Serious trouble with bravo throttle

[barramundilure 152]

Hi everyone i have just received my Bravo throttle but having many difficulties.  I previously had my Saitek Yoke with throttle and the pot noise made it impossible to use hence the purchase of the Bravo throttle.

I disconnected the throttle section from the Saitek yoke and connected the Bravo yoke but nothing but problems so far.

To start with despite making sure i downloaded the correct P3D4 Honeycomb software it refuses to open, just a grey blank square....

I have tried several different aircraft trying variations and getting uncommanded key presses along with my commanded ones and the throttle not following the FSUIPC setting for axis and key presses etc.

This throttle seems seriously immature and buggy.  Given i have forked out substantial sums of mone,y I warn others of the problems and ask anyone who has had success getting this up and running if they can offer any help in my situation. 

[markmasterson 63]

Barra,

     Mine had similar early problems.   I ended up reloading Operating System and Prepar3d to clear out drivers that I could not get to.  My Bravo works perfectly now in MSFS, Xplane and P3d.  I hate to tell you this but it solves my problem even though it caused me a week of pain reloading all my scenery etc...  It really is a great experience.  In P3D you may have to use Linda to get all the features working (Switches in 5 positions for nav, Alt, VS, HDG etc), but in MSFS all functionality is fully available.

[MarkJHarris 128]

Just a quick thought, but are you connecting it via the USB ports in the Saitek yoke? If so I'd try one of the main ports instead. 

[barramundilure 152]

17 hours ago, MarkJHarris said:

Just a quick thought, but are you connecting it via the USB ports in the Saitek yoke? If so I'd try one of the main ports instead. 

No Mark, through a USB in the computer.  thanks anyway.

 

Edited January 5, 2021 by barramundilure

[barramundilure 152]

21 hours ago, markmasterson said:

Barra,

     Mine had similar early problems.   I ended up reloading Operating System and Prepar3d to clear out drivers that I could not get to.  My Bravo works perfectly now in MSFS, Xplane and P3d.  I hate to tell you this but it solves my problem even though it caused me a week of pain reloading all my scenery etc...  It really is a great experience.  In P3D you may have to use Linda to get all the features working (Switches in 5 positions for nav, Alt, VS, HDG etc), but in MSFS all functionality is fully available.

OMG, Having to start a full new install of P3D4 just because of a throttle is not only extreme but totally unacceptable on behalf of the manufacturers.  If I had known that I would never have purchased this.  All it has done is totally screwed up my system.  Words can't describe how angry I am with Honeycomb, its imature and generally faulty product.

I have hundreds of sceneries and aircraft etc that will require reinstalling, it will be months of work.  

All I can do now is recommend others don't use the Honeycomb system under any circumstances unless they are prepared for this nonsense, its quite obviously junk and totally unsupported by the manufacturer if you could call them that.

 

Edited January 5, 2021 by barramundilure

[MarkDH 234]

4 hours ago, barramundilure said:

OMG, Having to start a full new install of P3D4 just because of a throttle is not only extreme but totally unacceptable on behalf of the manufacturers.  If I had known that I would never have purchased this.  All it has done is totally screwed up my system.  Words can't describe how angry I am with Honeycomb, its imature and generally faulty product.

I have hundreds of sceneries and aircraft etc that will require reinstalling, it will be months of work.  

All I can do now is recommend others don't use the Honeycomb system under any circumstances unless they are prepared for this nonsense, its quite obviously junk and totally unsupported by the manufacturer if you could call them that.

Have you tried here? You will get a response from the developer of the software, which was written by Aerosoft. It seems unfair to blame Honeycomb because you decided to reinstall the world.

[barramundilure 152]

6 hours ago, MarkDH said:

Have you tried here? You will get a response from the developer of the software, which was written by Aerosoft. It seems unfair to blame Honeycomb because you decided to reinstall the world.

Tried contacting the manufacturer by several methods for no reply. 
The unit is total junk and support non existent from the manufacturer.....

Buyer beware, thanks for your help.

Edited January 5, 2021 by barramundilure

[fppilot 4,371]

3 hours ago, barramundilure said:

Buyer beware

My Bravo arrived today and other than figuring out for FSX SE (so far) how to juggle the sim settings, the Bravo settings, and FSUIPC settings mine is working famously so far. Quadrant, trim wheel, flaps and gear are all great!  The trim wheel is a blessing.  The only one I have had in use prior is the puny wheel on a Saitek Multipanel, which will soon be on eBay. .  I have the autopilot all set up and working via FSUIPC.

I did spend about three hours sorting it out, but two hours of that was struggling to create a viable profile for my Milviz B55 Baron, which has the throttle controls in the middle of the quadrant, between the prop and mix controls, instead of on the left.  FSUIPC handled it more easily with my simple Saitek USB quadrant. 

I fly several GA models and the others are all standard quadrant layouts, so I have decided to just use my standard quadrant profile and ignore that the B55's  throttles in its VC don't match what I am doing with the Bravo throttles on the left.

14 hours ago, barramundilure said:

I have hundreds of sceneries and aircraft etc that will require reinstalling, it will be months of work.  

 I use a driver sweeper utility from time to time.  I would certainly recommend you try one of those first.  And give this a try:

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/clean-up-old-drivers-may-starting-up-loading-slowing-pc-64295.html

Overreaction here has cost many many members lightyears of unnecessary time.....  and misery.....

Edited January 6, 2021 by fppilot

[barramundilure 152]

10 hours ago, fppilot said:

My Bravo arrived today and other than figuring out for FSX SE (so far) how to juggle the sim settings, the Bravo settings, and FSUIPC settings mine is working famously so far. Quadrant, trim wheel, flaps and gear are all great!  The trim wheel is a blessing.  The only one I have had in use prior is the puny wheel on a Saitek Multipanel, which will soon be on eBay. .  I have the autopilot all set up and working via FSUIPC.

I did spend about three hours sorting it out, but two hours of that was struggling to create a viable profile for my Milviz B55 Baron, which has the throttle controls in the middle of the quadrant, between the prop and mix controls, instead of on the left.  FSUIPC handled it more easily with my simple Saitek USB quadrant. 

I fly several GA models and the others are all standard quadrant layouts, so I have decided to just use my standard quadrant profile and ignore that the B55's  throttles in its VC don't match what I am doing with the Bravo throttles on the left.

 I use a driver sweeper utility from time to time.  I would certainly recommend you try one of those first.  And give this a try:

https://smallbusiness.chron.com/clean-up-old-drivers-may-starting-up-loading-slowing-pc-64295.html

Overreaction here has cost many many members lightyears of unnecessary time.....  and misery.....

Hi Frank thanks for the advice.  I am seeing slight improvement of the situation as it seems the sim itself isn't the problem but the controller functions internally are. 

I am using a Saitek yoke with the throttle unit removed and replaced by the honeycomb unit plugged directly into the computer.  In P3D4 controls panel itself under the bravo unit i had removed all axis's but have the default control buttons selections enabled.  Under the Saitek Yoke section once again I have all axis's removed but default button commands available to me.  I have been use FSUIPC to try programme both the yoke and throttle axis's as I was doing before but something is fighting the whole system.

I can assign bravo axis to particular commands in FSUIPC which results in them working backwards but as soon as i try and calibrate them these axis refuse to move at all.

I don't know if there is a way to reset all axis commands in P3D, and then try to uninstall FSUIPC then reinstall it and finally the Bravo software.  It definitely seems there are elements fighting each other but have spent many hours trying to solve it for little result.

Any ideas from anyone reading this would be appreciated.

[fppilot 4,371]

44 minutes ago, barramundilure said:

I don't know if there is a way to reset all axis commands in P3D, and then try to uninstall FSUIPC then reinstall it and finally the Bravo software.  It definitely seems there are elements fighting each other but have spent many hours trying to solve it for little result.

I expected some headaches with installation/implementation.  Over the past 20 years I have migrated from at first a CH yoke and pedals to Saitek Pro Cessna yoke and pedals.  Then on to the Honeycomb Alpha yoke.  I still use the Saitek pedals.  I have gone through this with each migration.  The worst was migrating to the Saitek yoke. It kept going bye bye in the middle of flights.  Saitek was very slow to develop Windows 10 drivers, from August 2015 until sometime in January 2016.  Even more maddening was that the drivers finally released in January 2016 bore filedates in November 2015. $%%^&$$#@#$$.  Then the bye bye in flight issue turned out to be Windows Advanced Power Management failing to sense use and reducing power to the yoke, and to a Saitek Multipanel I had in use.  It took editing the settings for the devices in Control Panel, Device Manager, plus a 3rd party patch to change some entries for the Saitek in the Windows Registry.  So the initial implementation issues with the Bravo are no surprise to me.  By the way I have not yet attempted configuration of the Bravo in MSFS 2020.

I have been using a Honeycomb Alpha yoke for the past year now but did not have the Honeycomb configurator software installed.  I was driving it totally with FSUIPC in FSX SE, and just straight out with MSFS 2020.  I found that to implement the Bravo LED lights annunciation panel in FSX SE I needed to install the FSX SE Honeycomb configurator. 

After installing that Honeycomb software I looked through FSX SE options/settings/controls and unbound all of the Bravo controller assignments there.  Then I attempted to use only FSUIPC with the Bravo.  I had mixed results. First, on the FSUIPC calibration pages for multiple throttle, pitch, and mixture levers, I believe I needed to check the Rev boxes to get them moving in the right direction. Then the movement of Bravo TPM levers when compared to the movement in the sim (looking at them in the virtual cockpit) seemed accelerated.  In other words moving the throttle levers for instance halfway on the Bravo was producing full range movement of the lever in the sim/VC.  (Oh, I did have some jumping of levers in the sim from one end of the range to the other until I made sure I only had them bound in one place or the other, sim vs FSUIPC.  Then that issue went away)

I then unbound all of the levers in FSUIPC and then configured them solely in FSX SE. I also still have the Honeycomb devices installed via the Honeycomb configurator app in order to retain the annunciator LED functions.  I had better success configuring in FSX SE with one exception.  The range of movement in of the Bravo and in the VC of the sim matched nicely.  I did have to reverse each to achieve the right movement direction.  But the one exception was my Mixture 1 lever.  It is clearly recognized and set (multiple times) in FSX SE Options/Settings, but in the sim moving that Bravo Mixture 1 lever does not produce any movement in the VC of the sim. I assumed it was interference from the Honeycomb configurator, so I uninstalled it, rebooted, and tried again.  No Joy (no pun intended).  The Mixture 1 lever still failed to product movement in the sim.  Each of the other five levers work very well.

My next steps were to reinstall the Honeycomb configurator, unbind the two Mixture levers in the sim, and configure and calibrate them once again in FSUIPC.  That works.  The Mixture 1 lever works under FSUIPC.  I left the Throttle and Prop levers configured in FSX SE only. 

The remaining issue at this time in FSX SE is that I still get the accelerated movement with the Mixture levers with FSUIPC.  Today I will hunt down and watch a video on using the Honeycomb configurator.  I find the configurator bewildering as it does not seem to animate any movement during its processes, so yesterday I turned away from it because I could not determine what if anything I was achieving. 

[fppilot 4,371]

5 hours ago, barramundilure said:

I can assign bravo axis to particular commands in FSUIPC which results in them working backwards but as soon as i try and calibrate them these axis refuse to move at all.

 

About an hour ago, after trying to iron out some kinks with the mixture levers as mentioned in my earlier message, I took the drastic move of moving all of my FSUIPC profiles and .ini files out of the FSX\Modules folders, essentially hiding them from FSUIPC.  Then I configured all six TPM levers again in FSX SE Options/Settings/Controls and guess what?  They are all perfect!  Flawless.  All I need to do now is once again configure my Alpha Yoke buttons and switches.

Wish I had tried this step yesterday.....  Am now elated...

[barramundilure 152]

3 hours ago, fppilot said:

About an hour ago, after trying to iron out some kinks with the mixture levers as mentioned in my earlier message, I took the drastic move of moving all of my FSUIPC profiles and .ini files out of the FSX\Modules folders, essentially hiding them from FSUIPC.  Then I configured all six TPM levers again in FSX SE Options/Settings/Controls and guess what?  They are all perfect!  Flawless.  All I need to do now is once again configure my Alpha Yoke buttons and switches.

Wish I had tried this step yesterday.....  Am now elated...

Thank for your help Frank. I feel like we shouldn’t have to do this sort of stuff alone to be honest. The developer needs a swift kick in my opinion.

its the start of my working day and have a bit on this evening so it could be a couple of days before i can get back to this mess.

i am wondering if I should simply uninstall FSUIPC bind the axis’s in P3D and then reinstall FSUIPC for the key binds etc?

i will report back once i have gone through this.

Thanks once again for your help and support, im glad you have it working well for you.

Edited January 6, 2021 by barramundilure

[fppilot 4,371]

15 minutes ago, barramundilure said:

Thank for your help Frank. I feel like we shouldn’t have to do this sort of stuff alone to be honest. The developer needs a swift kick in my opinion.

its the start of my working day and have a bit on this evening so it could be a couple of days before i can get back to this mess.

i am wondering if I should simply uninstall FSUIPC bind the axis’s in P3D and then reinstall FSUIPC for the key binds etc?

i will report back once i have gone through this.

Thanks once again for your help and support, im glad you have it working well for you.

You should not need to uninstall FSUIPC. I am not a P3D user but somewhere in the folder structure for the sim you should find the folders with your FSUIPC..ini file, a couple of LOF files, a .cvs file,  and a subfolder with .ini profiles.  Removing these to a secondary location, at least for the time being, would be just as effective.  I then bound everything I could in FSX SE or in the Honeycomb configurator for both the Alpha yoke and the new Bravo quadrant. 

The configurator is a bit cumbersome to learn, and the Aerosoft video tutorial painstaking to watch.  But after enduring it I found success.  I now have perhaps only a couple of switches configured in a new FSUIPC profile. The rest are configured in either the sim or the Honeycomb app, 

The only struggle this afternoon was trying to find out what action to assign to the Inverter switch in the RealAir Turbine Duke v2.   Never figured it out.  I was certain I had it successfully mapped previously with the Alpha and FSUIPC.  Is is a matter of finding the appropriate software variable. The Alpha switch I am attempt to map to the inverter works fine.  Evident from what it does during my trial and error attempts for the inverter.  Also I have not learned yet how to incorporate reverse functions into the throttle axis below the detents.

[MartinRex007 390]

A nice tutorial on how to fix some of the config issues?

 

Edited January 7, 2021 by MartinRex007

[whisky 6]

On 1/6/2021 at 8:55 AM, barramundilure said:

Tried contacting the manufacturer by several methods for no reply. 
The unit is total junk and support non existent from the manufacturer.....

Buyer beware, thanks for your help.

I raised support ticket 8 days ago..... NOTHING.  I agree the unit is nothing but a piece of expensive plastic junk.