Thanks! My doubts has been dispelled and I'm also considering to get one now. The manufacturer should show some gratitude to you. It's a bit frustrating that this bug is not actively communicated by the maker.
Thank you so much for this video. It has helped fixed my yoke after nearly 4 years of owning it with the issue. I also used the free-floating method. I highly appreciate your videos. Eric
Thanks Mark. Checked the output of my yoke in DIView and there was a small but appreciable deadzone on the roll axis so calibrated it as you described (letting it oscillate back to its own center) and its appears it's now totally eliminated. Very pleased, good work!
Thank you for speaking it out, as well as your previous video of explaining the possible mechanisms behind it and other useful information, which is very helpful and helped my friends to figure out how to calibrate it correctly. He has been given the "instructions" as well but failed to make any difference after doing it at first. What he did then after watching your video is, using some wire to make an "aim" and tied it on the column of the yoke, and aligned the aim to some sort of marking behind when logging the center position, to make sure they are at the same position each time. HC's action of dealing with this issue makes me unhappy, but unfortunately, there is no alternative at this price point. Their upcoming throttle is even more so. Just hope they can make it better this time.
Got mine a month ago. Love it. No yoke experience with others. No dead zone. Not sure what all the dead zone talk is in the community, mine didn't have it. Thanks for showing the calibration mode on the yoke. Cannot wait for the Bravo TQ to come out.
Very informative, especially the bit about “chatter”. My new Honeycomb is fine but my old Saitek Yoke had this “chatter” at center - I had to clear the calibration values with a console app every time I booted up my PC. Thanks for shedding a little light on that with this in-depth explanation!
Your free floating method absolutely helped, thank you. While I didn't have a huge dead zone issue this really helped improve it to virtually negligible on both axes. Subbed :)
Thanks so much for this. My yoke was in the 20 degree out category. I've just followed your guide and successfully recalibrated it. It's now the excellent yoke I expected it to be. The only puzzling thing is why the manufacturer just didn't issue a fix themselves. Simple to do and would not harm sales. Anyway, this is very appreciated.
Glad it helped. By the way, I wonder if it would be helpful for people to let Honeycomb know that they hav eused this procedure to improve their yokes. As for your question, the only reasoning I was given for keeping the information secret was "we don’t want customers trying out this process yet and potentially messing up the yoke". Then Mattijs Kok of Aerosoft said in response to my video that they don't support this because it can "brick" the yoke. I think the latter claim is unconvincing. However, the fact is you can easily mess up the yoke if you calibrate it wrongly, and I am sure there would be a fair proportion of people who would then return it as 'faulty' afterwards. I think the situation is most likely a consequence of a retail system that has become far too biased in favour of the consumer. Honeycomb (and Aerosoft, as its representative) is catering to the lowest common denominator, so ends up treating everyone like an idiot.
I just received my Alpha Yoke & Bravo Throttle yesterday, and so haven't yet even got it fully set up. However this info could be very useful in my near future so thank you very much for going through the process and showing us how to enter the calibration mode. I've already had issues with just getting the lights to function on my throttle. You earned a new subscriber and thank you very much!
Thanks for doing what honeycomb should have done from the beginning! I get mine tomorrow and have been worried since Ive seen people talk about this dead zone problem (saw it after I ordered it) now I can relax a bit.
Fitting on this Easter Sunday that Mark has now enabled us to resurrect our Alpha Yokes from the "dead" zones! Mark, Honeycomb should give you a free Bravo Throttle Quadrant for providing customer service to us. I requested the procedure from them 11 days ago, have not gotten a response yet, maybe they are not servicing the support tickets remotely while staying at home. This would have been an opportunity for them to be proactive and get ahead of the dead zone issue by letting customers know about the possibility of mis-calibrated yokes and how to correct it ourselves. Proactive communication about a possible issue would have made for confidence and brand loyalty, as you would know they are transparent and accountable. As it is, seems like they have just wanted to keep it quiet, and made it a bigger "issue" than it needed to be. My yoke went from 5mm elevator and 9° aileron deadzone to none detectable, but my centering was not as repeatable as I thought it was - had to mark the shaft and watch the end of the yoke handle to get the exact same centering every time. So now i can setup a small dead zone to taste in my software, instead of having a fixed amount in the yoke. THANKS!
@@AlmostAviation I posted a link to this video in 6 different YT videos where the dead zone was being questioned, to spread the word. It's in the wild.
@@AlmostAviation I think the truth might be halfway... they don't share the information to protect them if anybody screws up their yoke, but the leak was due to a rookie mistake by the "global manager"
@@attiliodariva5417 Maybe. I have had one other person say he was given the calibration info by tech support, although perhaps it was by the same person!
Thank you so much for this - I had a significant deadzone which was a real immersion breaker when using the yoke. This method has almost removed it completely!
The knowledge you delivered has been incredibly helpful! I was considering cutting apart my brand new, less than a week old Honeycomb Alpha to install an Arduino to fix the dead zone when I found your video. Thank you so very much!
@@AlmostAviation Agreed! I'll be further reviewing your videos, very educational. I do also hope to identify how to use all 5 positions of the starter switch, I'm currently using the 2 positions available for panel lights on/off. Using FSX Acceleration and FSUIPC.
MAN! This helped me so much! I had like 1 to 2 inches of deadzone in the pitch axis. This completely fixed it. I used the second method you showed and I couldnt be happier! Thanks again!!
Thank you for sharing this - I've been on the fence about buying this for the last few weeks, but now I'm going to backorder it, now that I'm fairly confident calibration can be resolved. If Honeycomb Aeronautical have a problem with this video then let me know as I will then cancel my order, as videos like this are what help....not marketing BS. I just wish they'd release more info on the rudder now
Thank you for such in depth videos. This fixed my issue. Also the video you did on calibrating a full range yoke for FSX helped a lot since I play both MSFS and FSX.
Thank you so much Mark! With the "Jiggle technique" you showed us I got no dead zone at all anymore! its perfect. I mainly fly the P38 in Il2 sturmovik ww2 flight sim so accuracy is key. I've been using it with the (4-5%) deadzone the day it came out. I did notice it and it bothered me a bit, but i got used to it. But now its like a completely different yoke! It baffles me how i put up with it all these months! But what baffles me even more is how honeycomb don't simply address the problem by making the calibration sequence public knowledge!!!! They have dragged their name through the dirt for no reason. It is an awesome yoke I definitely recommend it!!! Subscribed!
Thanks, I guess if people let Honeycomb know they might change their approach, although their present stance must be working for them regardless. P38 - good choice! I used to have one for FSX, I need to find it again...
Thanks for this great video! I (unfortunatly) already bought the Logitech / Saitek yoke system, which has logic-board dead zone faults. But i will soon buy a Alph Yoke instead, so this info is great to have! You make really good vids!! :)
A HUGE THANK YOU. I just bought the honeycomb yoke several months ago and found the deadzone to be excessive. I fly for the airlines and upgraded my old yoke to this, and was frustrated with the deadzones, especially with the Ailerons. I did the 45 degree calibration and its a new yoke! It worked perfect at correcting the deadzone issue. Thank you for sharing this calibration method, it has helped me tons!!! Much more functional yoke now. I currently use Prepar3d for my sim training at home.
Hello sir, Although the yoke is great but definitely has a dead zone.... and thank you for sharing this very important issue and calibration.... Hopefully, the throttle in production does not have a problem!
Thanks for the help on this one Mark. I had a small dead zone but now I’ve got it tuned in perfectly. In regards to the RJ45 jack in the based, a previous comment made mention of the vulnerability there. I’m my case, the jack totally failed about 3 months ago. I returned it to Honeycomb and they sent it back as “fixed”. Unfortunately nothing was fixed or replaced. I’m not sure what they did, if anything. I took it upon myself and did a permanent repair by hardwiring an Ethernet cable into the base. It was a fun and educational project and I am very happy with the unit now. Keep up the good work. I always enjoy your videos.
Yes, I have seen a number of people having issues with the connector cable, so that seems like a vulnerability. Your solution is probably the best, if you don't mind opening the box. Someone else suggested just getting a longer vable, as the curly one supplied strains the connector every time you move the yoke.
Matt - It's very disheartening for a potential customer, me, to read about these very bad customer responses from Aerosoft. This type of 'head in the sand' reaction is very very bad, and to return a faulty unit to a customer, unchanged or not fixed, is disgusting. Aerosoft - YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED! Grow some balls and rspond to the criticisms.
YOU are The MAN Thank YOU soo much for the help. I was just going to return it. and then I saw your video and I love it now.. That is why You are THE MAN.... Thank you once again!!!!!!
Thanks Mark again for this very helpful video. Saw it a while back already but since I thought that the dead zone on the elevator of my yoke was a bit too large (and with the A2A 172 you fly a lot with steering around the dead zone) I decided to try your method of 'turn and let go' calibration. Worked perfectly. The deadzone is now nonexistent (checking with DIView). At least I can now use fsuipc to create the deadzone I want (I used -129 to 129) instead of what is given by the manufacturer :)
Awesome. It's notable that Honeycomb has now come clean about the calibration and included the instructions in their knowledge base (although not the 'let it go' method!)
Thanks for doing this Mark. It has put my mind at rest that this issue can be resolved. My yoke will be arriving soon hopefully for my birthday tomorrow 8th May V.E. day 🇬🇧. This is the first thing I'll be doing with it. Keep up the great work. 😷 subscribed 👍.
Great Video, attempt Calibration mode by using your second suggestion of letting go the yoke roll axis no dead zone, pitch axis slight dead zone barely noticeable, overall great improvement over stock Calibration, flying feels a lot better
Thank you - I just got the Alpha and it did have a noticeable dead zone out of the box. Nothing too extreme and liveable with, but your advice in this video has reduced that deadzone to a very very minor "unconscious" zone - I only notice a slight pause on the onscreen yoke when turning very slowly. Consider yourself subbed. By the way the calibration mode is now documented on Honeycomb's website, but doesn't offer as much info as you as to how to minimise the dead zone
Thank you, sir, for this very instructional video. I had no concern about the dead zone but my yoke's calibration had gotten way out of whack and the Windows device calibration wasn't helping. I went through the built-in calibration that you showed in this video and my yoke is now calibrated properly. I appreciate your time.
Thankyou so much. Mine is still boxed, just waiting for FS 2020 to drop next week. Hopefully no problems . You did the right thing as these yokes are not cheap. P.s im a big AUM user myself and i wanted to listen to that little mix you had there!
Great! I will be checking out MSFS in due course but I'll probably leave it a month or so to get some honest reactions from others. Oh, and hope to do some more music stuff too :)
Cheers for that Mark that is most helpful. My Yoke has a slight stiction when initially pulling or pushing on the elevator away from centre. This seems to be over just a short amount of travel say 5-8mm but it is certainly noticable when trying to make slight flight corrections. I also feel the connecting cable between Yoke handle and body is too stiff/short and will not last too long before problems come. If you put your fingers on the back of the cable at the rear of the RJ45 plug on the yoke body and then rotate the yoke full deflection right and left you will feel the strain on the cable. In fact there is considerable rub on the coiled section when rotating full right. Anyway will give the recalibration a go and see what happens.
Have you already done a new calibration ??? Has it helped remove the dead zone? I also have a 5-8 mm dead zone, but calibration did little (or nothing helped).
@@tombulva Sorry for late reply. No I have not done the recal bit yet but I have replaced my R45 cable with a 250mm long patch cable and that is a lot better. I still have a slight sticky point at elevator centre but not sure if I should return the unit back to Aerosoft but I can anticipate that will cost me in postage and packaging and doing without my yoke for many weeks.
Just tried this technique and it is day and night difference! I was so disappointed when I got this yoke as I had at least 8-10 degrees deadzone - especially since there didn't seem a way to calibrate this at the time and I didn't find your video. That deadzone is simply too much to make fine adjustments in small aircraft. I ended up flying almost as if I was pressing buttons on a gamepad. Not very satisfying after spending so much money on a yoke. People even swapped the control board to make this better. But now, with a new calibration, the yoke is finally usable! Thank You!
@@AlmostAviation There is a second issue folks wanted to resolve by swapping the guts: The low resolution used for the yoke. I'm not sure how many bits it actually uses but it does look like 8bits, so only 256 different values from all the way left to all the way right. Modern controllers should at least use 10 bits, better 12-16 bits. USB supports this out of the box and there is almost no added cost, depending on the microcontroller used in the joystick.
I bought the yoke and literally just received it. I was so surprised that they did not have any diagnostic software about checking functionality and calibration (or recalibrate). The manual as well would require some attention in my opinion as only refer to a drivers web page that doesn't really exist. Thanks for the walkthrough. It's a shame because as a piece of hardware this yoke is amazing. You gained a subscriber sir!!
Thank you so much!! i just bought an Alpha yoke on the used market with a noticeable dead zone on pitch. Its enough that i thought it was damaged or age related. Now i know its not uncommon. and correctable.
Amazing how facts are helpful in getting everyone happy and on the same page and that disingenuous / confusing marketing speak and denial can switch customers off and lead to unnecessary product return and dissatisfaction. With this information on the calibration feature I'm convinced this is a good device with good hardware inside it, which is why I've ordered one and will be arriving tomorrow (Wed - 26th Aug). Thanks for this information.
Thanks for the encouragement. I do wonder how many sales Honeycomb is missing out on, and particualrly how many returns they are getting due to this issue. Maybe it's a small proportion, I guess they have some rationale.
Bob Gilchrist I saw no dead zone on Austin,s review. the Homeycombe Yoke is fine when using with Xplane but P3D and FSX users seem to experience a dead zone. I own one of these for the past couple of weeks now and my Sim of choice is Xplane and I have no issues with it and neither do many other Xplane Users who also own the product.
@@Stringbean421 As you will know if you have been paying attention, I measured both of the dead zones on camera without any simulator running. Think more, talk less.
It's absolutely bananas that a manufacturer of a yoke/stick would be completely oblivious to this, especially when they're not even in the "budget" range of hardware. I noticed it within the first 5 seconds of flight and was very shocked to see it's not configurable at all. Not one review I watched mentioned this.. Hopefully this calibration works otherwise it's a pretty easy decision to return this thing.
I had a decisive discovery on this question. After dealing with the sloppy and dirty sensibility, I decided to take my yoke off and see if I could clean up or see anything. I found that when pushing or pulling on the yoke, the ROLL potentiometer plug and cable moved on the circuit board due to the travel of the yoke. I took a small zip tie and secured this cable to others nearby, so that when you push or pull the yoke, the plug isn't affected. My yoke is BETTER than new now, super responsive and no more dirty jerking or off-centering. I also sprayed my X and Y axis potentiometers with contact cleaner while I was at it. Easy solution, hope this helps!
Thank you very much Mark for explaining and demonstrating how to calibrate my Honeycomb Yoke. That’s great! I got my Honeycomb yesterday morning. After following your instructions it now works perfectly. Thank you & happy flying ✈️✨😉
I love the Honeycomb yoke, but there was a flaw with the stiff z-axis. I was able to mod to it by replacing the bungee with a .25 inch (6.35mm) bungee. It is absolutely a great yoke now. I am glad this yoke doesn’t come with a center detent. I prefer the Honeycomb over my former PFC jet yoke-which I promptly gave away.
I'd be interested to know what kind of trade-off this has for the centring of the pitch axis. If you run the calibration mode it will compensate, but you will likely end up with a bigger null zone. Perhaps it's a good trade, although personally I like the weighty action. If I was going to experiment I think I'd try adding extra weight to the roll action!
This is great info Honeycomb should MAN up people arent dummys and realize that things need calibrated .... Everything needs recalibration at some time or another thanks for the video
A very educated content creator, similar to myself in views of others’ logical fallacies. One of the problems I see in society is egos and lack of cognitive dissonance.
Thanks. Just had Thrustmaster new Yoke home and returned it today also due to deadzones on x and y axis... So no Honeycomb to order also :) Safed me some time :)
Very good informative video, thank you. Can you explain why you say that the dead zone is necessary, is that because there can never be a perfect center?
Thank you for a very interesting video. I quite agree with you in that I too can see no reason why Honeycomb cannot share this recalibration method openly, let's be honest it's not rocket science and clearly does not take too much time and effort. Having said that, I again agree that you have to ask yourself is it worth it? baring in mind the small degree of dead zone involved.
hi, i like your reviews they are detailed and thorugh, can I ask you out of the honeycomb and former saitek Cessna pro, which one has the better feel alone not including the amount of buttons etc but just feel of the yoke, resistance, weight etc.
Thanks! Although my dead zone was almost imperceptible, it was there. It didn't bother me, but being curious I followed these instructions and now I cannot touch the roll axis without seeing appropriate movement on the screen in both the yoke and the control surfaces. I currently don't have a general aviation airplane to try this on, but I wonder if the cables on a real plane stretch and cause a similar phenomenon. When I was actively flying I never thought about it. Understanding this will be especially useful as the yoke ages and does not return precisely to center - now we will know how to slightly adjust center to compensate for some slop as time passes. On the subject of Honeycomb not making this public, I would suggest that is not unusual. I make adjustments to the configuration file in FSX that were not public. Similarly, I use a Kobo eReader, and it has undocumented features that can be adjusted and added. I am not angry at Honeycomb for not making it public.
Thank you very much for this (and previous) film. I have made several attempts at calibration (in various ways), but almost nothing (or minimal) has changed it the behavior of yoke. I have a continuous (about 5-7 mm) minimal dead zone. So I can live with it, but it's strange I can't get rid of it completely.
@@AlmostAviation BINGO :-). I was tired yesterday. Now I did calibration again and the zero zone was completely missing :-). Please tell the secret, what are your settings for CONTROL RESPONSE and STABILITY AUGMENTATION sliders in XP settings ??? The sliders on the right are probably all set to 0. And the sliders (Pitch, Roll, Yaw) on the right ???
Very interesting. Thank you for sharing. you make mention ". Please read the instructions. " where can I find them or do I have to memorize the steps in your video? Just asking if there is a written instruction set. Again, thanks
Maybe a good thing on the Alpha, as you'll get one of the XBox compatible ones. I guess that will improve the resale value even if you don't have an XBox. I don't think the Charlie is coming any time soon, given Honeycomb's recent announcement on component shortages.
My best guess is that the folks at the factory are shortcutting the calibration. Just hitting the button early to get through more of them per shift, probably because the management doesn't want to employ enough of them to do it right every time. Honeycomb should include the calibration procedure in the box.
