Problem setting PTT switch on Honeycomb yoke

[Spoffo]

The Good news: I just got one of the newly-available Honeycomb Alpha yokes, and it seems to be everything the rave reviews said.

The bad news: I can't get the Pilot Edge settings app to recognize ANY button or key on the yoke as the PTT switch. For some reason the Pilot Edge settings app seems locked onto "button 13" on the yoke and wont accept any other. When I completely disabled button 13 using the Honeycomb configuration utility, the PE settings app just locked up on button 14 instead (13 and 14 are both toggle witches that are more appropriate for master switch than PTT.)

Stranger still, when I completely disconnected the Honeycomb yoke from my computer, the PE settings app stayed locked up, with no key showing for PTT and unable to accept any key assignment from the keyboard. This is doubly odd since I used to use 0 or "enter" as my PTT, and I think I continued that for a while after PE switched to the web-based interface.

If anyone else has acquired the Honeycomb yoke and experienced this, great, but what I'm really fishing for here is someone who knows the PE settings app well enough to have an idea of why it's locking up on a particular key setting and maybe has some ideas on how to work around that.

Cheers,

Bob

PS: in case it's important, I'm running P3D4 on Win 10.

[Scott Medeiros]

I've got the Honeycomb as well, and have set up my PTT to "Button 1 on Alpha Flight Controls", the left horn trigger. In the YokeInput profiler this button is listed as "Button 1", but if you open the config file it is under "ButtonNumber": 0, . I'm not sure why the PE client is locking you out. Make sure you're running it as administrator. Mine doesn't do that, and my yoke is currently unplugged as well.

Anyways, my config for this button is...

{
"ButtonNumber": 0,
"PressEvent": [
{
"Variable": "",
"Value": "",
"Repeat": false,
"DE": null,
"EN": null,
"FR": null,
"ES": null
}
],
"ReleaseEvent": [
{
"Variable": "",
"Value": "",
"DE": null,
"EN": null,
"FR": null,
"ES": null
}
]
},

I think in order to get it working, I needed to first open YokeInput, got to Flight Simulator menu, and delete key bindings (FSX for me). Starting from scratch was the only way to squash multiple conflicting command bugs (I think these issues come from YokeInput's default load somehow). Once you have a clean slate, try to key bind PE PTT. Afterwards, you can try to bind through P3D, and if that works, perfect you're done. If not, you can try key binding through YokeInput.exe by either using included profiles, or I can send you mine.

Here are the event IDs for P3D/FSX... http://www.prepar3d.com/SDKv2/LearningCenter/utilities/variables/event_ids.html
Make sure to use these event IDs EXACTLY as they are written, and you may need to test to see whether the switch needs a "TOGGLE" or "SET" command.

Good luck! Once it's configured correctly, it really is a fantastic yoke.

[Spoffo]

I solved it with a simple brute force approach: 1) In the Pilot Edge settings app, first clear out whatever button assignment is in there, but don't go any further. 2) with your other hand, now press and hold the button on the Honeycomb yoke that you want to be PTT (I also used button #1) 3) Now, while holding that button, click the "Set new key" button in the PE app. "Waiting for new key" will flash for just an instant, and then the PTT button you're holding will appear as the new key. Now just accept and save, and you're in business.

The explanation (this applies to P3D and FSX, X plane may be entirely different) - The Honeycomb yoke includes a number of switches that are intended as toggle switches for battery, alternator, various lights etc. FSX/P3D is written to accept only a single key for many of these functions (e.g. press Z to turn the master switch on, press it again to turn it off.) When you install the Honeycomb yoke, it also installs a little bit of code that attempts to work around this by changing button assignments on the fly so that toggle switches work as expected. For example, the top of the yoke's alternator toggle (where you'd expect ON) is button #13 and the bottom (where you'd expect OFF) is button #14. This little piece of code changes the assignment of the Alternator ON/OFF key between these two buttons each time the toggle switch is moved. Ditto for 8 other toggle switches on the yoke. (it actually works, though it's easy to get out of sync.)

As best I can determine, this little bit of code sends a string that starts with Button #13, and as soon as you tell the PE settings ap to expect a new key for PTT, it reads this string and accepts Button 13 as the new PTT before you can do anything else. Luckily, an actual live button press on the yoke (in this case button #1) preempts this toggling code, so my little work-around works.

[Keith Smith]

It's actually related to one of the landing lights, apparently. You can see this by opening the USB Game Controllers program in Windows, selecting the yoke and clicking Properties. You'll see several buttons already showing as being depressed. Flip the buttons/switches on the switch panel until you find the offending switches. In one client's case, he reported that it was the landing or taxi lights if memory serves.