VKB-SIM

Hi there,

1. Model - Gunfighter Mk.1/REV A w/ MCG Pro
2. Firmware - _BlackBox_GF_MCG_PRO_v1_96_F.vkb
3. Spring - Single #30 spring on each axis.
4. Cam - #30 on each axis.
5. VKB Device Config - v0.90.28
6. Joytester Screenshots - See attached.
7. Device Config Screenshots - See attached.

I purchased my GF Mk. 1 back in the first wave and I've recently started experiencing an issue with the Y axis. When pushing forward on the stick, I experience a normal physical response, however the virtual response has a step when moving up and back down. The attached screenshots should demonstrate what I mean. I pushed the stick forward and back with nearly the same amount of force. I did not feel any abnormalities in the range of travel. I swapped between #10 and #30 cam with new springs and encountered the same issue.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Have you tried to calibrate joystick? Try if no pease.

I have defaulted and recalibrated a few times, as well as when I swapped cams and springs. This did not seem to help.

Update - I back-revved firmware to 1.96D, which had previously worked ok, and am still experiencing the bump.

2nd Update - I dove into the hardware a bit more. No obvious issues that I can see. Copious amounts of air duster in and around what I assume to be the Mars sensor had no effect. If there are any further steps that could be helpful, I would be very grateful. I don't mind getting my hands dirty if I need to open up the sensor. I assume it's held in place by the locking screw underneath the gimbal, though I could be quite wrong. I don't want to needlessly void the warranty, however. I've attached some images that may or may not be helpful.

And more images.

The final step I could think of was testing the response without a spring. Here are the results. Based on this, I believe the issue to be related to the sensor.

Please PM to me your order#, joystick serial#, address, phone and name.
We will send you a new sensors board.

PM sent.

Thank you. We try to send the replacement today.

Unfortunate update today - I have not yet received a Y axis board, but my X axis started to exhibit similar yet worse symptoms. I ran through the same battery of tests to no avail. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I was able to fixe the X axis issue by opening the the base and unplugging everything and plugging it back in. I'll keep an eye on it but so far so good. Y axis is still on the fritz so hopefully the replacement board takes care of that.

This is odd. I have a Mk 1 Gunfighter base as well and I am experiencing a slightly different issue. In my case what I am getting is a 'freeze' in the input being sent to VKB Tester (and, obviously, any sim that I am flying). It looks like this:



So, on the far right, I was holding the X and Y Axis off of center for one cycle of the graph. When it restarted on the left side, I moved the Y Axis forward across the center for a bit and then back. I was attempting to be smooth and as you can see, there is a plateau when I change direction, moving the Y-Axis back toward me. It appears to 'freeze' and after a moment (as I was continuing to 'pull') it suddenly became 'unstuck'. At the bottom, I again switched direction and just after I crossed the center, it again became stuck but this time as I was continuing to push forward. Again, it became unstuck and after this, I began pulling back towards myself.

It is not 'lag', it seems as if the sensor gets 'stuck' reporting its position and then suddenly remembers what it was supposed to be doing and catches up. This event is not displacing the center of the stick, and by this I mean that it is not 'freezing' in a way that it then reports an offset but with continued movement it returns to function reporting the correct values for the position.

Here is an example where I was attempting to go diagonal from the top left to the bottom right. This is hard to do and not generate false data where you may think you are moving in a diagonal but are not. Here you can see it 'stick' and then suddenly 'free' itself:



I noticed this first in X-Plane where I was flying a module that didn't have trim and I was not using the autopilot. If I held a stick position to keep the plane straight and level and then had to 'tweak' it around this 'virtual' center, the roll responded well but the pitch seemed to stick. At first I thought it was the module, then X-Plane. I started tonight's testing with a calibration via the VKB Device Config v0.89.76 (NJoy32 firmware 1.96.7). Calibration went well and everything looked ok. I went into the game and experienced the problem after a while (20 minutes). I paused the game at this point and went to the VKB_JoyTester and recorded some examples of the problem in the graphs. I exited the game back to a clean OS, re-calibrated and tried it again. Same issue.

I am using this with a VKB-Sim Gunfighter Modern Combat Pro v.1960.

I note that the other user experiencing Y Axis issues is using a slightly newer version of VKB Device Config, so I will try that this weekend. Is there anything else that I can do to help diagnose this issue?

Couple of extra things today.

First I disassembled the base to check the wiring and the boards. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary there. I did notice a little dirt between the Y axis and the sensors so I cleaned that out with some canned air.

Board in place:


Y Axis board:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vvNVXR ... sp=sharing

X Axis board:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1exHlau ... sp=sharing

Y Axis mechanism:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LHhBrt ... sp=sharing

Y Axis board bottom:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DDxjd4 ... sp=sharing


After reassembly I booted the computer clean. Recalibrated with the updated VKB DevCfg-C app (0.90.3.5) and the issue persisted. I tried recalibrating a couple of times and the same pattern held. The first screen shot here (below) shows the normal operation I can get close after calibrating:



Everything looks good. But then when I hold the stick off center, in a stationary position for a while (which you can see on the right side of the graph below), and then moving the Y Axis back and forth across the center, you can see the 'freezing' of the sensor. It is freezing on both the forward motion and the backward motion.



Is there anything else that I can try?

Need screenshots of the tabs of the Global, Profile-Axes configurator.