Problem with the rudder

[garymbuska]

Hello everyone. I recently had a strange problem with both FSX and FS2004. The problem was the rudder would make erratic movements during taxi take off and flight if the auto pilot was not engaged. I use CH rudder peddles and have a Saitek Cessna flight yoke with throttle control. I first suspected a problem with the peddles. Tried to calibrate them but that did not solve the problem . I uninstalled and reinstalled the driver for the peddles still no luck. The strangest thing was as long as I was just sitting on the ground at a complete stop the rudder worked fine with no problems at all but as soon as I powered up to taxi the rudder would kick to the right and then back to center erratically. You can imagine trying to taxi like this you could not control the aircraft at all. This happened with both sims so I knew the problem was somewhere with the ruder or the flight yoke / throttle I even tried to change the sensitivities and the null range but nothing worked. Finally I re calibrated my flight yoke / throttle and sure enough the problem disappeared Apparently the throttle was sending a spike to the rudder some how or the other.
This struck me as really strange I am not sure how the throttle was effecting the rudder. But the bottom line is the problem is now fixed. I thought this might help others if they have a similar problem.

[jandjfrench]

Hi Gary,
I suspect that the problem is intermittent and is just behaving properly now. I have the CH pedals also and had a similar problem. I won't give you a long story about this but I finally identified it by trying to run through the problem area while in the windows calibration procedure. Occasionally I'd see a jump. I found a pdf file by Googling and used it to open the pedals and clean the pot that was the problem. I don't recall exactly how I cleaned the pot but recall that I used some denatured alcohol and a bit of light oil. The name of the file is "Disassembly of CH Products Pro Pedals.pdf". If you can't locate it I can get it to you. It seems likely that you won't want to do anything about this unless the problem recurs but at least you'll have the info if it does. And this was about 2 years ago and the problem hasn't recurred.
Jim F.

[garymbuska]

Hi Gary,
I suspect that the problem is intermittent and is just behaving properly now. I have the CH pedals also and had a similar problem. I won't give you a long story about this but I finally identified it by trying to run through the problem area while in the windows calibration procedure. Occasionally I'd see a jump. I found a pdf file by Googling and used it to open the pedals and clean the pot that was the problem. I don't recall exactly how I cleaned the pot but recall that I used some denatured alcohol and a bit of light oil. The name of the file is "Disassembly of CH Products Pro Pedals.pdf". If you can't locate it I can get it to you. It seems likely that you won't want to do anything about this unless the problem recurs but at least you'll have the info if it does. And this was about 2 years ago and the problem hasn't recurred.
Jim F.

Thanks I took apart the pedal and cleaned it out good as well. If you know anything about electronics than you should know how a pot otherwise known as a variable resistor works.
I would not recommend any oil at all as this can cause the carbon to change value resulting in all kinds of problems.
Pots are nothing more than a carbon film and a wiper that slides along the carbon. What usually happens here is the wiper loses pressure with age and does not make a good contact any more and a film can build up on the carbon strip, Denatured alcohol will help but not to much as it can dry the carbon film out. Some people use relay contact cleaner which is basically denatured alcohol. Eventually you will have to replace the pot. When this happens make sure you get a high quality one so it will last longer.

[jandjfrench]

Hi Gary,
Did you still have the problem after you did the cleaning?

[garymbuska]

Hi Gary,
Did you still have the problem after you did the cleaning?

So far everything is okay