Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
FlyingGoblin

PFC Saab Yoke (Desktop), poor roll resolution

Recommended Posts

I finally decided to go ahead and get a high end yoke to increase my immersion in the simulator.  The yoke feels great.  Plenty of mass and very smooth movement.  I'm running windows 10, P3D and XP11.

I calibrated the yoke in windows and noticed that the behavior was a little odd.  Pitch seems to smoothly go to the extents, but when centered, the cross hair would not be centered in the window.  The roll, wouldn't even reach the extents of the window until clicking through the calibration routine and going to "test".  There I could see roll through the entire range -- although turning the yoke very slowly, I could see the cross-hair incrementing across the window.  When I look at the raw values they go from about 500 to about 1500 in steps of 5 or six -- which makes me think I'm looking at an 8-bit digitizer.

In X-Plane, before clicking "accept axis" the roll again does not reach the extents of the range and never automatically turns blue like other axes.  If I click accept axis, then the indicator turns blue and fills the extents of the bar.  Starting up the '172 and looking at the ailerons, I can see the ailerons incrementing through the range in noticeable discrete steps.

 

In P3D it's basically the same thing.  I use FSUIPC, and still see large increments in the "raw" value of the roll axis.

I've been using thrustmaster sticks since the early '90s.  Often moded with various aftermarket offerings.  I'm strong believer in the control device enhancing immersion -- I fly with a side-stick when flying a aircraft that has that in real life and center mount when that is called for.  I've only recently gotten into aircraft with yokes and want to fly like the real thing.  Ultimately, if I cant get the yoke to calibrate properly, I'll rip the box open and stuff in an aftermarket board, but for $1,000 I wasn't expecting the need.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi Goblin,

 

Iv'e had a SAAB desktop yoke for about eight years now & in all that time it has been smooth & not shown any jumpiness in the calibration. I don't usually bother with the Windows one however do use FSUIPC sometimes. Quite often I haven't even bothered as it hasn't needed calibrating. Just plug it in & go flying.

Sounds to me there is an issue with the board.

Can't say I'm surprised to hear this, PFC quality appears to have dropped somewhat of late. I ordered a throttle set from them last October & of the four throttles i received three had issues, one of which we fixed via email, the second was replaced & the third (Twin Jet) is to be replaced when they get around to it. It took them till February to identify the problem & subsequent emails since then to the Tech department have gone unanswered. Communication with these guys is the worst I have ever experienced. Ever! They just do not respond to you, necessitating contacting the sales department who on the other hand are brilliant & respond almost immediately. Usually after I email sales I get a response from the Tech guys with apologies & excuses however they are just so slow!

I'd be getting on to PFC pretty quickly & hopefully you may bet a better response than I have.

When the yoke & throttles work they are soo good.Pity they are getting a bit slack in quality.


Cheers, Ross

i910900KF | ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Extreme Z590 | ASUS ROG STRIX RTX3070 OC 8Gb | 32Gb G.Skill  Ripjaws DDR4 3200 I  Thermaltake Water 3.0 Riing | Samsung SSD 870 1TB GB HD | WIN 10 64 Bit

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I purchased a new PFC 737 Yoke from someone who got it at an estate Action. long story short the control board inside was damaged. It cost me $150 with shipping for the new board. The seller on ebay refunded me most of the purchase price so I am only into the Yoke $400. Mine is smooth as silk but my roll axis in XP never turns blue but it still work just fine in XP & P3D.  I didnt have any problems with PFC support. I sent about 6 emails over a 2 week period and they replied to everyone within 1 working day.  Thas was only 3 months ago.


Pete Richards

Aussie born, Sydney (YSSY) living in Whitehorse, Yukon (CYXY)

Windows 11 Pro loaded on a Sabrent 1TB Rocket Nvme PCIe 4.0, Ryzen 9 7950x3d, MSI X670-Pro Wifi Motherboard, MSI RTX 4070 Ti Ventus 3X 12G OC, 64GB DDR5-6000 C30 Corsair Vengeance, 2x 1TB Samsung 960 Pro NVMe for MSFS2020, 4TB Seagate BarraCuda HD, Corsair RMx 1000W PSU, NZXT Kraken X63 280mm AIO, Phanteks P600S Case.

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Good to hear you have had timely support from PFC Pete.

My last email which has not been replied to is about three weeks ago now & another that I'm to get an answer to is a couple of weeks older than that.

Looks like it's selective response depending apon the issue.

Either way I've never experienced communication so bad, particularly for quite an expensive product.


Cheers, Ross

i910900KF | ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Extreme Z590 | ASUS ROG STRIX RTX3070 OC 8Gb | 32Gb G.Skill  Ripjaws DDR4 3200 I  Thermaltake Water 3.0 Riing | Samsung SSD 870 1TB GB HD | WIN 10 64 Bit

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
29 minutes ago, Rossco said:

Good to hear you have had timely support from PFC Pete.

My last email which has not been replied to is about three weeks ago now & another that I'm to get an answer to is a couple of weeks older than that.

Looks like it's selective response depending apon the issue.

Either way I've never experienced communication so bad, particularly for quite an expensive product.

Agree.  Support should be first rate for a $1500 yoke. I personally don't think there Yokes are worth that much! I certainly wouldn't pay that!

My repair was not warranty so perhaps they wanted the funds. I did find the parts and shipping  extremely expensive and i was charged US$60 for postage to Canada for something the size of a stick of RAM.  When i went on the USPS website it would have cost me $16 using the same options.


Pete Richards

Aussie born, Sydney (YSSY) living in Whitehorse, Yukon (CYXY)

Windows 11 Pro loaded on a Sabrent 1TB Rocket Nvme PCIe 4.0, Ryzen 9 7950x3d, MSI X670-Pro Wifi Motherboard, MSI RTX 4070 Ti Ventus 3X 12G OC, 64GB DDR5-6000 C30 Corsair Vengeance, 2x 1TB Samsung 960 Pro NVMe for MSFS2020, 4TB Seagate BarraCuda HD, Corsair RMx 1000W PSU, NZXT Kraken X63 280mm AIO, Phanteks P600S Case.

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
41 minutes ago, Rossco said:

Good to hear you have had timely support from PFC Pete.

My last email which has not been replied to is about three weeks ago now & another that I'm to get an answer to is a couple of weeks older than that.

Looks like it's selective response depending apon the issue.

Either way I've never experienced communication so bad, particularly for quite an expensive product.

If you are not getting a response from PFC then I'd venture to say they didn't get your inquiry.   You need to give them a call.  I have contacted them several times through the years either by email or by telephone and always got a prompt response.  I sent an email a couple of months ago and they called me within 30 minutes. 

blaustern


I Earned My Spurs in Vietnam

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi Blaustern,

Bit hard to ring them as I'm in Australia & had emailed them several times over several weeks with no reply till I contacted sales. I then received a phone call from them the next morning apologising for not responding. That unfortunately did not change things going forward & a number of times I have sent emails requesting a response till I give up & contact sales.

Not wanting to hijack this thread any further but I think the issue with Goblin's unit will be a warranty issue.

Although I'm not impressed with the communications from the "Service" department from this company I still love the product & they are a joy to use once the issues are sorted.


Cheers, Ross

i910900KF | ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Extreme Z590 | ASUS ROG STRIX RTX3070 OC 8Gb | 32Gb G.Skill  Ripjaws DDR4 3200 I  Thermaltake Water 3.0 Riing | Samsung SSD 870 1TB GB HD | WIN 10 64 Bit

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

FWIW - I also have the PFC Saab yoke with the Hall sensors.  its performance has been perfect (added my own hat switch as well) and communication with PFC was good during questions and purchase.  I'm a little distressed to hear others have not had the same when they have problems.  

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, I'll see how it goes.  I sent an email to PFC support yesterday just before I posted my initial experience and I've not heard anything back yet.  I also tried to call yesterday, but the phone just rang with no answer.

I get 313 discrete counts between full left and full right deflection.  That's slightly better than 8-bits.  Not what I would call "Precision".  And it's not the numbers that bother me, it's the fact that I can move the yoke for a very small adjustment and nothing happens.

Maybe I'm just being picky and need to spend more time with a yoke.  I really, really like the feel of this thing!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

macwino

I tried to write up the hat switch on this forum a while back but got totally thwarted by how difficult it is to post images on this board. 

Has happened more than once.  I have followed the instructions closely and could never get past the process.

The last attempt gave me "this type file is not allowed" message when I tried to imbed the link from photo-bucket (it was a jpg file).

If I can ever get it to work I'll show you.  Assuming its user error, any mistakes that everyone but me knows would be welcome  :-)

Jeff Buckles

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 5/27/2017 at 9:11 AM, FLNG said:

If I can ever get it to work I'll show you.

Thanks, Jeff.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So, I just got off the phone with PFC support.  They ran through the calibration procedure (as did I) remotely and said everything was fine.

I'm having a hard time believing that the resolution is really this poor.  I plugged my Warthog stick back in and it simply blows this thing out of the water in terms of precision.

 

Seriously disappointed.

 

 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi Goblin,

As previously mentioned I rarely bother calibrating in Windows & just rely on FSUIPC however I did so over the weekend to see how it went.

Have to confirm that my range also was limited at first till I ran through the process but when watching the numbers my roll indication looked pretty smooth & didn't appear to be jumping at all. That said my unit is seven or eight years old & uses a different board to yours. It did have springs to control the tensions for roll & pitch. I have converted the roll to a bungy system as one of the springs kept coming loose & making a clicking noise/feel which was very annoying. This about three days after receiving the thing. That didn't impress me much.

OT, still not had a reply from PFC, checked yesterday & it has been three months since they advised they were aware of the cause of the issue I was having with the throttle however requests for an update have been ignored by both staff members of PFC support. Not what I call good customer relations or service!

How is the yoke performing in sim?


Cheers, Ross

i910900KF | ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Extreme Z590 | ASUS ROG STRIX RTX3070 OC 8Gb | 32Gb G.Skill  Ripjaws DDR4 3200 I  Thermaltake Water 3.0 Riing | Samsung SSD 870 1TB GB HD | WIN 10 64 Bit

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi Ross,

Thanks for posting what you are seeing in FSUIPC.  I was wondering if other people were just accepting what they were getting and not really looking.  On the other hand, I didn't have to look at any numbers to tell me something was wrong.

I rarely look at the windows cal dialog too.  My first stop, after getting poor results flying, was the axis calibration tab in FSUIPC.  While the numbers had been scaled up, it just resulted in much larger step sizes.

I considered returning the yoke, but that would be another $60 shipping, so I decided to just mod what I have.  As I said previously, the yoke looks and feels awesome.  To bad it wasn't "precision" out of the box.

I've ordered a couple of aftermarket joystick boards and plane to rip the PFC yoke open and use one to replace whatever is in there.  The website says they are using Hall-effect position sensors, so I'll be looking at what the sensors are and how they are connected.  I may end up replacing those as well.

To answer your question, "How is the yoke performing in the sim?", I'm not using it.  Messed around with it for a few flights but landing was...sloppy.  I'm used to making very small adjustments and getting a response.  With this thing, I just can't make precise changes.  

I was trying to fly touch and goes in the A2A-182 at LOWI and ended up just letting go of the yoke and flying with my HOTAB.  Hands on Throttle and Beer: steering with the rudder and pitch control with the throttle.

Cheers, 

Mike

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

  • Tom Allensworth,
    Founder of AVSIM Online


  • Flight Simulation's Premier Resource!

    AVSIM is a free service to the flight simulation community. AVSIM is staffed completely by volunteers and all funds donated to AVSIM go directly back to supporting the community. Your donation here helps to pay our bandwidth costs, emergency funding, and other general costs that crop up from time to time. Thank you for your support!

    Click here for more information and to see all donations year to date.
×
×
  • Create New...