Thrustmaster TPR Rudder Pedals - alternative to Crosswind?

[JRBarrett 3,073]

Just now, JonP01 said:

Well your earlier post about the pilot being interested and impressed really helped put these Thrustmaster pedals at the top of the shortlist for me. Especially when I know how high quality race simming gear is these days. For someone who is both a pro-pilot AND a "high end" race simmer, praising these Thrustmaster pedals is very high praise indeed. And as Ray pointed out earlier, hall sensors are the icing on the cake, though I have to say I have been quite surprised at the seemingly slow uptake of this technology in flight simming. compared to race simming Halls sensors make all the difference. You get perfect precision over the long haul which of course is critical with rudder control. I upgraded my Logitech G25 race sim pedals (8 years old at the time) with a hall sensor kit and they felt better than brand new - even after thousands of hours logged on the mechanicals over the years.

I’ve been a big fan of Hall effect sensors since moving from a CH yoke to the TM Warthog a few years ago. Still, as I understand, even the highly-regarded Yoko Yoke was still using potentiometers until quite recently - albeit probably mil spec multi-turn precision units, rather than the consumer grade single turn non-sealed potentiometers found in products like the CH yoke.

I see that Virtual Flight now offers the TQ6 Plus throttle quadrant with Hall effect sensors which is very tempting, because I do see some “potentiometer jitter” on my CH quadrant throttles -especially at the low end of their travel.

My only concern with moving to the VF TQ6 quadrant is the loss of the 6 two-position switches on the CH quadrant. I would miss those, because I use them constantly for quickly moving the eyepoint in the virtual cockpit. I have the buttons assigned to move eyepoint left/right, up/down, and in/out. Even with a camera app, the manual eyepoint control via assigned switches comes in handy.

The other issue with the TQ6 quadrant is that the 6 levers are grouped into 3 discrete groups of two levers - for throttle, prop and mixture. This is perfect when using them with a twin engine prop or turboprop, and I normally use my CH quadrant that way.

When flying a twin-engine jet, I’m only concerned with the two throttle levers in any case.

However, when I fly the PMDG 747s, I reassign the two center prop levers to act as engine throttles 3 and 4. This is easy to manage on the CH quadrant ergonomically, since the levers are equally spaced and all aligned horizontally. I can easily grasp and manage all four levers at once with one hand. It would be more of the problem with the VF TQ6

Still the allure of the absolutely linear and noise-free response of the Hall effect sensors in something like the TQ6 Plus quadrant is hard to resist...

[FreeBird(Josh) 314]

Just now, JRBarrett said:

I’ve been a big fan of Hall effect sensors since moving from a CH yoke to the TM Warthog a few years ago. Still, as I understand, even the highly-regarded Yoko Yoke was still using potentiometers until quite recently - albeit probably mil spec multi-turn precision units, rather than the consumer grade single turn non-sealed potentiometers found in products like the CH yoke.

I see that Virtual Flight now offers the TQ6 Plus throttle quadrant with Hall effect sensors which is very tempting, because I do see some “potentiometer jitter” on my CH quadrant throttles -especially at the low end of their travel.

My only concern with moving to the VF TQ6 quadrant is the loss of the 6 two-position switches on the CH quadrant. I would miss those, because I use them constantly for quickly moving the eyepoint in the virtual cockpit. I have the buttons assigned to move eyepoint left/right, up/down, and in/out. Even with a camera app, the manual eyepoint control via assigned switches comes in handy.

The other issue with the TQ6 quadrant is that the 6 levers are grouped into 3 discrete groups of two levers - for throttle, prop and mixture. This is perfect when using them with a twin engine prop or turboprop, and I normally use my CH quadrant that way.

When flying a twin-engine jet, I’m only concerned with the two throttle levers in any case.

However, when I fly the PMDG 747s, I reassign the two center prop levers to act as engine throttles 3 and 4. This is easy to manage on the CH quadrant ergonomically, since the levers are equally spaced and all aligned horizontally. I can easily grasp and manage all four levers at once with one hand. It would be more of the problem with the VF TQ6

Still the allure of the absolutely linear and noise-free response of the Hall effect sensors in something like the TQ6 Plus quadrant is hard to resist...

I got the new TQ6 plus and love it. I had issues with the ones with potentiometer as they kept going bad so I sent it back. There is no need to calibrate this new one as it works straight out of the box. I have mine sitting on top of my saitek TPM which has all the switches I need. Im able to grab both the Throttle and Prop with not much issue but it take the whole hand but it doable and the nobs come off so you could fabricate some new ones to make them closer. I love the adjustable tension for the control and the metal feels real good like the real thing. I have the yoko and have had no issues with the potentiometer on it.  All the new Yokos will soon have the Hall sensors and a dedicated hat switch. Josh

[jon b 2,049]

3 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

 

However, when I fly the PMDG 747s, I reassign the two center prop levers to act as engine throttles 3 and 4. This is easy to manage on the CH quadrant ergonomically, since the levers are equally spaced and all aligned horizontally. I can easily grasp and manage all four levers at once with one hand. It would be more of the problem with the VF TQ6

Still the allure of the absolutely linear and noise-free response of the Hall effect sensors in something like the TQ6 Plus quadrant is hard to resist...

I know what you mean, that 4 engined jet causes a problem with hardware selection. I fly the PMDG 747 quite often as I fly the real world 747 for a living . Personally I’ve got 2 saitek throttles clamped next to each other, I use the inner 4 levers as thrust levers , the far left lever as speed brakes and the far right as the flaps axis.You’ve also got individual switches under each lever which act nicely as fuel control switches. It works quite well, but the saiteks are a little flimsy and I’m looking to replace with the TQ6 plus. I’m thinking the only time I ever move an individual thrust lever on the 744 is as part of an engine failure drill, and once the engine has been secured we always take the thrust levers back and use it as dead lever to be in symmetry with the other 3 anyway rather than leaving it sat at idle, it makes it easier to get a good grip of the remaining thrust leavers. So for the sake of doing that drill i’d Just use the mouse I guess and make do with a twin engine set up.

 I’m just waiting for this new Hall effect yoko to be announced, then I’ll be set up.The warthog is good in the meantime.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,956]

As this discussion has moved away from TM and to throttle quadrants I might as well give you some info. I’m typing this in my hotel room in Lelystad, Netherlands after attending today’s FS Convention.

We met the main two guys who run Virtual Fly and complimented them on the TQ6 quadrant. With Engine, Prop and Mixture controls it’s clearly aimed at the twin-engine market. But as it already has six levers it could be possible to modify it for Boeing and Airbus use up to four engines.

I suggested that it might be an idea to run a poll on AvSim to see whether enough people would be interested in such a quadrant. Essentially the four innermost levers would be for engines 1-4 with the outer two for spoilers and flaps.

They will give this some thought and hopefully issue a poll. As someone who flies Concorde it would be very attractive to me as it’s probably the highest quality throttle quadrant I saw today outside of the serious cockpits costing tens of thousands.

Although the current TQ6 could be utilised for multiple engine jets the placement of the axes isn’t ideal as there is a significant gap between each pair of axes. A spread similar to the Saitek Pro Throttle quadrants would be ideal.

All we are really talking about is the case holding the levers to be modified. The actual levers themselves can remain as they are so any costs involved in the case mod shouldn’t be significant.

 The only way to gauge whether there would be sufficient interest is via a poll. Hopefully we’ll see one soon.

Flying back to Manchester tomorrow afternoon after an interesting day playing on things I could never afford. 😃

[FreeBird(Josh) 314]

Just now, Ray Proudfoot said:

As this discussion has moved away from TM and to throttle quadrants I might as well give you some info. I’m typing this in my hotel room in Lelystad, Netherlands after attending today’s FS Convention.

We met the main two guys who run Virtual Fly and complimented them on the TQ6 quadrant. With Engine, Prop and Mixture controls it’s clearly aimed at the twin-engine market. But as it already has six levers it could be possible to modify it for Boeing and Airbus use up to four engines.

I suggested that it might be an idea to run a poll on AvSim to see whether enough people would be interested in such a quadrant. Essentially the four innermost levers would be for engines 1-4 with the outer two for spoilers and flaps.

They will give this some thought and hopefully issue a poll. As someone who flies Concorde it would be very attractive to me as it’s probably the highest quality throttle quadrant I saw today outside of the serious cockpits costing tens of thousands.

Although the current TQ6 could be utilised for multiple engine jets the placement of the axes isn’t ideal as there is a significant gap between each pair of axes. A spread similar to the Saitek Pro Throttle quadrants would be ideal.

All we are really talking about is the case holding the levers to be modified. The actual levers themselves can remain as they are so any costs involved in the case mod shouldn’t be significant.

 The only way to gauge whether there would be sufficient interest is via a poll. Hopefully we’ll see one soon.

Flying back to Manchester tomorrow afternoon after an interesting day playing on things I could never afford. 😃

It would be really easy for them to do. They would just make the levers with different bends in them which would get them closer together without changing the basic design. 

[JonP01 104]

HaHa. I love the flexibility of discussion here. Some places won't let you go one micron off topic even if it deals with the same basic subject matter. And that makes discussions shallow and very limited and thus less useful. Funny you guys mention hall sensors and VF. I was emailing them just last week about the TQ3 (and the Yoko) and wanting to know if I could get spare pots for them. They replied that everything of theirs is now hall sensor including even the TQ3 (they ought to update their website accordingly).

The problem with pots is just exaggerated in flight simming for a few reasons.  But the main one is that in civilian flying there is a lot of wear at relatively small, repetitive ranges of travel. For example, yokes / joysticks - we are rarely using anything like full deflections as a matter of course as that would normally cause an aerodynamic disaster. We should constantly be trimming out control forces which in turn means a lot of use but generally in a small range of travel in both main axes. Same with throttles. And rudders in particular as we know become frustratingly nasty - I remember with my old CH Pro pedals I used to pray for serious crosswinds because the more I had to physically deflect the rudder to crab on approach, the more accurate they were (and I did not like the hard detent in the centre either). But that was mainly because the large deflection needed in a crosswind landing represented the exception to normal use (normal use at worst being very light deflection for coordinated turns, etc).

As I intimate though, I just wouldn't even think of buying anything these days that used pots. Or if it did, it would have to use high quality audio grade ones like ALPS. Which in turn would be pointless as the cost of those is far beyond the cost of just using hall sensors.

And remember, the throttles in all of our modern cars have hall sensors - if they can be used in such an important application as that for years and even decades on end, they are good enough for my yoke, rudder pedals and quadrant!

[oemlegoem 29]

I found this website with an interesting video (in the review section of user Ghostrider, near the bottom of the web page) . Even without understanding French, the very clear video shows a lot of interesting details.

http://www.checksix-fr.com/test-thrustmaster-pendular-rudder/

Edited December 7, 2018 by oemlegoem