18 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

A shame that the original plan to use Hall effect sensors in the Honeycomb yoke evaporated away.

It was built to a budget making them impossible. But think about the component guaranteed to fail and it’s always the pots. The Honeycomb yoke will probably be popular but five years down the road it will suffer the same as the Saitek.

I hope any prospective purchaser asks about pot replacement and if / how it’s done.

2 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

It was built to a budget making them impossible.

Unless you're using the cheapest possible pots, using HE sensors wouldn't add that much to the cost and would make the product MUCH more attractive. However, the deal is done now so I suppose there's not much point discussing it.

@vortex681, agreed but even the best pots will fail. I have a friend who has had the PFC Boeing yoke for many years and the pots on that expensive unit were failing. Fortunately PFC have a Hall Effect kit so he was able to swap them.

Last year I threw away two Saitek throttle quadrants simply because the pots were spiking. That’s helpful to the planet - NOT!, but with no replacements available I had no alternative.

Yeah, I'm having the same problem with my Saitek X45. The throttle is really notchy in the middle. I usually have to throttle up past half way, then quickly back down to where I really want it in order for it to properly register. I'm looking to replace it, but there's nothing out there that isn't either so expensive that I could make significant progress on real flight lessons, or so cheap that I feel like I'm using an old Atari controller.

The X45 lasted a *long* time before it finally started to glitch out on me, and there's nothing on the market today that hits the same price point / quality level of that stick. Modern Saitek/Logitech stuff is still the same junky Madcatz garbage with a different sticker on it.

 

Wow, I can't believe we've been talking about this for two years! But now it's here...

 

22 hours ago, MarkDH said:

Wow, I can't believe we've been talking about this for two years! But now it's here...

Mark,

Thanks for the informative review.

Could you explain how you came up with, in effect, 35 switches. I understand there are nine (I think) toggle switches on the panel that apparently represent 2 switches each for a total of18, but I'm not sure how you counted the switches on the yoke's handles to come up with a total of 35.

Also, I find the 'grating' sound that the yoke's pitch axis makes kind of surprising, and a bit irritating I think. I have to wonder if that just happens to be unique to your particular yoke, or is common to them all. 

Al

 

47 minutes ago, ark said:

35 switches

9 toggle switches on the front panel mapped to 18 buttons
6 buttons and switches on left handle
6 buttons and switches on right handle
5 buttons on mag switch

In case you don't have the yoke, each trim switch is made up of two ON-ON switches, so that's a total of four switches on each handle. The hat switch doesn't count as switches.

The 'grating' sound is not unique to my yoke, it is reported in other reviews. I don't think it's a problem, it's just that you notice the difference between the aileron and elevator actions.

1 hour ago, MarkDH said:

In case you don't have the yoke...

Mark, I don't have the Honeycomb yoke; I'm just trying to compare it to other options.

Thanks for the switches clarification.  BTW, why doesn't the Hat switch count as a number of switches?  It shows up in the switch assignment section of the FSUIPC5.ini file.

Al

Edited November 5, 20196 yr by ark

On 11/4/2019 at 4:15 PM, MarkDH said:

Wow, I can't believe we've been talking about this for two years! But now it's here...

 

Best review yet on the Alpha yoke and I've watched them all. Ordered mine Sunday on MyPilot Store.com and watching for it tomorrow! I also ordered a custom made 747 throttle quad from FSThrottle I should get in a week or two. Just don't want to wait for Honycomb after waiting so long for this yoke to release.

8 hours ago, ark said:

why doesn't the Hat switch count as a number of switches?  It shows up in the switch assignment section of the FSUIPC5.ini file.

I don't know but I guess it's just historical. With DirectInput you can have eight analogue axes, 32 buttons and an eight-way hat switch. Presumably the hat switch was common enough to be packaged as a kind of input device in its own right. If you look at the Leo Bodbar interface boards, the hat switch has its own connectors that are distinct from the switch inputs.