there melts off it will be gone. In any case, Thanks for all of your suggestions. Sometimes these things just up and die. My last resort is trying to create a frankenyoke out of the two that are just hanging around acting useless. More power to me.


LA

[Sunny9850]

Well if it is not working right in the CH program then playing with the cfg would not do much at this point anyways.
And if you are the explorer type, and have a soldering iron and a set of screw drivers you might be able to make one out of two. I have done that in the past.

Worth a try...but be prepared to end up grounded until a new unit can be installed.
When it comes to a new unit I highly recommend the Saitek Yoke and quadrant(s) if you like flying big birds and GA airplanes. Of course a stick is nicer for Jets and choppers.

Cheers
Stefan

[andersel]

Yeah, I'm resigning myself to the probavbility of having to bite the financial bullet and buy a new yoke. I really love (loved?) my CH Yoke but The Saitek unit has a lot to recommend it. Just got to start shopping for the best deal, I supopose. I DO like the separate (and expandable) control quadrant feature.

I can't really do the soldering part of a repair job because of my disabilities. Oh well. Off to the FS shopping sites!

LA

[dogknot]

BTW, the fs9.cfg in Windows7 is located at:

C:\Users\**Your ID**\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FS9

[andersel]

So i'm trying to disassemble the case(s) of my CH yokes in orderto (hopefully) effect the necessary repairs.

I've loosened all of the phillips head screws but I can't get the upper and lower halves of the case to separate.

What else can I do , or do I have do to move on with this. As always, any advice/opinions/guidance is appreciated and invited. THX

LA

[Sunny9850]

Never had any of the CH products apart myself, just my Saitek stick. So we're solidly in the guessing game here.

One possibility is that they hid some screws under the rubber feet you probably have on the bottom of the unit.
Second would be some form of mechanical clamping that snaps in place and needs to be slightly pulled apart by carefully prying with a flat screw driver or similar tool...the key here would be the location of those.
And finally they may have used adhesives to avoid squeaking of the two halves against each other.

Since you have two units, one may have to be sacrificed a bit more to figure out just how things work or come apart.
Another possible avenue is a simple google search using the controllers name and the terms "taking apart" or "disassembling". With a bit of luck you might get a how to tutorial or ytube video for the steps required.

Cheers
Stefan

[Astoroth]

I'd go with Bill's suggestion of screws under the rubber feet. My CH yoke has 2 screws hidden under the feet, a pain in the butt getting the feet off intact so you can put them back on when you are done, but in order to take it apart you have to.

Maybe this picture will be of some help to you, it was to me when working on my yoke.

[Sunny9850]

Who is Bill ??

Cheers
Stefan

[andersel]

I kind of figured out the screws under the feet by myself. I've got to have my nephew help me do this stuff, though, 'cause my hands are so messed up. but he's been doing it and we are taking baby steps. thanks, you guys, for all of the advice and guidance. I have no doubt that I'll be back for more!

LA

[Astoroth]

Who is Bill ??

Cheers
Stefan


Whoops! Sorry Stefan! For some reason when I was typing that out I got it in my head that Bill "Lionheart" Ortis was the one that posted that. Teach me to give advice when I'm sleepy....:sleep:

[Sunny9850]

:icon_lol: No worries mate, I am honored to be confused with the great Bill Lionheart Ortis. He was probably just too busy creating the next great flying creation for all of us to post.

Cheers
Stefan