Thrustmaster Uncommanded Rudder Movement

[tamba765 54]

     I have a 3 piece Thrustmaster set which includes a Throttle, Rudder pedals and Joystick. Most of the time they all work well together. There are times, however, when the aircraft rudder pedals start moving on their own. During taxi it causes the airplane to suddenly veer to the right or left, and inflight the nose oscillates from side to side.  When this happens it's nearly impossible to calibrate the rudder. The rudder slider on the Thrustmaster control panel calibration scale will not respond properly when twisting the joystick, which I use as a tiller while taxiing. I've tried adjusting the sensitivity and null zones in the P3D control panel, but nothing seems to help. Here's the weird part, if I move my hand near the joystick, I can see the airplane rudder move, (not the rudder pedals themselves) , even though I don't actually touch the joystick. Same with the rudder pedals, if I move my foot close to the pedals, the rudder in the airplane will deflect. I'm not aware of any proximity sensors on these components. I use PMDG aircraft. I have VR disabled, have no anti virus or firewall, have the latest drivers for the devices, and am not using Thrustmaster Target software or FSUIPC. OS Windows 10.

  Is anybody else out there seeing this kind of strange behavior. It's got me stumped. Thanks.

Pete Locascio

[TonyD 132]

If your Thrustmaster set includes the T1600M see this thread

TLDR: The twist axis fails after time, basically poor manufacturing. My one lasted 14 months and I have not managed to repair it.  Easiest solution is to disable that axis in sim settings. Note that once the failure occurs, the joystick will continue to send erroneous signals, whether you are touching it or not.  You can check this by viewing the windows joystick calibration tool.

 

 

[tamba765 54]

The driver I have installed is more recent than the one mentioned in the thread. I've gone through calibration process over and over, with no improvement.

Also, my rudder pedals are similarly effected. It looks like there's no real permanent fix for this problem. I guess you get what you pay for, and the manufacturer will never admit there's a design flaw in their product. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Ted Striker 338]

I have Thrustmaster Top Gun throttle/joystick combo. It was the predecessor to the current Thrustmaster T.Flight line and looks identical to them except mine is silver. I wish it was a little more precise but for the price it has been great and reliable. I don't use FSUIPC, the thrustmaster software, or any other hardware software. All my calibration is done through the sim interface. I use this throttle/joystick combo with CH Pedals. The only time I have had trouble with the any of the axes is when I had two axes assigned to the same function. i.e. both the CH Pedals and joystick twist grip assigned to the rudder. So all I can think of to suggest is to check all of your axes assignments and make sure you don't have two thing trying to control the same function.

This is the first that I've heard of the proximity problem that you described...but then we are getting close to Halloween

Ted

[tamba765 54]

     Yea, I get all the weird stuff when it comes to Flight Simming, hardware, software or whatever.

 Anyway I got rid of the Thrustmaster software, and the problem seems to have been solved, for now at least. I think there was a conflict somewhere causing erroneous signals which resulted in the 

uncommanded rudder movement I was seeing. I'm still using the twist function on the joystick as a tiller on the ground, and the rudder pedals for flight. I just have make sure that I'm only inputting one of them at a time. Thanks.