Hello,I bought for 5 Euro a USB joystick with the intention to use the board and potentiometers to build a throttle quadrant.I connected the USB joystick, assigned throttle (engine 1 and 2) to Y axis and X axis in FS2004 and in FSUIPC (registered v3.40) I adjusted the Idle, Rev and Max point and assigned Z axis to the vertical trim.Everything worked out very well without levers "shaking" as I had previously experienced with my self-made joystick (through the game port).Then I opened the joystick very carefully not to cut any inside wires, took off the board, buttons and potentiometers.I connected the joystick again but with surprise the X and Y axis didn't work anymore while the Z axis was still working.I opened FSUIPC again but I saw that eventhough I had previously adjusted the Max,Idle and Rev values nothing was "moving" if I moved the potentiometers.I thought I had broken something taking out the board but if I assigned X and Y axis with default values (elevator and rudder), everything was working.I can assign X and Y axis to Flap, spoilers, mixture etc but if I assign them to engine 1 and 2 they stop working.Why so? is it due to FSUIPC? or FS2004?Thank you, regards.Bob

I bet you have another joystick set to use the same controls. In other words, some other device controls the throttles as well..? Maybe the gameport..? So remove the definition from there first.//Tuomas

I have another USB joystick connected (Logitech Wingman Digital 3D), but I deleted the throttle control assignement of this joystick before using the other one to avoid conflicts.The thing that I can't figure out is the reason why if I assign X and Y axis to the rudder and the ailerons it works, but if I assign them to the engine 1 and 2 throttle it doesn't work.Maybe it doesn't like to be used as throttle ehehMistery....Greetings,Bob

>I have another USB joystick connected (Logitech Wingman>Digital 3D), but I deleted the throttle control assignement of>this joystick before using the other one to avoid conflicts.>>The thing that I can't figure out is the reason why if I>assign X and Y axis to the rudder and the ailerons it works,>but if I assign them to the engine 1 and 2 throttle it doesn't>work.>>Maybe it doesn't like to be used as throttle ehehYou probably have a null zone and low sensitivity set on the settings - check that you have null zone set to zero and the sensitivity set to max - and that you did calibrate the joystick in windows control panel?//Tuomas

The joystick is calibrated...no problems encountered while calibrating it...the cross moves without problem.I can't set the null zone because if I turn X or Y potentiometer nothing happens...I mean...the value that I read on FSUIPC is locked on zero and doesn't change.I will try to set the sensitivity then, this is the only thing that I didn't try yet.Greetings,Bob

I recently experienced a bug in either FS2004 or FSUIPC where I could not get the throttle to work regardless of which axis I chose to assign to it from any device. Even if I deleted the throttle assignment from every controller and assigned just a single axis to it, the throttle would not work, regardless of which axis I assigned to it. I even tried unplugging every controller I had, and just plugged in a single controller. That didn't work either.Solution?I went into the FS9.cfg and deleted ALL the joystick assignment sections from the configuration file. Restarted FS9 and repicked the assignments and everything worked again. You might try clearing out the joystick assignments in your configuration file as well.

I tried what you wrote but it didn't work...I deleted all the sections [JOYSTICK ....] I found but it didn't work.I don't know what else I can try.Thank you, greetings.Bob

Bob, I made the same mistake as you did. Bought a usb joystick, stripped it off, and tried do make a throttle quad. Gotta tell you , forget it. Go to www.opencockpits.com and get a ST12 USB card, it costs 26 euros , and has 5 axes and 24 butons , and you

Bob,Another solution is a 4 axis + 4 button controller connected to a 15 pin gameport. All you need are 100 K ohm pots and a 15 pin cable. You can see details and drawings here;http://www.sk-flightsim.com/gameport_controller.html

>Bob,>>Another solution is a 4 axis + 4 button controller connected>to a 15 pin gameport. All you need are 100 K ohm pots and a 15>pin cable. You can see details and drawings here;>http://www.sk-flightsim.com/gameport_controller.html>Uh, I do not recommend that - it is simple to build for sure, but many times you end up with a lot of "jitter" in the potentiometers due to the intereference in the wires. Its very hard to get them stable.The USBAxis does filtering and the signal is steady - your throttles wont move by themselves, which is good :)//Tuomas

"Uh, I do not recommend that - it is simple to build for sure, but many times you end up with a lot of "jitter" in the potentiometers due to the intereference in the wires. Its very hard to get them stable."You are right Tuomas, you might get some "jitter" in the throttle on-screen display (especially when using an aircraft with a quadrant window) but there is no effect at all on engine RPM, so when you operate through your cockpit throttles everything is steady. It all depends on how much money you wish to invest in the throttles and how simple or complicated you want it to be.http://www.sk-flightsim.com/

Well guys, thank you for your answers but...I found the way to make that joystick work under FS2004.Since FS2004 seemed not to "love" that joystick I thought one thing: how can I "force" FS2004 to read that joystick?Since I'm a programmer I developed a simple program that reads data from the joystick every 100ms (actually any input peripheral) and write them, through FSUIPC, directly into memory locations (or registry) of FS2004.By this way I can virtually assign any axis of a joystick to a FS2004 control.I tried, then, to assign X,Y,Z axis to respectively Engine 1,2 and vertical trim and...it worked !!Now I can control engines in FS2004 through my program not to worry about assignements in FS2004 anymore.Thus...my throttle quadrant is already under construction ehehWhen I will have finished the program, it will support 8 axis and 31 buttons and you will be able to freely assign axis and buttons to aircraft controls and save (and load) the assignement profile for every aircraft you select.The program will manage everything for you.Regards,Bob