Possibly half "fried" Warthog throttles?

I've got a pretty serious problem with my warthog dual throttles, and I'm curious if anybody has had a similar experience. I cannot think of anything that might be a root cause. No power surges. I leave the throttles plugged into the PC.

Searching on the web turns up stories from folks that say the device isn't recognized at all or got bricked somehow by firmware.

Symptoms:

Z and RZ are both dead. Slider axis functions normally.

POV dead.

Slew Control functions but Target Device Analyzer and the windows game controller test dialog both indicate that buttons 1 through 12 are being actuated when the Slew control push button is depressed.

So basically, the only thing that works on the right grip is the slew control axes but the pinky toggle and button on the left grip work fine. Neither of the IDLE/OFF buttons work either. All of the panel switches and lights function fine.

Windows/Target recognize the device and I even tried it on another computer. I've gone through all the easy stuff like unplugging it and reinstalling it. So I opened it up. The only thing electrical that I can find to be common to all those functions is the microcontroller itself.

I'm kind of left scratching my head about it. The throttles worked fine for... I don't even know how many years. About 1000 hours in the A-10c.

I'd like to hear if anyone else has had a similar experience or suggestions.

Best regards,

John

Since work partially, suggest broken/smashed wires internally, no damage in cables going for right grip?

Or maybe Shift Register circuit inside right grip are defective. Slew axes use different circuit (12C), but their press button use the Shift Register.

That's what I thought, but disconnecting the cables coming from the grips doesn't bring back the Z or RZ axis. There are voltages present on the cables going to the Hall sensors. Disconnecting the cable from inside the right grip also makes buttons 1-12 go high.

90% likely it is a bad or broken wire somewhere as Sokil1 suggests. And because some stuff is encoded in serial streams (3 wire I2C bus) unpredictable results can occur from a broken wire.

If you are trying to fix it yourself, you just have to be diligent in checking all the wires visibly at first, and with a multi-meter if needed. It could be a bad IC, but IC's don't fail very often. Wires fail all the time (anything that moves is far more likely to fail vs. static elements). Start with that assumption. It could be a bad solder joint on an IC, but the circuit boards are far more isolated from mechanical damage than the wires and buttons.

I agree. So I disconnected the main board and the right grip. I also removed the 2 hall sensor boards and rang out the cables. I'm not able to find any opens or shorts on the cables. I didn't realize before digging into this how much I2C there was and the hall sensors look to be setup as SPI. There is a LOT of solder trash on the board that I can only see with magnification. Perhaps some of that is shorting out a clock or something. I'll clean it up with some ethanol best I can and maybe I'll get lucky.

A few years ago, I would have stayed late at work and hooked up a logic analyzer or something and stayed up late messing around with it, but my time is a lot more precious nowadays and I'd rather be flying the F-18. If that doesn't fix it I'll just order a new one and put this one up for auction as a parts donor.