Saitek back lighting question

[Keith Smith]

A commercial prospect that I'm working with went out and bought a boatload of Saitek hardware for the Mac (the avionics panel, multi panel, etc). I sent him the plugin from the .org. The back lighting is not working, but the units themselves are working fine (ie. the frequency is updated on the screen when you turn the knob).

Other than this instruction on the .org page:

When X-Plane initially loads the radio and the multi panel may be dark. This is because initialy the switches are not read so do not know what to display. Move any switch on the radio or multi panel and if the battery and avionics switch are on they should display the appropriate items.

has anyone had to do anything special to get the panels lit up?

[arb65912]

I am PC and did not have any problem, all I need to do is to turn any knob and the panel is lit.

Maybe Mac has some other tricks, I hope Steve will answer.

[Ryan Landis]

Probably a no brainer, but does he have the latest drivers from the Saitek site? I just bought the multi and switch panel and the disk they gave me had outdated drivers and a quick trip to the website gave me good up to date drivers which corrected a gear annunciation light issue and other tweaks. I use fax and have not had the light issue, but occasionally when I boot the sim up all of my radios read 100.00 until I twist me knobs...

[Steven Winslow]

The Saitek drivers do not work on Macs. You have to use the plugins that are available. I use the older plugins by Tom Sedge and Sandy Barbour. I have Sparker's plugin as well, but on my system, the older plugins work just fine.

This sounds like a power problem. Even though you may have the panels plugged into a powered usb port or hub, you may need to get more power to them. Are you using a Saitek yoke? Are the panels plugged into the yoke or a powered usb hub? I have two radio panels, a switch panel and the multi panel. I have the "optional" power supply plugged into the yoke. I have the throttle quadrants and two panels plugged into the three usb ports on the yoke and the rest of my panels plugged into a powered port. Without the "optional" power supply for the yoke, the panels plugged into the yoke will not work. In my opinion, the power supply is NOT optional. You can order one here:

http://store.gameshark.com/viewItem.asp ... tegory=447

If you want the older Saitek plugins, let me know and I can send them to you, but I think your problem is power related.

[Keith Smith]

Thanks a lot, Steve, I'll pass this info on and will see what they say.

[Daddy O]

The latest version of the saitek plugin on the org has a little quirk where you get no radio display until you hit a button

The problem they will find with the saiteks is that they forgot to add an active\stby\ident for the transponder.

[Daddy O]

And a com1 2 selector.