[SOLVED] SCG Pro LED flashes white and twist axis goes to 100%

[faybs]

I've owned my SCG for many months now and it's been great, however recently I've been seeing some bad behavior and I'd like to know if it's a fault in the joystick or in my PC.

Basically, I'll be flying in Star Citizen and I'll notice that the long blue LED turns white then goes back to blue. This will happen a few times and then the twist axis will go to 100% and my starship will obviously spin out of control. I can fix the problem by unplugging the joystick's USB cable and plugging it back in again. Then it's fine for a few hours and it happens again. I've verified that it's not the game because if I quit when the malfunction happens and run the VKB joystick tester app, it confirms that the twist axis is at 100% instead of 50% where it should be if I'm not touching it (and physically twisting the stick has no effect). I've tried recalibrating the stick using the VKB app and it doesn't seem to have any effect. And yes, I've checked that the twist axis is not physically stuck at the full-twist position

The stick is a right hand SCG Pro attached to a right hand omnithrottle adapter, which is in turn attached to a Gunfighter Mk3 base. I have not seen the same thing happen on my left hand stick, which is the exact same setup but left handed. Both sticks are plugged into the same powered USB hub. The firmware on both sticks is v2_09_0-XT (one has the left handed firmware and the other, the right handed firmware).

Anyone else had a similar experience?

Thanks.

[rtrski]

That sort of intermittence, with both in the same hub and thus to same port of the computer, but the other stick NOT doing it, sounds like either the cable from the stick to the black box, or the little internal cable inside the base from grip to sensor board or sensor board to connector is experiencing a little intermittent contact. To my understanding VKB just use a single digital 'bus' to pass all signals so temporarily breaking ground, data or pwr could be misinterpreted as something logical. The LED flashing white would also seem to fit with this, I see mine do that right when I first power up the whole computer...would have to dive into VKBDevCfg to look at the LED states to see what it signifies.

I suppose it's also possible it's a power issue within the hub itself: I guess if you have more ports on the USB hub, try a different one there, or swap ports between the stick that isn't doing it and the stick that is doing it, to rule out the hub having an issue. Then work your way outward, wiggle the USB-to-blackbox connection, blackbox to stick connection, see if you can "make" it misbehave while watching VKBJoyTester curves. Then finally open the grip and eyeball the little internal connection(s), unseat and reseat, make sure it feels like none of the itty bitty pins are loose, also watch VKBJoyTester while messing with them (gently) to see if you can make it misbehave, then you might know which connection is a little on the weak side.

[faybs]

Thanks! A few days ago I opened the Gunfighter base to adjust the dry clutch since the omnithrottle adapter gives you more leverage when moving the stick, so it's possible that I may have accidentally tugged at one of the cables inside and some plug needs to be re-seated. I'll go over all the internal connections and see if that fixes the problem.

[mobbmann]

Your solution might be more simple. Heres a link to a post that worked for some of us.

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=6704&p=55657#p55657

[fallout9]

That does not apply to this case. MCGU with white LEDs flashing when the grip is not used issue is not the same with any other time when the white LEDs are flashing; this usually indicates a disconnection grip to base coming from either improper mounting or from damage to the pins and/or contact pads.

[faybs]

Looks like it's solved. TL;DR: when you're tightening the screw on the omnithrottle adapter, make sure you're pushing down firmly on the OTA to make sure there's good contact inside the socket between it and the base.

I went through all the plugs inside the base and pushed them in but didn't feel any motion, so they probably were well seated already. What probably fixed it was my making sure the grip was well seated on the omnithrottle adapter, and making sure the OTA was well seated on the base. This last one was a bit hard to achieve because the rubber boot pushes up the hex key while you're tightening the screw, which in turn pushes up the OTA and weakens the contact inside the socket between the base and the OTA. This is not a problem when the OTA is not involved, because the grip fits tighter on the base socket than the OTA does, so it doesn't slide up as easily when you're tightening the screw and the rubber boot is pushing up the hex key. This agrees with fallout9's statement that the white LED means a bad contact between the grip and the base. For that reason I believe the root cause was the OTA needing to be pushed down firmly on the base while you're tightening the screw.

[Ron61]

I advise you to control the presence of contact between the grip and the base in the configurator.
By opening the Test-External Devices tab, you can visually observe this when tightening the crackers screw.
This allows you not to overdo it when pressing the grip and prolongs the life of the spring contacts and the board in the base stem.