2 hours ago, flytrumpet767 said:

So, I am very tempted by this yoke, and even added to my cart at Dix 30. Should I take the plunge? I mostly fly the PMDG NGXu.

Thanks

 

I've had mine since June of last year and wouldn't part with it!  Some are reporting deadzone issues, but I don't have any whatsoever.

Best wishes.

 

16 hours ago, DaveCT2003 said:

 

I've had mine since June of last year and wouldn't part with it!  Some are reporting deadzone issues, but I don't have any whatsoever.

Best wishes.

 

Thanks for the reply. I decided to order one.

I wonder why Honeycomb guys are claiming no deadzone in Alpha. It's obviously a design feature and quite a reasonable one. In the mechanical layout they've chosen it's impossible to avoid a mechanical deadzone due to friction in linear bearings- at least with reasonable spring (bungee cord) forces. I have a DIY yoke in addition to Alpha which uses a similar mechanical layout, longer pitch travel (150 mm) and a bit lower pitch force (about 2.4 kG). The mechanical deadzone is the same as Alpha has (5-7 mm), so I'm putting an appropriate deadzone in a control software- it's a must.

The roll axis is a different story- the friction in Alpha's roll bearings is very low, so in principle no deadzone is needed in the software; however the guys have chosen an extremely low bungee cord resistance, so the return force might be just too low to center the axis reliably. On my unit it's OK, with a very small deadzone in roll axis, but I can imagine some samples that require a large deadzone during a factory adjustment. A higher roll axis loading force is a design change that needs to be done.

And of course it would be reasonable to make a calibration software freely available to the customers; of course with a warning about the possible consequences. Anyway I don't think that it's possible to incur an irreversible damage to Alpha by just using a calibration software...

Happy Easter.

 

Thanks a lot, Mark! Happy Easter.

Thank you so much Mark, now I'm finally confident enough to order this yoke! 

On 4/16/2020 at 9:38 PM, FlyingRoo said:

Thank you so much Mark, now I'm finally confident enough to order this yoke! 

Very very small dead zone, i love it after day 1

Morning everyone,

Just signed up to say a huge thanks to Mark for his efforts on resolving this issue and for posting the firmware calibration method video above. I received my yoke last week having been aware of the deadzone issue but seen it downplayed by many as not noticeable. Well, I plugged mine in to set it up tonight while I wait for FS2020 to download (the reason I bought the thing) and sure enough, there was a good few degrees of yaw movement and a few mm in pitch before any change was registered in Windows calibration or this brilliantly handy online tool (https://gamepad-tester.com/).

There is a little bit of mechanical backlash in the mechanism in both axes. As Mark pointed out, this is exactly the reason for the firmware deadzone to exist - Honeycomb don't want people thinking their yokes are defective because they're reporting different values when you let it return to zero, and making your plane difficult or impossible to trim.

This backlash together with the calibration method Mark showed, which is carried out in the factory, explain for me why some people seem to be having a lot more of an issue with this than others. If you turn the yoke right and return it to centre, it'll stay about a degree right, and vice versa, it's just the nature of using a single bungee cord as the return which has no pressure in the centre position. It does seem that the yoke takes these two different "zero" positions and inserts a deadzone between them. Each yoke leaving the factory will be different as a result of its particular mechanical properties and where the tester actually returned the yoke to "zero" to after turning it both left and right.

I've recalibrated mine, brushing half a pool cue underneath the yoke at the same point for both zero points, so that both zero points are exactly the same. As a result there is now absolutely no deadzone at all, in fact I can see 3 different position readings depending where in the "centre" the yoke is resting. This, as mentioned, is the reason for the existence of the deadzone, but I would much rather have absolute precision reported from my controls and have the option to add a tiny bit of deadzone in software if trimming appears to be an issue.

This issue has been widely reported for some time so I'm surprised to see Honeycomb haven't publically addressed it. The firmware calibration REALLY is not difficult to do with the simplest of instructions... almost makes you wonder what they take their customer base to be...... you just need to be aware that you might create trimming issues with the deadzone fully zeroed, but you can iron those out in software.

Now... just another 65GB to go and we can test this thing out! I haven't played a flight sim since FS98, so this should be interesting...

Edited August 18, 20205 yr by lew787

thanks to people posting about these things I solved a couple of issues easily. Plus Honeycomb now see there is a definite deadzone problem and sent me to their own instructions on their website to fix it (similar to the video instructions posted here).

1. Changing the ethernet cable and replacing the curly one with a straight one makes it less hard to pull the yoke.

2. Following the instructions for recalibration removed a nearly 1 cm deadzone in pitch.

https://support.flyhoneycomb.com/portal/en/kb/articles/manual-calibration-guide

 

 

Hello, 

 

I'm new to the FS accessories.. yet lately purchased my FS2020, and thinking about getting Honeycomb Alpha Flight Simulator Yoke and Bravo Throttle. I believe forums is a good place to start. I also read about concerns with the dead zone, yet other brands seems have even more issues, so guess there is no perfect product. Should that for the beginner be a concern? Have anybody heard any planes by Honeycomb to fix this issue as of 4/24/21?? I'm also thinking in addition to mentioned 'combo' to get Thrustmaster pedals rather than from Logitech's... any insight into this aspcet I'd highly appreciate, thank you!

52 minutes ago, zawaprz said:

Should that for the beginner be a concern? Have anybody heard any planes by Honeycomb to fix this issue as of 4/24/21??

As clearly explained in the video by MarkDH 5 posts earlier on this page and in a post by lew787 2 posts above this "issue" can be resolved completely by re-calibrating the yoke using an option built into the Alpha's firmware.

Edited April 24, 20215 yr by SergeyPe

2 hours ago, zawaprz said:

Hello, 

I'm new to the FS accessories.. yet lately purchased my FS2020, and thinking about getting Honeycomb Alpha Flight Simulator Yoke and Bravo Throttle. I believe forums is a good place to start. I also read about concerns with the dead zone, yet other brands seems have even more issues, so guess there is no perfect product.

Consider the Fulcrum One yoke. It’s been favourably compared to yokes costing nearly 1000USD. It costs less than half and has no dead zone. There is also a support forum here on AvSim.

https://fulcrumsim.com/product/fulcrum-one-yoke/

Mine had a small deadzone, but after calibration it became absolutely perfect, but it has started to become loose in the shaft bearings after four months of use, but I did not expect anything else either considering that it is a plastic toy after all.