13 hours ago, psolk said:

When my Iris died (funeral is Wed this week)

I'm sorry I missed that part when I read your post somehow. My condolences Psolk.

  

12 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I’m sorry to read that. My condolences.

 

9 hours ago, Ixoye said:

I'm sorry I missed that part when I read your post somehow. My condolences Psolk.

Thanks gents!!!  

Ironically it happened simultaneously with the big GSX update.  The Iris yoke was working fine, did the GSX update, went through pushback in the 777 after the update and all the axis froze and none of the buttons worked. It was like pushback killed the yoke (not really but that's how it "appeared")  I plugged/unplugged a few times, tried again and it worked right up until pushback again....  Really thought it was some sort of conflict with GSX.  Then I started taking P3D and MSFS out of the equation and it seemed like the arduino board on the iris was dying.   I could get axis working for a period of time but no buttons/hat switch, it would drop in/out of my USB game controllers and forces felt very jerky so I concluded she had met her maker...  I've reached out to Iris but no response.  They don't do consumer products anymore.  I must say I think I got 6 years out of it which isn't the worst thing in the world considering I paid the kickstarter price but they did raise quite a bit for these yokes so I would have hoped they had some support for them as well. 😞  

I'm still on the fence about trying the Brunner, what other FFB options are there?? Did another flight yesterday and without the forces it all seems a bit lifeless.  I may try a buttkicker to see if that helps with the "feel" at all... 

@psolk, I seem to have got the wrong end of the stick. You talked about losing a family member and then said "When my Iris died (funeral is Wed this week)" I assumed Iris was your family member.

It seems Iris is your yoke which I have never heard of. You've clearly lost a family member so my sympathies stand.

7 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@psolk, I seem to have got the wrong end of the stick. You talked about losing a family member and then said "When my Iris died (funeral is Wed this week)" I assumed Iris was your family member.

It seems Iris is your yoke which I have never heard of. You've clearly lost a family member so my sympathies stand.

I did @Ray Proudfoot Two losses last week.  1 was my beloved grandfather Cyril of 103 years old.  Long life and we were so fortunate to have had him so long... He went peacefully in my Aunt's arms. He and my grandmother are all done up for high tea together upstairs now.   He has been waiting 20 years to be re-united with his wife who passed when I was in college.  

The second loss was my Iris Dynamics Force Feedback Yoke...  They were an outfit who did a kickstarter back in 2015 for a consumer FFB yoke.  They raised ~ $90,000.  They did deliver on what they promised (for me at least) but now a few years later I have a very heavy and very expensive paperweight shaped like a flightsim yoke...

On the bright side though (because there always is one) the loss of my grandfather allowed me to fly and see my mother for the first time in 2 years!!!  THAT was magical 🙂  

Edited November 30, 20214 yr by psolk

1 hour ago, psolk said:

Two losses last week.  1 was my beloved grandfather Cyril of 103 years old.  Long life and we were so fortunate to have had him so long... He went peacefully in my Aunt's arms

As we say in England he had a good innings. That's a great age to live to and going peacefully is a bonus.

1 hour ago, psolk said:

On the bright side though (because there always is one) the loss of my grandfather allowed me to fly and see my mother for the first time in 2 years!!!  THAT was magical 🙂  

There are benefits to most things not always obvious at first. Unlike your grandfather the yoke can be replaced. Irritating I'm sure but once the right one has been sourced you can put that down to bad luck. FFB ones are something of a rarity.

In racing sim's, force feedback steering wheels have been standard for decades, why has it not become so for flight simulator yoke's, are the market for yoke's so much smaller that manufacturers do not think it's worth investing any resources in it?

5 hours ago, Ixoye said:

In racing sim's, force feedback steering wheels have been standard for decades, why has it not become so for flight simulator yoke's, are the market for yoke's so much smaller that manufacturers do not think it's worth investing any resources in it?

It absolutely baffles me as well.  Brunner is really the only player that I can find in the market.  Especially with the uptick in FS popularity with MSFS I would have hoped to have heard something but alas nothing... I really wish I was more intelligent like some of the users on here, I am sure someone could take the guts of my iris get a new arduino board and get it working again.  Who are our simpit builders here? 

For me I may reach out to Brunner directly just to ensure it is 100% compatible with P3D and MSFS...  I am quite impressed with the Yoko+ as well.  If it was a FFB unit it would check all my boxes but the lack of FFB after coming from a FFB yoke just leaves it all feeling kind of numb... 😞   

There are a few factors that mean FFB is less than in racing sims.

Firstly, yes market size. There is a huge difference between racing sims and flight sims in terms of size of market.

Secondly, development cost. FFB wheels, especially now direct drive has become the standard is much easier to implement than a yoke. Getting smooth movement in a yoke is hard enough especially is you want it over a realistic amount of travel(long at travel ranges on current ffb yokes). Then you need to make realistic control loading in 2 axis which is MUCH harder than just 1 axis. It still has to feel smooth when loading up as well.

Factor in that you need mains power which brings increased cost and certification. You also need to develop software to interface with whichever sim you want and be willing to support it (just look at the amount of posts about getting their ffb working, usually requiring input from the manufacturer). You also want a nice front end on the software to make is user friendly so it is easy to adjust settings and create profiles.

Probably many other things that I have forgotten to list, but when you think that we are making barely anything on our yoke as we wanted to gain a strong foothold in the market and also give back a bit to flight simming as until recently there were very few options at 'normal' money then you realise that the cost to produce a quality FFB yoke would be very high. This then reduces your market even more.

I'm not saying it can't be done. Just saying that to do it to the standard I'd be happy with is not something we can rush. It would also require customers to be willing to pay much more than the cost of a no feedback yoke.

Chris

1 hour ago, tutmeister said:

There are a few factors that mean FFB is less than in racing sims.

Firstly, yes market size. There is a huge difference between racing sims and flight sims in terms of size of market.

Secondly, development cost. FFB wheels, especially now direct drive has become the standard is much easier to implement than a yoke. Getting smooth movement in a yoke is hard enough especially is you want it over a realistic amount of travel(long at travel ranges on current ffb yokes). Then you need to make realistic control loading in 2 axis which is MUCH harder than just 1 axis. It still has to feel smooth when loading up as well.

Factor in that you need mains power which brings increased cost and certification. You also need to develop software to interface with whichever sim you want and be willing to support it (just look at the amount of posts about getting their ffb working, usually requiring input from the manufacturer). You also want a nice front end on the software to make is user friendly so it is easy to adjust settings and create profiles.

Probably many other things that I have forgotten to list, but when you think that we are making barely anything on our yoke as we wanted to gain a strong foothold in the market and also give back a bit to flight simming as until recently there were very few options at 'normal' money then you realise that the cost to produce a quality FFB yoke would be very high. This then reduces your market even more.

I'm not saying it can't be done. Just saying that to do it to the standard I'd be happy with is not something we can rush. It would also require customers to be willing to pay much more than the cost of a no feedback yoke.

Chris

The hardware is only a small part of the equation. You mentioned the software side of things and I think that is the major issue. FFB will be just a gimmic unless it is realistic so apart from the (already tricky) flightmodel developers would need to supply the parameters in the flight model so the yoke knows how to respond to things the aircraft is doing in the sim. The sim also has to support this.