I’ve had mine for almost 3 years and just discovered that my bravo also had the same issue. Every single wire snapped on mine as well. Thanks to your video, I also fixed mine. Cheers!🎉
Thanks for your video!!!! I had the same issue with my throttle #2 reverser not working for a year or so now until I discovered your video! It really helped a whole lot. Thank you for being the only brave soul out of us many bravo owners who actually took time to figure out what was causing this issue but thanks to you, I now have the confidence to tackle my own repair. I'm not gonna lie, it was a bit intimidating once I opened it up but your video was spot on. I was able to fix my broken wire in the #2 reverser only to find out once I repaired it and got it back together and connected back to my computer in the sim, reverser #1 stopped working for me. Come to find out, one of it's wires had broke on me while testing the repair. What a bummer. I think honeycomb used cheap wire and they are too stiff for this application. I'm going to replace all the wires in throttle's 1&2 which for me is lever (3&4) as I mostly fly 2 engine jets with silicone wire for more flexibility.
Hey thanks for the comment and I'm happy my video helped you get yours fixed . They have a bit of design and qc to get straight but at least you know you can fix it if something happens again. 😉 thanks again
I'm hoping they changed a while ago time will tell I expect a lot of issues in the near future on this issue . Hope for the best 👌 thanks for the comment
They haven’t changed it, still seeing many complaints in forums, quite frankly HA customer service is terrible which is a shame as the hardware when working is brilliant.
Sad to hear that they still haven't changed their wayz . Oh well I have a feeling that someone else will come on the market and do it right , time will tell.
Just a little tip. I bought one of those clamping devices like yours, and right away, realized that those miniature crocodile clamps were pretty lethal. To fix this, I slid a short length of heat shrink over each of the jaws. It was a snug fit without applying any heat. It works like a charm and has not damaged any of the small wires I've soldered. Thanks for a great video. I do not have a Honeycomb quadrant, but am seriously looking to get one.
I just wanted to say BIG Thank You dude! You saved my unit! THR#3 Reverser failed in my case. Although I kinda did some things differently. One black wire broke right where they all "bend". So I soldered it, and applied some hot glue in that area so they move much less now. Also applied hot glue in the same spot for all other throttles. I also removed those tiny zip ties because I bet THEY are the reason why these wires tend to bend so tightly. I'm so glad everything works fine now
Thanks for a very inspirational video which gave me the confidence to tackle the same repair on my Bravo. In my case, two wires on throttle 3 were broken. Before disturbing the wires, although the wires were the same colour, it was possible to see how they had been originally connected as the broken ends were slightly different lengths. It would have been possible to connect the new wires to the original ones without digging in any deeper but I decided to strip down the lever so that I could connect the new wires directly onto the brass terminals. (important to remove the terminal before attempting to solder as the heat would melt/damage the lever). I then reassembled the lever, soldered the other ends of the new wires to the original wires and insulated the connections using heat shrink tubing. This repair was successful but about a month later, throttle 2 reverser stopped working. This time, I could see the broken wire by looking into the lever slot prior to stripping the unit down again. It's been a couple of months since the last repair and so far, so good. Just for the record, I used wire salvaged from a length of CAT5 cable which appears to be the same diameter as the original wires (makes routing new wires inside the lever housing much easier). To summarise, defects which are too wide-spread to be regarded as 'just a bit of bad luck' ... this is a manufacturing issue but, fear not fellow Bravo owners, with just a little confidence, your unit will be back up and running in just over an hour...
@@2020fsers Hello again, it's only 2 weeks since my second repair and yesterday another (original) wire leading to lever 3 (reverser) broke. I suppose one good thing is that repairs are getting faster, under 30 minutes now... but I'm starting to think this will continue until all of the original wires have been replaced. On reflection, anyone doing this repair for the first time would probably be better to replace all of the wires at the same time (as someone else previously suggested) but, in my case, I just thought this was overkill given the other wires looked OK. But now, I'm starting to think that once these wires start breaking, eventually all of them will fail over time. This leads me to wonder why these wires break in the first place? This is the third time I've been inside my Bravo and I'm now trying to figure out what's causing these wires to break? For the record, I've now repaired 4 wires, all broken in different places and I'm trying to figure out if there is a common cause. So, looking back, the first two wires were cut very close to where the lever pivots. Initially, I thought this might be a stress related fracture caused by the wires repeatedly bending backwards and forwards each time the lever is used. But, because these wires looked like they had been clean-cut, my second thought was that this may be due to their routing. They travel from inside the lever housing over the pivot point and might have been physically sliced through when the throttle has been pushed forward to maximum. However, maybe there isn't one single cause because the next two repairs tackled broken wires (inside) the lever assembly. The first of these was clean-cut only 2-3 millimetres away from where it is soldered onto the terminal and second was another clean-cut half-way between the pivot point and the terminal. Neither of these makes any sense as there is nothing inside the lever housing to physically cut through the wires and the stress fracture theory does not apply here. So, finally and, in case anyone is wondering, all of these repairs refer to throttle levers 2 and 3 and their respective reversers. This is because I have configured the throttles for use with the airbus and the other levers do not get used.
@@JKPilot If yours is faulty, take your time, remove the base cover and simply take a look before committing any further. Once you get started, you'll probably surprise yourself... good luck... let us know how you get on... and, for the record, no further issues after the last repair...
Thank you so much! Had the same problem today and thanks to your great video, I was able to quickly fix it! And indeed, quite disappointed by the quality of the Honeycomb Bravo now...
Thanks... Just had one go out (button 9) and sent back to honeycomb under warranty... Sending a new one apparently... I might check out later if they somehow reviewed their wiring in that area... As I can see this become a MAJOR issue for all Bravo owners moving forward... Thanks for your video!
You are a brave man! For the price of these things, one would expect that the wire connections would be a bit more robust. Only had my Bravo for a month, so I hope I get a few more months usage before being faced with having to perform surgery. Thanks for this and all your other videos. Always informative and entertaining.
Thanks Art yes I would have liked to see maybe a channel inside for the wires to freely move or something but it's all good now thank God 😊. I really appreciate the comment Art. It's like taking paper clip and bending it over and over I'm no rocket scientist but it's not gonna last . That may have changed in the latter units I got 1 of the 1st ones .
@SMG I don't often fly commercials - but I today I thought I'd run through a couple of tutorials. Guess what - reverser on throttle 1 does not work (which figures as I tend to fly single engine GA). Really appalling quality from Honeycomb - my Bravo is out of warranty, but I am in no way a hardcore simmer, so the unit has not had a tremendous amount of use.
Thank you so much for making this video. I use the furthest left one only for flying WW2 warbirds and use the button for boost. However, it just went out. I suspect this is the issue and will need to open it up for repairs. I've had a lot of HOTAS gear over the years and almost always it comes down to poor internal design and wiring
Thanks for the video, I started doing research after Buttons 10 & 11 reversers stopped working and doing a lot of troubleshooting, I can see cables issue even without openning the BTQ. I need to do this now as I got it 3 years ago therefore no warranty. Wish me luck!!
Biggest thing is take your time and you can also use your phone to take pictures of how the unit looks before you start disconnecting wires and things like that or any of the throttle or mixtures if you have to remove them. You should be just fine
Good man, you saved my life. Thank you very much for this video. You can see it is a frequent fault = manufacturing defect. Sending Bravo abroad under the guarantee takes several (if not dozen) weeks of waiting. Fixed - thanks ;-)
Almost ordered one today but after seeing your video I am going to hold off and hope HC makes some improvements. I may even search for an alternative. I thought it would make a good addition to my HC yoke but now I'm wondering about it and it's construction. Thanks for the video and in my case a heads up.
Great job, what you may want to try in future if it happens again is to use fine silicon sleeved wire used it years ago in building test rigs in an electronics factory, its great for cables that are moving around all the time. The smallest i remeber was 1mm silicon sleved cable.
@@2020fsers Looked like you used the original wires and just put heatshrink on them, i ment rewire with silicon sleeved wired and not use the original wires apart from the plugs. Still a great job.
@@2020fsers You would normally find the brass inserts are compression fitted after the parts have been injection moulded. I didn't realize they had used silicone covered wire as in the video it just looks like standard plastic covered wire, if you have problems in the future you could try to completely replace the wires with 40AWG silicone covered wire, many railway modellers use it for building loco's as it's a very fine wire and very flexible and heat-resistant. Hope you don't think what I am saying is a criticism, just trying to help, as I have worked in the electronics industry for nearly 30 years. Still a good job done on a rather very bad design. Another tip you or anyone else could use on the helping hands jig clips is to put a piece of silicon tubing over the clip jaws, the sort of stuff you get for airlines for aquariums. It really makes a big difference.
Thanks for the comment . It was hard to try and get good shots of what I was doing especially I couldn't really see the screen on the camera so I had to zoom out a little to.make sure I was able to get everything in view.
Ok, now I know that some time in my future I will have to do some fine & fancy lineman's work. I couldn't even guess what was in the Bravo. I have extensive experience in repairing the broken wires in my CH Products Pro-pedals set-up and repaired that at least 6 times. For the Pro-pedals, I got 24 gauge color-coded Silicone wire and replaced the 6 wires that were the problem. You're a brave man going in there, but now I know, Thanks
hey there thanks for the comment . yes i knew that i didnt want to wait for honeycomb so i like to fix things and make them better than i found it. lol so i felt i wanted a challenge and i figured id film it cuz i had a feeling that a lot of people will have this issue a lot! Anyway thanks again for watching
THANKS FOR THE VIDEO, i have my quadrant and engine 1 reverse stopped working, so I decided to look at what is going on and I saw that the wire for reverse 1 is already cut in two parts, I'm very disappointed about the quality of this wires and now I have to wait and see I am able to apply for the warranty, I just used this product for a total time of 50 hours in the whole time that I have this.
Thanks for the comment ... if they replace under warranty I was told by another viewer that they did finally change the wire config inside so I hope you get 1 of the updated units.
@@2020fsers I already text them via email, they sent me an email in order to fill up my information and then they were supposed to send me a label to send back my unit but is already 2 days and they didn't answer.
These honeycomb bravo and alpha flight controls are crap. I started having problems with the yoke early on. There is a really bad dead zone on my roll axis, which I've narrowed down to a bad potentiometer connection on the board. I'm also starting to have the same issue with one of the thrust levers on the bravo unit. I was able to move it to a working lever and re-mapped it, but it's just a pain in the butt. I'm going to get rid of them as soon as possible and go back to my old Saitek ones. Thanks for the video.
I have the same problem. I notified Honeycomb. They are supposed to send me a shipping label after a delay. They say their repair facility is awaiting parts. They don't want to remove my unit until they have the ability to fix or replace it.
i have a feeling they will start getting lots of call and they will get overloaded . Very big design flaw inside these units. i wonder what their fix will be if they ever tell you i would love to know if ya think of it . thanks for watching
Same problem with my unit - I reside in Australia (Perth) and purchased the Alpha and Bravo from a supplier in New Zealand. Sent the unit back with photos and a list of the switches that are not working over three weeks ago was advised my supplier yesterday that they are sending it to another supplier for assessment. Pretty poor show all round and the use of improved (silicon wiring) and decent limit switches would have gone a long way in minimising these issues. Assume Honeycomb will be issuing a recall? The price of these unit was eye-watering and pretty hard to justify when one looks at the components used to produce these products. Guess we will have to wait and see how this develops.
hey there thanks for the comment . Yes thats what i did is replace the wiring with silicon wiring. lots of people waiting on replacements but from what i have heard they are sending out refurbished units to those with warranty issues fyi.
Does anyone know what is the type of of plugs used on these wires? It's pretty obvious that you can't solder the wires forever, they would need to be replaced eventually. (Great video! I just fixed my engine 2 reverser thanks to it).
Haven't used my Bravo for 2 years, and with MSFS 2024 just being released I wanted to get back in the game. During configuration there was some buttons that simply matched to nothing when trying to configure for MSFS 2024 (auto throttle disconnect on the Airbus / reversers on the Boeings). Seems this might be a good weekend to get the soldering iron out.
Crikey that's a good video. Thanks for sharing. Not sure if I would be confident enough to do it though. My reversers are broken on both 1 and 2 now. This sucks!
Thanks for the comment it's not to bad to do if you have smaller hands lol 😆 it would have been nice if they did a little quality control and at least did some stress testing on them it would have shown very quickly
Just got my new Bravo TQ and sure enough one of the reverser buttons is not working. Brand new, right out of the box and broken... Hmmm... Not a very good first impression. Great video!
Planned obsolence. I have not had this issue with my Bravo but it is not a year old yet so I guess I can look forward to this. I have had two rocker buttons go bad after 3 months. My solution is to apply a FAT (Fine Adjustment Tool i.e. hammer) to it and buy another one or go back to my Saitek throttles. Or, take up underwater basketweaving as a hobby. 😃 Thanks for this.
I am looking at the Honeycomb because I currently have the Turtlebeach VelocityOne and not feeling it. Got it a few days ago and it wasn't till recent that TB even put out the proper software to work with FS2020... So it seems like they rushed it out the door and are now working on it actually working with FS2020.
Great tutorial, my Bravo just developed the same problem and Honeycomb Australia support has ignored my support requests. I will try phoning them this time to ramp up the pressure as this should not happen in a $500 AU device (when it was first released). The Department of Fair Trading may be very interested in the sale of a defective product ...hmmm
Yea I can say they will be getting quite a few calls pretty soon I'd imagine. But maybe they changed the design from the 1st couple batches idk let's hope so. Thanks for the comment 😀 .
@@2020fsers One of the toggle switches on my Bravo was dead from the get-go. I emailed back and forth with a support rep at Honeycomb. He was very responsive and said they would fix it under warranty BUT I had to ship it back to them. I asked if they would ship me a new one and I could return the 'not working properly' one once I receive the new one. That got me a "no can do" response. I had been waiting about 6 months for mine to finally arrive since placing my order, so there was no way I was going to pack it up and ship it to God knows where for repair. They are based in San Diego and I live just outside of Ottawa Canada, so one can only imagine the headaches and the amount of time associated with making all that happen!? I told him I would live with the dead switch. Maybe if and when a / the reverser wires come off (...hopefully never!) I will see if the problem with the switch can be fixed with a bit of solder.
@@ArtG-49 My turn around for the returns has been around 2-3 weeks. Yes, I said returnS, because they apparently all have this problem and they merely ship you a new one.
yup i just spend like 4 hrs fixing all mine, works like a charm very flawed design, i ended up not putting back in the grommets they use to wrap the wires around since that seems to be one of the causes of this flawed design but cheers for the vid
Thanks for the video, it was clear and straightforward with no nonsense :) I actually haven't made use of the reversers at all since I got my quadrant, my preferred aircraft are all props and the only one I have that does have a reverse is the DC6, which has a different method of conveying reverse. But good to know that if & when I do, there is a reasonable fix for it. I expect the recommendation is to not only fix the broken one(s), but to fix the others as well as a preventive measure? It's what I'll do anyway :)
I received a brand new today. I can see a new design. There is kind of a ring which hold the wires in place. So where you put the colored shrink wrap on 9:22 in around the middle of it is the ring placed
Hi FlameBot, I was going to buy a new Honeycomb throttle today but after hearing the wire problems I’m unsure because I don’t want to be repairing anything. You mentioned your model is a new design. Please can you confirm if all is well? Have you experienced any problems? Does it work 100%? Have HC sorted these wiring issues. Any advice would be appreciated. Many thanks. C Davis 😉
@@countdavis until today I don't have any problems with the wiring. I can confirm that the wiring looks different in my bravo throttle. You can order and check for yourself if you received a new version too. Elsewhere return it :) My first bravo had wrong stops for the zero position of the levers. I got a new one. Then this one had after several months a broken rotary encoder or the autopilot (top left corner). I got a new bravo. This one is the one with the updated wiring. The detent position or the levels are still not the same (3-8mm different stop position) but I live with that.
@@FlameBot Thank you very much for your help and advice. I still haven’t bought it today because I’m concerned about the issues. I have the HC Yoke and the Thrustmaster Warthog set, which all work 100% and never any problems. I thought I would get the HC Throttle so I have 2 sets for different aircraft. After reading lots of reviews the feedback is not good. Amazon UK have also “increased” the price today on Black Friday to £302.39 what I thought was strange. Everything else is discounted. I think I will hold off for the minute because I’m not desperate. I hope your model continues to work and serves you well. Thanks again 😉
Thanks for the comment ! I'm not sure you could replace with hall sensors unless you can reprogram the board . If you replace the potentiometers make sure that are the same part numbers or specs if they are off the board needs to know that I would think .
I just got a Bravo for christmas from my wife. Out the box, my #4 commercial lever is defective. the reverser sticks where its suppose to click over to the back position. It will click over with some force, but it feels like its going to break! I took out the 5 tiny screws but i couldnt get it to split in half.
@@2020fsers Thank you for the fast response. I sent an email a week ago and havent heard from them yet. They had replacements on their website for only $10 with 3 day shipping. I chose that route instead, lol!
I have my Bravo less than a year and I too just acquired a defective reverse thrust issue on just one lever so far. sure enough, I can see the broken wire inside with a flashlight. I contacted Honeycomb and I have to send it in for repair or replacement. They informed me I would probably be receiving a refurbished unit as a replacement. Maybe the refurbed will be a modified version to correct these issues. I shipped it to them yesterday. I will probably be waiting, conservatively speaking, 3-4+ weeks before seeing the replacement. Not good for a $275.00 device to fail so soon. Not sure if I would want to open it up to repair it but I probably could if it occurs again. Can you tell me where and why you used hot glue. Can't see much of that procedure in the video. You never explained its use in video. Thanks for the video.
Hey thanks for the comment . Wow I think it's crazy they are now sending refurbished units out and not new units. Best of luck with it. When I bought mine I paid 450.00 so I was really upset when this happened but it been great now.
Thanks for the vid. I don’t have a bravo throttle yet but it’s definitely on my wish list. I wasn’t even aware of this problem existing wile researching the product Considering I’m a long time model railroader and have done many electrons installations on the tiny trains. I feel confident that when I get mine I’ll bundle the throttle wires in heat shrink tubing as a preventative maintenance. Also wow that’s a lot of dead space inside the main body of the throttle. That give me a few ideas for some DIY customization options. Maybe add a few extra switches under the throttle using an Arduino controller?! (I normally don’t care about warranty since most model train stuff I’ve bought only have a year long one. no idea what the flight sim business is like.)
Bro... this is literally what I discovered with mine only yesterday. Thanks for the video. I suspect the wires are breaking because they are constantly being bent back and forth all the time, causing them to eventually break. I was hoping it was going to be easy to get in there, but by the looks of it, I am wondering if it is worth the effort. I might just map the reversers to the rocker switches instead.
From what other users have told me they are replacing them under warranty and also from a subscriber they have fixed the wiring issue on the replacement.
@@2020fsers , do you think it is a good idea to do something preventive. I believe the wire is Snapped on the shaft. Is ir a good idea to free it so there is no tension?
Sir, I just pick up this Quadrant, which I added to my Next Level Lite Cockpit, it is a little big for that but I think it will work out fine. My question is did the wires break in the middle or at the start point? and would you consider some kind of insulation over the wires? Great music, I thought I was fishing lol. I like it so much I am a Subscriber, good video.
Hey thanks for the comment and sub 😀 my wires broke in the middle . I replaced them with silicone wires that are more flexible and left room so they can move .
Thanks for the comment ... yes the pressure to activate the detent is adjustable. There is a little set screw with a nut to secure it for the detent but be very slight with the adjustment or you won't be able to go into the detent with the throttle.
This is an outstanding video! I have the Bravo, but usually fly only GA single piston engine style planes, so haven’t given much thought to the reversers. One question I do have though is, was the #1 lever any different from the rest due to having the go-around button? You’re lucky you had at least one lever that you could map the wires from, but that’s what made me wonder about the #1 lever and whether or not that one is different. Subscribed a few days ago!
Hey thanks for the comment 😀 and the sub .so on number 1 it just had only 2 wires instead of 3 like the others so no issues there been working great since the repair.
hey thanks for the comment . the wiring in the units are not done with the greatest of care in design and leaves much to be desired. but it is an easy fix if you have so solder and an iron .
Great job John! That is the only video I could find on Bravo disassembly. I got mine recently, and the problem I have is that none of the axes is detected in the lower portion passed the detent. The only thing that is detected by the simulator, and the OS are the buttons at the detent line. But the potentiometers on the lower portion of the levers aren't responsive at all. That makes using the thrust reversal, prop feathering, and cutting the mixture difficult at best. I tried contacting the Honeycomb, but their customer service seems to be non-existent (despite the awesome product they produced). I wonder if your levers work all the way including the lower portion past the detent points. And if yes, what would be a possible cause of this issue, and if it is possible to fix it. Thanks!
Yes my levers work I the lower detent position it was the reverser wires that all snapped. I suspect that if all of them stopped at the same time or never worked may be that they are not plugged in that's what i would think . 🤔 I hope this helps you and thanks for watching.
@@2020fsers Thank you John. It seems I have no other choice, but to open mine as well since Honeycomb does not answer my messages/calls, and as such, the warranty on this brand new unit is useless anyway :(.
@@2020fsers My guess is that they didn't solder the potentiometers properly, which will be an easy fix. But if they did, and the controller does not interpret the signal, it means the problem is with the controller, which would be a bummer.
Finally a disassembly video! Thanks for making this video. Unfortunately I ordered the alpha and the bravo too early before watching this and discovering that the Alpha yoke is not only using those crap ancient potentiometers but also just has 8-bit=256 resolution! Now I regret so much about buying them... Anyway, I'd like to ask are the crappy wires only affect the reverser? Since TOGA buttons are on the levers as well...
"the Alpha yoke is not only using those crap ancient potentiometers but also just has 8-bit=256 resolution!" May I ask where does this come from? Cause I'm a bit surprised the Alpha would be so universally praised with such low-res potentiometers... Even Austin Meyers from X-Plane reviewed one of these and monitored it (compared to others too) using Xplane controllers resolution tools and it certainly didn't came up as especially lacking in the resolution department like an 8 bit 256 sure would largely be.
@@alanlej I've heard that firstly from one of @Almost Aviation 's videos of review the Alpha or so. You can check his channel on YTB and there are more detailed explanations, such as the deadzone issue/scandal. And 256 is the number shown in the windows joystick calibration program. IIRC he also said the sensor itself is higher but the (crappy?) control board limited it to 256 or something like that. Interestingly, now the honeycomb officially admits that in their advertisement of the upcoming alpha xpc yoke by saying "(the upgraded 12-bit hall sensor)is 400% more resolution" blabla. Though 400% with 12-bit doesn't translate to 256 but I'd guess it's bcz of the sensor capability vs control board capacity issue aforementioned. Yes lots of people have praised the brand and their product and I personally think their design is good for flat screen swimming in terms of the functionality as well, and the fact that finally in the relatively affordable department choices other the saitek/logitech craps have emerged was pleased; BUT, after knowing their stinginess, poor design and cheap material used in the bravo as well here you can see in this very video, poor customer service(about 2 yrs-ish of the debut, lots of reports of failure emerges with bad customer service. have a look at the comment section on the alpha xpc announcement FB page), extremely slow development circle that only yields disappointing product in the end, and what not under the shining looking, I'll most likely never buy their product (luckily already managed to sell all of mine existing ones) and would rather save more for something really solid inside. I'm not their target audience. I'd rather support the small company that builds solid (metal) product at a "slightly" higher price such as the Fulcrum Simulator Controls. We just don't need another of those passionless toy makers like saitek/logitech/thrustmaster
Great video. Hope you and your wife are feeling well now. I will NOT be buying the Bravo Throttle quadrant. I'm thinking of the VKB NXT or the old trusty CH Throttle quadrant. I've had my CH yoke for over 20 years and it's perfect. What are your thoughts ? Any other suggestion ? Thanks so much for your videos. They're all great !!!
Thank you very much for the kind words we are much better now thank you. As far as throttle quadrants there still is no perfect model yet if you want least expensive to get you by the Saitek is great for the money not sure how much the ch quadrant costs.
@@2020fsers Thanks again for your reply. I've read that the Logitech throttles get jumpy as they age. They cost 80$ Canadian. The CH throttle quadrant is 190 Canadian. My CH flight yoke is 25 years old and solid as a rock. So I'm leaning towards the CH throttle quadrant. It is really nice of you to respond to my enquiries. It's funny to say but you RUclips people are like celebrities. So I really appreciate getting to exchange ideas with you.
So, now I'm also affected with this broken wires on lever 4 and 5; on lever 4 I soldered it and it worked until now. But it's broken again and affected the 5th also. Maybe you have another permanent solution for this problem? Has anyone else an idea? Thanks!
My autopilot buttons, landing gear, toggle switches and flaps suddenly stopped functioning. Honeycomb gave me a throttle tester and it was indeed broken. Do you have a fix for this?
It's most likely a main cable that came disconnected from the board . Seems like a lot of things went bad at 1 time so it's either that or could be the board but I would check all the connectors inside
@@2020fsers guess what week and a half of ownership and the first throttle prematurely enables button event at idle. Is that something I could fix fallowing your guide
Are you saying at idle it also triggers the detent switch? You may need to take it apart and see maybe the detent switch came loose or is miss aligned. But I will say this video is really not a guide at least i didn't market it as that lol. But it certainly shows a good bit of the inside.
@@2020fsers yes it triggers it for a fraction of second. I also noticed once throttle 2 is in slightly above idle position the throttle 1 becomes very noisy.
Just sent mine out for the same issue with one of the reversers. Got the new one in today after waiting two weeks. Went well until I realized the number 5 lever isn’t working. Oddly enough, when I move the #6 lever, the #5 in the calibration app moves which makes me think something isn’t wired correctly.
@@2020fsers What’s frustrating is no one is picking up their customer support phone. It takes 3-4 days to get a reply via email. And this thing literally just arrived from freaking Hong Kong. It’s like come in guys, you want me to do this again?
Thank you Sir! That just saved me from buying these haha. I was sceptical when reading they still use the dreaded potentiometers, but this really killed any intent now. Hell no ^^
@@2020fsers As far as i could research, they didn't switch to Hall Effect. The Alpha has them and was updated (XPC), the Bravo never was and there - as of now - is no intention to do so either. Which is pretty sad imo
Hey I have just bought my own bravo quadrant and after much testing I’m convinced my gear lights (the three red/green leds on the front above the gear lever) don’t work. Can you give me any suggestions on how to fix without having a to send the whole thing back? After all it’s the ONLY thing not working on my quad and after looking around I should consider myself lucky. What do you think might be the cause of the problem?
Am I likely to void my warranty if I go open it up? I suspect a loose wire is to blame but can you tell me from your experience opening it up is it easy to access those gear lights or am I in for a nightmare of cables and screws
You will most likely void your warranty opening it up . But when you separate the top and bottom be careful of the rear plug on the bravo . And the lights are probably connected with a plug like all the other things in there so it may be a plug not plugged in or loose .
The Bravo, while an outstandingly realistic setup, particularly for airliners, has apparently got some very serious quality control issues. My first one had the identical problem that you are dealing with here, on only the #3 channel initially (#2 throttle in a 747 setup), and it cropped up after around 2 months. Honeycomb replaced it, and I must say that aside from the irritation of having to have a new one sent from China every time this happens, they have been very responsive - no problem there. But the replacement they sent was miscalibrated on all axes right out of the box and of course unusable, so back to Fedex again for another return. Unit three, which I have had for a few months, is so far OK, but there is an ominous clicking sound when (again) number three channel is retarded from high thrust settings to low. Looking in the slot, I see that sure enough one or more of the wires is catching on some piece of the assembly, and it will probably be but a matter of time before it breaks. Unfortunately for me, I have none of the electronic repair knowledge and skill that you have, so taking it apart will not be a possibility. I could take it apart all right, but I would have no chance at all of getting it back together! In any event, it seems that I am by no means the only one who has this problem - I wonder if they are all defective like this? Too bad, because nothing else comes close in terms of look and feel.
I agree 👍 and the new units going out still have this same flaw even replacements it's sad they are not fixing the issue . It is a really great unit though aside from that I like the Boeing yoke but not the throttle that comes with it I would like to get the yoke separately. Wish you the best luck with your bravo. Thanks for the comment .
@@2020fsers I agree on the Boeing Yoke, although I have yet to actually try it out. Thrustmaster products can occasionally be troublesome as well, but everything at this level seems to be, sad to say. The alternative would be some real throttles from the boneyard, but it would take at least a masters degree to get them working in a sim setup, although some have actually done just that...
I couldn’t agree more. It’s a shame, as the Bravo and Alpha which I have are wonderful peripherals and have made my experience up until now very enjoyable. This problem though is extremely frustrating, and as many have pointed out, one would expect the quality to be better, given the price of these units. I have my Bravo disassembled as I type this, and trying to repair is indeed intimidating.
Excellent video. I managed to repair the broken wire a few months ago following your instructions. However 3 more wires have broken. I’ll attempt to replace some wiring. Can you you tell me what type of wiring it is and what gauge it is? Much appreciated. Richard
Going to have to do this myself. Reverser and TOGA is not working anymore. I can see the wires broken. Pretty annoying, and for them to fix it they want me to send it back with all parts and it could take 8 weeks. Crazy.
Yep and most likely take longer . It's pretty simple depending on where your wires snapped check them all and give them.some slack so they can move and not bend.
@@2020fsers I think you went the extra mile, I have a feeling if I re route them and sauder them I can make it work. I work on motorcycles as my hobby, this can't be too bad haha. Cheers.
You should be fine when you separate the top and bottom take care of the wires that go to the ba k plug once you gently pop the top the unplug the rear cable to finish removing it .
Nah it's really easy practice first. Tin the soldering iron before you solder the wires tin each of the wires and you'll be good and get some Flux to.dip your wire ends into.
May I ask what it is you’re doing at 3:41 in the video? I can’t see on my Bravo what I’m supposed to be undoing. Thanks for the video by the way…intimidating.
@@2020fsers Took it apart last night . Bit of a job but found a few wires broken and I removed all those wire loop rings . OMG they were strung and wound so tight no wonder they broke . I have reversers once again and all levers work as they should now . I used the smallest shrink tube I have and slid it over the wires to give them more protection at those high movement area's . HoneyComb really need to update there internal wiring design . It was pretty cool tho seeing the tech and design that they came up with . Getting that C-Clip off was fun . Seems there hearts in the right place in giving us simmers some cool toys . Hopefully future units will have a better internal setup
Hey glad you got it fixed . Not much in that big thing is it lol. I did the same with those wire rings that is so stupid 😑 why would they make the wiring so tight idk. Thanks for the followup
Great video, but... I can't figure out how to get the second to fifth lever out. I managed to repair the first lever, but it seems like I have to take the whole thing apart to get the plastic part with the wires out so I can fix the wires. I have no idea how to do that. Can anybody help?
i wish i could help with that question but its been quit a while since i took this apart so im not sure but you should be able to remove them like the others.
I actually made it. I didn't have to take everything apart. Only had to screw the hex screws a few millimeters in after removing the nuts and toothwashers, so I could pull the levers out and solder the cables. Now the detents of the levers are mostly gone, but I guess this is adjusted with the hex screws. I'll check that out. But not today.
That's what I'm going to do. But it has to wait until weekend. Thanks a lot, 2020fsers. Without your video I had never dared to repair the Bravo. Thanks a lot!!!
Good job, enjoyed the video....I'd like to put my order in for a 3D printed TBM throttle handle for the Bravo, like your printers in the background, TBM throttle on my wish-list 🙂
Lol thanks never thought of tbm handle hmm I may look Into that thanks for that. I love my 3d printers use them to prototype things and I make lots for around the house . Very useful if I want something I just make it and the cool thing is if you have one then someone can just send you the print file and poof now you have 9,429 miles away.
Damn !! That is a crappy wire harness !! I stumbled upon your video while looking for something else. Guess what ? I took a peak into slots of my Bravo .. Damn !! The number 2 lever 2 wires are snapped. I think the wires get stretched too much when pushing the lever into the full down position. Also where it routes into the lever - too much bending when the levers are moved up and down. Luckily I do not fly aircraft with reversers - so at the moment does not affect me. Really don't feel like returning the unit to Honeycomb - 6000 miles between me and them. My unit only in use for about 3 months now. Question : are those wires multi strand or single conductor wires ?. Took some screenshots of the 3 pin connectors - will go to my local electronics supplier and see if the cannot makeup some harnesses in preparation for the day when i start flying jets .. LOL .. Thanks for making the video .. Excellent !!
Yeah Hey thanks for the comment they are multi strand wires and the issue was there is no way for the wires to move inside of there and the way they have them bound to the back side they've gotten them tied to the metal part of the controller and every time that you move the throttleforward and backwards it bends those wires kind of like a paper clip until they snap. I know a couple people are waiting for honeycomb to get parts in to repair . I think they should almost have a recall situation because every single one of them is gonna do this. But that's on their reputation.
@@2020fsers The thrust reversers have never worked. The computer/game doesn't even sense an input when I activate the levers. Pretty much everything else works thought, as far as I can tell.
Wow maybe they forgot to plug them in I would think they can't all be broken so probably not plugged in pull the screws off the bottom and pull the top off but be slow when pulling it off cuz there are wire connected to it then unplug them and pull the rest of the way off and check the connections on the board .
Hi John, hope you're well today, I need help, for some reason my prop 1 (C208) feather detent (switch button 26) does not make the prop to feather, nothing happens, closing the prop brings it back to the Prop MIN position, pulling prop lever beyond the flight detent position does nothing, the Caravan's prop stays unfeathered during shutdown, it just doesn't look and work correctly, please help Mate, thanks?
Thanks & wildo....will let you know tomorrow, I'll be a happy 2020 fs'er if it works, so far the C208 is the only aircraft in my fleet that does not cause a CTD or failure of any app, so the C208 has now jumped to the no 2 spot behind the TBM
Got hit by a 9Gb mandatory update this morning, doing that now, whilst sitting here and watching the white status bar grow I can't help to think "what on earth of all my sim stuff, software and hardware, will not be working when all this is done?", I'm optimistic, but from experience, since Sim Update 1 there's not much hope it'll be smooth sailing after the restart....keep you posted on that feather detent setting
I've just sent my 2nd unit back with this same problem! Thought it might have been something as stupid as this engineering fault I'm wondering if the give a 12mth warranty on the replacement units?
@@2020fsers if that's the case I will probably pull it apart when I get the new unit and hot glue the wires in place The annoying part is Honeycomb aren't answering my help ticket ! It's been 8 days now and 2 more requests. I love this flexibility of bravo but if there was another alternative I'd asked for my money back
UPDATE: Honeycomb just confirmed that they will give the full 12mth warranty on my replacement unit but they didn't confirm if they have solved the engineering problem :( What do you think the odds are that my 3rd unit will break and need to be sent back?
Thanks a great update for warranty . Probably gonna need it most likely they haven't fixed the issue tho 😕 or maybe they did only way is to open it up and take a peak .
Most of this stuff is clearly modular. HC should at least sell parts for this considering they have a section dedicated to parts on their site. Kind of like a missed opportunity there.
hmm, this is concerning to see! Thanks so much for posting this. I just received my throttle quadrant last week. I can see that the wires are being bent each time the throttles are moved, so this will eventually happen to mine. I'm not quite clear how you modified it so that it won't happen again. Was it just hot-gluing them down? Or was that heat-shrink doing something other than preventing snags? They seriously cannot have put much testing into this design for this to be released. It's a rookie mistake. If they are honouring the warranty, this will cost them a fortune. Having said that, it's clear from looking at the insides, that they are making a lot of profit on each unit. Not much inside. I'm curious why you fixed it yourself though. There's a two-year warranty, and doing what you did will have voided that.
Hey thanks for the comment. So I had to re route wires inside and remove a stud that they had the wires wrapped around . Then hot glued the wires I place so they won't bend and then make sure the wires can move and not snag . They are covering under warranty but the replacements are the same units no modifications have been made on their part . So i would rather not wait 6 weeks or more for them to replace it to just have the same thing happen again. What good is a warranty if it is always broken so I made it better and now works great. Hope this gives some insight on the fix and the reason why I did it.
@@2020fsers thanks for the additional detail. I think I may open mine up and pro-actively fix this weakness. Gotta be easier than doing all that soldering.
@@2020fsers ok. great. thanks for the extra info. I will probably do this mod, but first want to be sure that that all the buttons and axis work properly. haven't had a chance to play with it much yet
@@2020fsers I had snapped wires also. I did the same repair you did, but I want to replace the wiringharness with copperwires. Do you know what diameter the used wires have?
Can someone please share the gauge of these cables? (in mm or awg) I'd like to order some silicon wires before I disassemble my Bravo (which obviously has the same issue) Someone mentioned that they used CAT5 wires, which I believe are AWG24 (or 0.2 mm2) but just wanted to confirm.
@@2020fsers Thanks. I actually just stripped and measured a spare CAT5 cable and the copper gauge was exactly 0.41mm thick which is essentially an AWG26 as per the conversion tables. Will order some silicon 26's then, thanks again.
After watching the entire video I find that I can't see just what you soldered to what. It would have been good to have taken some macro photos of the details of what went where during this process. Of course, even with that I will have no hope of being able to do this, but others may benefit. You might even want to provide illustrated instructions in pdf form and sell that! Oh, BTW, how much would you charge to do this to my unit!?
Hey thanks for the comment the only thing I soldered are the wires to themselves where they broke that's all . I made the diagram so I could keep wires going to the correct terminal. Never thought of making a teardown and repair pdf if I get enough requests maybe but right now they are honoring their warranty so most people are sending them back. I probably wouldn't do this on another unit other than repair the wires but I would design some 3d printed thing to go inside to be a guide so the wire can move freely and then can mass make them.
@@2020fsers Although I did not take any of my units apart, I was able to see that my wire had broken cleanly, almost as though it had been cut by a razor. I presumed that this break had occurred at some point where the wire was connected to a terminal of some sort.... I never saw any other broken end, but of course it is very difficult to see much through the small slot of the axis.
Major design flaw -looks like it can get just past the warranty period before breaking. The engineering aspects of wiring harnesses and wire-draw breaking wires/solders has been known and taken into account for decades. I guess the customers have to pay for some obscure Chinese engineer learning this lesson.
Some people have stated within a month or so they have had wires break and honeycomb is just replacing with the same design confirmed by a viewer whom had 1 replaced and opened it up to let me know what's inside and no change .
A crap product from Uncle Sam. Things are supposed to be tested to destruction before the products are put on the market, aren't they? Obviously that doesn't happen with Honeycomb. I have the Alpha Yoke and the Bravo Throttle Quadrant but it is the latter that has been disappointing, particularly the Auto-pilot buttons and selector knob, and the slippery overly sensitive trim wheel (which I see they have produced a rubber addition for ... at a cost to the consumer). I would have to think critically before buying Honeycomb products in the future - in Australia the prices break the bank, so to say. If we cannot trust A1 products from America then we should vote with our wallets and buy elsewhere - even if it costs more we can probably get a better product. No-one should have to tear down a product to fix a problem that should have been eliminated in the design stage. Come on Honeycomb - recall your second rate products and give us a refund.
i agree we should not have to fix these things ourselves and i wasnt trying to cut on honeycomb in the video i just wanted to bring this to everyones attention as i know lots of people have this and wanted to get the word out so that everyone don't think its the sim not working or a bug, its the bravo not working ,to help diagnose issues for people but i do hope that honeycomb gets to see this so they can make changes if they havent already. Thanks for the comment and for watching
I think they do from some people I talked to with this problem and getting replacements but the new units 1 fellow opened his up to let me know there are no changes to the design so I don't know what they are doing internally about the design. But they are replacing them
Yep it sure is a bad design and the worst is from what others are now telling me they are replacing the broken with a refurbished unit not a new one that's not right. Hope you have good luck with yours and thanks for watching
@@2020fsers Well, looking inside bravo when watching Your movie brings me memory of china toy cars - same small wires with not so good soldering. So im pretty sure that after guarante finish my will stop working :D
The wires on mine have a different configuration, they have a loop around a plastic piece, and STILL broke. Not because of snagging on something but the exit from the leaver is abrupt so the wires move alot on that single spot
After watching this I am strongly considering cancelling my order as it should arrive within the next week. After watching you crack the unit open I am quite annoyed of the absolute cheapness of it, this is a £280 unit not some cheap ass Chinese £25 piece of junk. I would expect for this price something premium which this is clearly not.
I thought like you about the guts of the unit they should be much better for the money it cost . More thought is needed in design and quality of parts . I hope this helped save you or gave you a heads up at what you will need to do . Honeycomb is repairing them but that is only when they get parts to do so. But a re design is needed so dont know how long it would take. Thanks for watching
@@2020fsers I have today emailed honeycomb to try and ascertain whether or not they are aware of the issue and if they are what has been done ?. I wait on their reply before deciding to keep my order and continuing to allow it to be delivered or cancelling it.
I’ve had mine for almost 3 years and just discovered that my bravo also had the same issue. Every single wire snapped on mine as well. Thanks to your video, I also fixed mine. Cheers!🎉
Thanks for the comment
Thanks for your video!!!! I had the same issue with my throttle #2 reverser not working for a year or so now until I discovered your video! It really helped a whole lot. Thank you for being the only brave soul out of us many bravo owners who actually took time to figure out what was causing this issue but thanks to you, I now have the confidence to tackle my own repair. I'm not gonna lie, it was a bit intimidating once I opened it up but your video was spot on. I was able to fix my broken wire in the #2 reverser only to find out once I repaired it and got it back together and connected back to my computer in the sim, reverser #1 stopped working for me. Come to find out, one of it's wires had broke on me while testing the repair. What a bummer. I think honeycomb used cheap wire and they are too stiff for this application. I'm going to replace all the wires in throttle's 1&2 which for me is lever (3&4) as I mostly fly 2 engine jets with silicone wire for more flexibility.
Hey thanks for the comment and I'm happy my video helped you get yours fixed . They have a bit of design and qc to get straight but at least you know you can fix it if something happens again. 😉 thanks again
Thanks for exposing an apparent flaw design. Honeycomb should put out another version immediately!
I'm hoping they changed a while ago time will tell I expect a lot of issues in the near future on this issue . Hope for the best 👌 thanks for the comment
They haven’t changed it, still seeing many complaints in forums, quite frankly HA customer service is terrible which is a shame as the hardware when working is brilliant.
Sad to hear that they still haven't changed their wayz . Oh well I have a feeling that someone else will come on the market and do it right , time will tell.
Hoenycomb should do a recall and replace everybody’s units.
I agree they should have a recall .
Just a little tip. I bought one of those clamping devices like yours, and right away, realized that those miniature crocodile clamps were pretty lethal. To fix this, I slid a short length of heat shrink over each of the jaws. It was a snug fit without applying any heat. It works like a charm and has not damaged any of the small wires I've soldered. Thanks for a great video. I do not have a Honeycomb quadrant, but am seriously looking to get one.
Great tip for the wire clamps i didn't think of that thanks . Thanks for watching
@@2020fsers You are more than welcome. Hey, I even subscribed, too!! Thanks.
@@twocvsix hey 👋 man thanks so much for the sub really appreciate that.
Make a video with your method plz
I just wanted to say BIG Thank You dude! You saved my unit! THR#3 Reverser failed in my case. Although I kinda did some things differently. One black wire broke right where they all "bend". So I soldered it, and applied some hot glue in that area so they move much less now. Also applied hot glue in the same spot for all other throttles. I also removed those tiny zip ties because I bet THEY are the reason why these wires tend to bend so tightly. I'm so glad everything works fine now
Thanks for the comment .. happy this helped
Thanks for a very inspirational video which gave me the confidence to tackle the same repair on my Bravo. In my case, two wires on throttle 3 were broken. Before disturbing the wires, although the wires were the same colour, it was possible to see how they had been originally connected as the broken ends were slightly different lengths. It would have been possible to connect the new wires to the original ones without digging in any deeper but I decided to strip down the lever so that I could connect the new wires directly onto the brass terminals. (important to remove the terminal before attempting to solder as the heat would melt/damage the lever). I then reassembled the lever, soldered the other ends of the new wires to the original wires and insulated the connections using heat shrink tubing. This repair was successful but about a month later, throttle 2 reverser stopped working. This time, I could see the broken wire by looking into the lever slot prior to stripping the unit down again. It's been a couple of months since the last repair and so far, so good. Just for the record, I used wire salvaged from a length of CAT5 cable which appears to be the same diameter as the original wires (makes routing new wires inside the lever housing much easier). To summarise, defects which are too wide-spread to be regarded as 'just a bit of bad luck' ... this is a manufacturing issue but, fear not fellow Bravo owners, with just a little confidence, your unit will be back up and running in just over an hour...
Great write up thanks for sharing 👍 🙏 I appreciate the comment glad your back up and running
@@2020fsers you're very welcome
@@2020fsers Hello again, it's only 2 weeks since my second repair and yesterday another (original) wire leading to lever 3 (reverser) broke. I suppose one good thing is that repairs are getting faster, under 30 minutes now... but I'm starting to think this will continue until all of the original wires have been replaced. On reflection, anyone doing this repair for the first time would probably be better to replace all of the wires at the same time (as someone else previously suggested) but, in my case, I just thought this was overkill given the other wires looked OK. But now, I'm starting to think that once these wires start breaking, eventually all of them will fail over time. This leads me to wonder why these wires break in the first place? This is the third time I've been inside my Bravo and I'm now trying to figure out what's causing these wires to break? For the record, I've now repaired 4 wires, all broken in different places and I'm trying to figure out if there is a common cause. So, looking back, the first two wires were cut very close to where the lever pivots. Initially, I thought this might be a stress related fracture caused by the wires repeatedly bending backwards and forwards each time the lever is used. But, because these wires looked like they had been clean-cut, my second thought was that this may be due to their routing. They travel from inside the lever housing over the pivot point and might have been physically sliced through when the throttle has been pushed forward to maximum. However, maybe there isn't one single cause because the next two repairs tackled broken wires (inside) the lever assembly. The first of these was clean-cut only 2-3 millimetres away from where it is soldered onto the terminal and second was another clean-cut half-way between the pivot point and the terminal. Neither of these makes any sense as there is nothing inside the lever housing to physically cut through the wires and the stress fracture theory does not apply here. So, finally and, in case anyone is wondering, all of these repairs refer to throttle levers 2 and 3 and their respective reversers. This is because I have configured the throttles for use with the airbus and the other levers do not get used.
I wish I shared your confidence.
@@JKPilot If yours is faulty, take your time, remove the base cover and simply take a look before committing any further. Once you get started, you'll probably surprise yourself... good luck... let us know how you get on... and, for the record, no further issues after the last repair...
Thank you so much! Had the same problem today and thanks to your great video, I was able to quickly fix it! And indeed, quite disappointed by the quality of the Honeycomb Bravo now...
Your welcome thanks for the commment.
Thanks... Just had one go out (button 9) and sent back to honeycomb under warranty... Sending a new one apparently... I might check out later if they somehow reviewed their wiring in that area... As I can see this become a MAJOR issue for all Bravo owners moving forward... Thanks for your video!
Im glad they are taking care of it for you . Thanks for watching 👀 🙂
You are a brave man! For the price of these things, one would expect that the wire connections would be a bit more robust. Only had my Bravo for a month, so I hope I get a few more months usage before being faced with having to perform surgery. Thanks for this and all your other videos. Always informative and entertaining.
Thanks Art yes I would have liked to see maybe a channel inside for the wires to freely move or something but it's all good now thank God 😊. I really appreciate the comment Art. It's like taking paper clip and bending it over and over I'm no rocket scientist but it's not gonna last . That may have changed in the latter units I got 1 of the 1st ones .
Hmm that seems like a different issue . Maybe something came unplugged in your unit
@SMG mine has developed the same issue. Did you find a solution to this as i really don't feel like dealing with support.
@SMG Damn. Maybe I'll try and get a replacment under warranty. Hopefully i get a quick response as I'm in the uk and have to go through Aerosoft.
@SMG I don't often fly commercials - but I today I thought I'd run through a couple of tutorials. Guess what - reverser on throttle 1 does not work (which figures as I tend to fly single engine GA).
Really appalling quality from Honeycomb - my Bravo is out of warranty, but I am in no way a hardcore simmer, so the unit has not had a tremendous amount of use.
Thank you so much for making this video. I use the furthest left one only for flying WW2 warbirds and use the button for boost. However, it just went out. I suspect this is the issue and will need to open it up for repairs. I've had a lot of HOTAS gear over the years and almost always it comes down to poor internal design and wiring
Hey your welcome.. most likely your wires snapped also .. yes it's poor design inside that causes this . Thanks for the comment
Thanks for the video, I started doing research after Buttons 10 & 11 reversers stopped working and doing a lot of troubleshooting, I can see cables issue even without openning the BTQ. I need to do this now as I got it 3 years ago therefore no warranty. Wish me luck!!
Biggest thing is take your time and you can also use your phone to take pictures of how the unit looks before you start disconnecting wires and things like that or any of the throttle or mixtures if you have to remove them. You should be just fine
Good man, you saved my life.
Thank you very much for this video.
You can see it is a frequent fault = manufacturing defect.
Sending Bravo abroad under the guarantee takes several (if not dozen) weeks of waiting.
Fixed - thanks ;-)
Very welcome . I really didn't make this as a tutorial but I'm happy you found enough info here to fix yours . Thanks for the comment 😀
Almost ordered one today but after seeing your video I am going to hold off and hope HC makes some improvements. I may even search for an alternative. I thought it would make a good addition to my HC yoke but now I'm wondering about it and it's construction. Thanks for the video and in my case a heads up.
Your welcome thanks for the comment .
Great job, what you may want to try in future if it happens again is to use fine silicon sleeved
wire used it years ago in building test rigs in an electronics factory, its great for cables that are moving around all the time.
The smallest i remeber was 1mm silicon sleved cable.
I used silicon wires on the repair and has been great so far very flexible . Thanks for the comment 😀
@@2020fsers Looked like you used the original wires and just put heatshrink on them, i ment rewire with silicon sleeved wired and not use the original wires apart from the plugs.
Still a great job.
I thought I used silicone wires but it's been a while I'm not sure at this point lol
But I know if I had the brass end that connects to the throttle lever I would have used a solid piece of silicone wire but I didn't have those ends
@@2020fsers You would normally find the brass inserts are compression fitted after the parts have been injection moulded.
I didn't realize they had used silicone covered wire as in the video it just looks like standard plastic covered wire, if you have problems in the future you could try to completely replace the wires with 40AWG silicone covered wire, many railway modellers use it for building loco's as it's a very fine wire and very flexible and heat-resistant.
Hope you don't think what I am saying is a criticism, just trying to help, as I have worked in the electronics industry for nearly 30 years.
Still a good job done on a rather very bad design.
Another tip you or anyone else could use on the helping hands jig clips is to put a piece of silicon tubing over the clip jaws, the sort of stuff you get for airlines for aquariums.
It really makes a big difference.
Appreciate the video, wish you had shown more of what you actually did so it was easier to follow along and repair this myself
Thanks for the comment . It was hard to try and get good shots of what I was doing especially I couldn't really see the screen on the camera so I had to zoom out a little to.make sure I was able to get everything in view.
Ok, now I know that some time in my future I will have to do some fine & fancy lineman's work. I couldn't even guess what was in the Bravo.
I have extensive experience in repairing the broken wires in my CH Products Pro-pedals set-up and repaired that at least 6 times.
For the Pro-pedals, I got 24 gauge color-coded Silicone wire and replaced the 6 wires that were the problem. You're a brave man going in there, but now I know, Thanks
hey there thanks for the comment . yes i knew that i didnt want to wait for honeycomb so i like to fix things and make them better than i found it. lol so i felt i wanted a challenge and i figured id film it cuz i had a feeling that a lot of people will have this issue a lot! Anyway thanks again for watching
THANKS FOR THE VIDEO, i have my quadrant and engine 1 reverse stopped working, so I decided to look at what is going on and I saw that the wire for reverse 1 is already cut in two parts, I'm very disappointed about the quality of this wires and now I have to wait and see I am able to apply for the warranty, I just used this product for a total time of 50 hours in the whole time that I have this.
Thanks for the comment ... if they replace under warranty I was told by another viewer that they did finally change the wire config inside so I hope you get 1 of the updated units.
@@2020fsers I already text them via email, they sent me an email in order to fill up my information and then they were supposed to send me a label to send back my unit but is already 2 days and they didn't answer.
Stay on them ..
These honeycomb bravo and alpha flight controls are crap. I started having problems with the yoke early on. There is a really bad dead zone on my roll axis, which I've narrowed down to a bad potentiometer connection on the board. I'm also starting to have the same issue with one of the thrust levers on the bravo unit. I was able to move it to a working lever and re-mapped it, but it's just a pain in the butt. I'm going to get rid of them as soon as possible and go back to my old Saitek ones. Thanks for the video.
Hey you are welcome thanks for the comment .
I've had mine for 2 weeks now and the engine 2 reverser is dead. Great video. Looks like a chore trying to fix it so I think I'll be returning mine.
Hey thanks for the comment I hope you get a speedy turn around
I have the same problem. I notified Honeycomb. They are supposed to send me a shipping label after a delay. They say their repair facility is awaiting parts. They don't want to remove my unit until they have the ability to fix or replace it.
i have a feeling they will start getting lots of call and they will get overloaded . Very big design flaw inside these units. i wonder what their fix will be if they ever tell you i would love to know if ya think of it . thanks for watching
Same problem with my unit - I reside in Australia (Perth) and purchased the Alpha and Bravo from a supplier in New Zealand.
Sent the unit back with photos and a list of the switches that are not working over three weeks ago was advised my supplier yesterday that they are sending it to another supplier for assessment. Pretty poor show all round and the use of improved (silicon wiring) and decent limit switches would have gone a long way in minimising these issues.
Assume Honeycomb will be issuing a recall?
The price of these unit was eye-watering and pretty hard to justify when one looks at the components used to produce these products.
Guess we will have to wait and see how this develops.
hey there thanks for the comment . Yes thats what i did is replace the wiring with silicon wiring. lots of people waiting on replacements but from what i have heard they are sending out refurbished units to those with warranty issues fyi.
Does anyone know what is the type of of plugs used on these wires? It's pretty obvious that you can't solder the wires forever, they would need to be replaced eventually.
(Great video! I just fixed my engine 2 reverser thanks to it).
Haven't used my Bravo for 2 years, and with MSFS 2024 just being released I wanted to get back in the game. During configuration there was some buttons that simply matched to nothing when trying to configure for MSFS 2024 (auto throttle disconnect on the Airbus / reversers on the Boeings). Seems this might be a good weekend to get the soldering iron out.
Lol 2 of my wires are broken again . I don't feel like a teardown again .
Astonishingly great work! Thanks.
Thank you
Crikey that's a good video. Thanks for sharing. Not sure if I would be confident enough to do it though. My reversers are broken on both 1 and 2 now. This sucks!
Thanks for the comment it's not to bad to do if you have smaller hands lol 😆 it would have been nice if they did a little quality control and at least did some stress testing on them it would have shown very quickly
Just got my new Bravo TQ and sure enough one of the reverser buttons is not working. Brand new, right out of the box and broken... Hmmm... Not a very good first impression. Great video!
Wow that's crazy they all have this issue. Luckily I haven't had an issue since doing this repair
@@2020fsers I'm not going to do any repairs or take this thing apart right now. It's brand new so it's going back.
Yep return to sender ! Hope you get a new one sooner than later
Planned obsolence. I have not had this issue with my Bravo but it is not a year old yet so I guess I can look forward to this. I have had two rocker buttons go bad after 3 months. My solution is to apply a FAT (Fine Adjustment Tool i.e. hammer) to it and buy another one or go back to my Saitek throttles. Or, take up underwater basketweaving as a hobby. 😃 Thanks for this.
Lol thanks for the comment.
I agree that the engineering department probably had a long night out the day before they designed the internals.
@@2020fsers Or yours was built on a Monday morning or Friday afternoon. 😀
I am looking at the Honeycomb because I currently have the Turtlebeach VelocityOne and not feeling it. Got it a few days ago and it wasn't till recent that TB even put out the proper software to work with FS2020... So it seems like they rushed it out the door and are now working on it actually working with FS2020.
The bravo is a great throttle just some issues with wires it can be a deal breaker for some. Thanks for the comment
Great tutorial, my Bravo just developed the same problem and Honeycomb Australia support has ignored my support requests. I will try phoning them this time to ramp up the pressure as this should not happen in a $500 AU device (when it was first released). The Department of Fair Trading may be very interested in the sale of a defective product ...hmmm
I hope you get it sorted with them
Thanks for sharing, good to knew. I hope that honeycomb has a good customer service.
Yea I can say they will be getting quite a few calls pretty soon I'd imagine. But maybe they changed the design from the 1st couple batches idk let's hope so. Thanks for the comment 😀 .
@@2020fsers One of the toggle switches on my Bravo was dead from the get-go. I emailed back and forth with a support rep at Honeycomb. He was very responsive and said they would fix it under warranty BUT I had to ship it back to them. I asked if they would ship me a new one and I could return the 'not working properly' one once I receive the new one. That got me a "no can do" response. I had been waiting about 6 months for mine to finally arrive since placing my order, so there was no way I was going to pack it up and ship it to God knows where for repair. They are based in San Diego and I live just outside of Ottawa Canada, so one can only imagine the headaches and the amount of time associated with making all that happen!? I told him I would live with the dead switch. Maybe if and when a / the reverser wires come off (...hopefully never!) I will see if the problem with the switch can be fixed with a bit of solder.
It may just be unplugged but that sux to have to wait 6 months just to get it and yeah I wouldn't have sent it back either .
@@ArtG-49 My turn around for the returns has been around 2-3 weeks. Yes, I said returnS, because they apparently all have this problem and they merely ship you a new one.
yup i just spend like 4 hrs fixing all mine, works like a charm very flawed design, i ended up not putting back in the grommets they use to wrap the wires around since that seems to be one of the causes of this flawed design but cheers for the vid
I did the same with those round grommets.. thanks for the comment
Thanks for the video, it was clear and straightforward with no nonsense :)
I actually haven't made use of the reversers at all since I got my quadrant, my preferred aircraft are all props and the only one I have that does have a reverse is the DC6, which has a different method of conveying reverse. But good to know that if & when I do, there is a reasonable fix for it. I expect the recommendation is to not only fix the broken one(s), but to fix the others as well as a preventive measure? It's what I'll do anyway :)
Your very welcome. Thanks for watching .hope honeycomb fixes the issues
I received a brand new today. I can see a new design. There is kind of a ring which hold the wires in place. So where you put the colored shrink wrap on 9:22 in around the middle of it is the ring placed
That's good news for everyone thanks for sharing . I'm happy they may have fixed the problem .
Hi FlameBot, I was going to buy a new Honeycomb throttle today but after hearing the wire problems I’m unsure because I don’t want to be repairing anything.
You mentioned your model is a new design. Please can you confirm if all is well? Have you experienced any problems? Does it work 100%? Have HC sorted these wiring issues.
Any advice would be appreciated. Many thanks. C Davis 😉
@@countdavis until today I don't have any problems with the wiring. I can confirm that the wiring looks different in my bravo throttle.
You can order and check for yourself if you received a new version too. Elsewhere return it :)
My first bravo had wrong stops for the zero position of the levers. I got a new one. Then this one had after several months a broken rotary encoder or the autopilot (top left corner). I got a new bravo. This one is the one with the updated wiring. The detent position or the levels are still not the same (3-8mm different stop position) but I live with that.
@@FlameBot Thank you very much for your help and advice. I still haven’t bought it today because I’m concerned about the issues. I have the HC Yoke and the Thrustmaster Warthog set, which all work 100% and never any problems. I thought I would get the HC Throttle so I have 2 sets for different aircraft.
After reading lots of reviews the feedback is not good. Amazon UK have also “increased” the price today on Black Friday to £302.39 what I thought was strange. Everything else is discounted.
I think I will hold off for the minute because I’m not desperate. I hope your model continues to work and serves you well.
Thanks again 😉
Where did you buy yours from? Is there a way to tell if it’s a newer fixed version? Like a serial number or something?
EXCELLENT VIDEO!
Questions: Is it possible to replace potentiometers in case of malfunction? Or much better replace them with Hall sensors?
Thanks for the comment ! I'm not sure you could replace with hall sensors unless you can reprogram the board . If you replace the potentiometers make sure that are the same part numbers or specs if they are off the board needs to know that I would think .
That is what I would like to know, but I'm afraid they prefer the programmed obsolescence, instead of helping the customer to solve problems.
I just got a Bravo for christmas from my wife. Out the box, my #4 commercial lever is defective. the reverser sticks where its suppose to click over to the back position. It will click over with some force, but it feels like its going to break! I took out the 5 tiny screws but i couldnt get it to split in half.
i havent taken those apart YET lol i havent needed to honeycomb is good at warranty replacements.
@@2020fsers Thank you for the fast response. I sent an email a week ago and havent heard from them yet. They had replacements on their website for only $10 with 3 day shipping. I chose that route instead, lol!
Oh I got ya now you can tear the other one apart and see what was the issue .
@@2020fsers oh yea!! i can! too bad i don't do videos. that would be good for those of us who are curious
Send me pics and I'll post them if you want 2020fsers@gmail.com 🤪 I'll credit you in the post
I have my Bravo less than a year and I too just acquired a defective reverse thrust issue on just one lever so far. sure enough, I can see the broken wire inside with a flashlight. I contacted Honeycomb and I have to send it in for repair or replacement. They informed me I would probably be receiving a refurbished unit as a replacement. Maybe the refurbed will be a modified version to correct these issues. I shipped it to them yesterday. I will probably be waiting, conservatively speaking, 3-4+ weeks before seeing the replacement. Not good for a $275.00 device to fail so soon. Not sure if I would want to open it up to repair it but I probably could if it occurs again. Can you tell me where and why you used hot glue. Can't see much of that procedure in the video. You never explained its use in video. Thanks for the video.
Hey thanks for the comment . Wow I think it's crazy they are now sending refurbished units out and not new units. Best of luck with it. When I bought mine I paid 450.00 so I was really upset when this happened but it been great now.
Thanks for the vid. I don’t have a bravo throttle yet but it’s definitely on my wish list. I wasn’t even aware of this problem existing wile researching the product
Considering I’m a long time model railroader and have done many electrons installations on the tiny trains. I feel confident that when I get mine I’ll bundle the throttle wires in heat shrink tubing as a preventative maintenance. Also wow
that’s a lot of dead space inside the main body of the throttle. That give me a few ideas for some DIY customization options. Maybe add a few extra switches under the throttle using an Arduino controller?! (I normally don’t care about warranty since most model train stuff I’ve bought only have a year long one. no idea what the flight sim business is like.)
Hey thanks for the comment . I would say you shouldn't have any issue with your skills to do this repair if your happens to have this issue .
Bro... this is literally what I discovered with mine only yesterday. Thanks for the video. I suspect the wires are breaking because they are constantly being bent back and forth all the time, causing them to eventually break. I was hoping it was going to be easy to get in there, but by the looks of it, I am wondering if it is worth the effort. I might just map the reversers to the rocker switches instead.
From what other users have told me they are replacing them under warranty and also from a subscriber they have fixed the wiring issue on the replacement.
Thank you very much. Now, when It will stop working I will know why and that can be repaired
Your welcome thanks for commeting
@@2020fsers , do you think it is a good idea to do something preventive. I believe the wire is Snapped on the shaft. Is ir a good idea to free it so there is no tension?
Well that is up to you if you want to do that. They are under warranty so you have to make that call I can't tell you to open it up.
Sir, I just pick up this Quadrant, which I added to my Next Level Lite Cockpit, it is a little big for that but I think it will work out fine. My question is did the wires break in the middle or at the start point? and would you consider some kind of insulation over the wires? Great music, I thought I was fishing lol. I like it so much I am a Subscriber, good video.
Hey thanks for the comment and sub 😀 my wires broke in the middle . I replaced them with silicone wires that are more flexible and left room so they can move .
Great video! I was wondering, are the detents adjustable? On my 1st throttle the detent is so light that I go past it a lot. Thanks!
Thanks for the comment ... yes the pressure to activate the detent is adjustable. There is a little set screw with a nut to secure it for the detent but be very slight with the adjustment or you won't be able to go into the detent with the throttle.
@@2020fsers thank you!
Your welcome
Hi
What type of potentiometer to mount Honeycomb Bravo Throttle Quadrant linears? Trimmers? or Hall effect .?
Thanks so much....!!!!
This is an outstanding video! I have the Bravo, but usually fly only GA single piston engine style planes, so haven’t given much thought to the reversers. One question I do have though is, was the #1 lever any different from the rest due to having the go-around button? You’re lucky you had at least one lever that you could map the wires from, but that’s what made me wonder about the #1 lever and whether or not that one is different. Subscribed a few days ago!
Hey thanks for the comment 😀 and the sub .so on number 1 it just had only 2 wires instead of 3 like the others so no issues there been working great since the repair.
All mine are broke except one... No wonder I'm having so many issues. So frustrating. Great video though!
hey thanks for the comment . the wiring in the units are not done with the greatest of care in design and leaves much to be desired. but it is an easy fix if you have so solder and an iron .
@@2020fsers going to look at getting one
Amazon pretty cheap .
Great job John! That is the only video I could find on Bravo disassembly. I got mine recently, and the problem I have is that none of the axes is detected in the lower portion passed the detent. The only thing that is detected by the simulator, and the OS are the buttons at the detent line. But the potentiometers on the lower portion of the levers aren't responsive at all. That makes using the thrust reversal, prop feathering, and cutting the mixture difficult at best. I tried contacting the Honeycomb, but their customer service seems to be non-existent (despite the awesome product they produced). I wonder if your levers work all the way including the lower portion past the detent points. And if yes, what would be a possible cause of this issue, and if it is possible to fix it. Thanks!
Yes my levers work I the lower detent position it was the reverser wires that all snapped. I suspect that if all of them stopped at the same time or never worked may be that they are not plugged in that's what i would think . 🤔 I hope this helps you and thanks for watching.
@@2020fsers Thank you John. It seems I have no other choice, but to open mine as well since Honeycomb does not answer my messages/calls, and as such, the warranty on this brand new unit is useless anyway :(.
It's not bad most likely you will remove the bottom and see wires not plugged in or something goofy. 😉
@@2020fsers My guess is that they didn't solder the potentiometers properly, which will be an easy fix. But if they did, and the controller does not interpret the signal, it means the problem is with the controller, which would be a bummer.
Stay positive and get your mind set and it will be easy don't think hard it may just happen. Things will be looking 👌.
Finally a disassembly video! Thanks for making this video. Unfortunately I ordered the alpha and the bravo too early before watching this and discovering that the Alpha yoke is not only using those crap ancient potentiometers but also just has 8-bit=256 resolution! Now I regret so much about buying them... Anyway, I'd like to ask are the crappy wires only affect the reverser? Since TOGA buttons are on the levers as well...
Hey thanks for the comment yes the wiring is only affecting the reversers and Toga button.
@@2020fsers Thanks man.
"the Alpha yoke is not only using those crap ancient potentiometers but also just has 8-bit=256 resolution!"
May I ask where does this come from? Cause I'm a bit surprised the Alpha would be so universally praised with such low-res potentiometers... Even Austin Meyers from X-Plane reviewed one of these and monitored it (compared to others too) using Xplane controllers resolution tools and it certainly didn't came up as especially lacking in the resolution department like an 8 bit 256 sure would largely be.
@@alanlej I've heard that firstly from one of @Almost Aviation 's videos of review the Alpha or so. You can check his channel on YTB and there are more detailed explanations, such as the deadzone issue/scandal. And 256 is the number shown in the windows joystick calibration program. IIRC he also said the sensor itself is higher but the (crappy?) control board limited it to 256 or something like that. Interestingly, now the honeycomb officially admits that in their advertisement of the upcoming alpha xpc yoke by saying "(the upgraded 12-bit hall sensor)is 400% more resolution" blabla. Though 400% with 12-bit doesn't translate to 256 but I'd guess it's bcz of the sensor capability vs control board capacity issue aforementioned. Yes lots of people have praised the brand and their product and I personally think their design is good for flat screen swimming in terms of the functionality as well, and the fact that finally in the relatively affordable department choices other the saitek/logitech craps have emerged was pleased; BUT, after knowing their stinginess, poor design and cheap material used in the bravo as well here you can see in this very video, poor customer service(about 2 yrs-ish of the debut, lots of reports of failure emerges with bad customer service. have a look at the comment section on the alpha xpc announcement FB page), extremely slow development circle that only yields disappointing product in the end, and what not under the shining looking, I'll most likely never buy their product (luckily already managed to sell all of mine existing ones) and would rather save more for something really solid inside. I'm not their target audience. I'd rather support the small company that builds solid (metal) product at a "slightly" higher price such as the Fulcrum Simulator Controls. We just don't need another of those passionless toy makers like saitek/logitech/thrustmaster
Brilliant informative video, can I just ask how long did it take you to do the repair thank you very much. Dave
Thanks Dave yes the total time maybe a couple hours I took my time .
Great video. Hope you and your wife are feeling well now.
I will NOT be buying the Bravo Throttle quadrant.
I'm thinking of the VKB NXT or the old trusty CH Throttle quadrant. I've had my CH yoke for over 20 years and it's perfect.
What are your thoughts ?
Any other suggestion ?
Thanks so much for your videos. They're all great !!!
Thank you very much for the kind words we are much better now thank you. As far as throttle quadrants there still is no perfect model yet if you want least expensive to get you by the Saitek is great for the money not sure how much the ch quadrant costs.
@@2020fsers Thanks again for your reply. I've read that the Logitech throttles get jumpy as they age. They cost 80$ Canadian. The CH throttle quadrant is 190 Canadian. My CH flight yoke is 25 years old and solid as a rock. So I'm leaning towards the CH throttle quadrant.
It is really nice of you to respond to my enquiries. It's funny to say but you RUclips people are like celebrities. So I really appreciate getting to exchange ideas with you.
appreciate this video, I am now looking again at alternative to this setup. Seems like Honeycomb would step up to the plate and address this issue?
i agree . thanks for the comment ! check us out on our facebook group just started facebook.com/groups/1081420896026970/
I have squeaky noise coming from moving the levers up and down, is there a way to fix that ?
Not sure but don't spray wd40 or and lube down in there you will loose the adjustment to stiffen the axis .
What gauge wire is that would you guess?
I used 26 gauge silicon wire to repair it .
So, now I'm also affected with this broken wires on lever 4 and 5; on lever 4 I soldered it and it worked until now. But it's broken again and affected the 5th also. Maybe you have another permanent solution for this problem? Has anyone else an idea? Thanks!
It can happen . You need to make sure they have free movement . You coupe also encapsulate the wires in hot glue to keep them together .
is this a common problem with the bravo because all of a sudden my reversers have stopped working ?
Yes this is an issue with all of them they still have not yet fixed the wire routing issue causing them to break.
My autopilot buttons, landing gear, toggle switches and flaps suddenly stopped functioning. Honeycomb gave me a throttle tester and it was indeed broken. Do you have a fix for this?
It's most likely a main cable that came disconnected from the board . Seems like a lot of things went bad at 1 time so it's either that or could be the board but I would check all the connectors inside
Thanks very much
Your welcome
It’s so funny how RUclips recommended me this video after I ordered the bravo. Thanks google !
Oh my . It still is a great unit .. hope you have better luck than I did. Thanks for the comment 😀
@@2020fsers guess what week and a half of ownership and the first throttle prematurely enables button event at idle. Is that something I could fix fallowing your guide
Are you saying at idle it also triggers the detent switch? You may need to take it apart and see maybe the detent switch came loose or is miss aligned. But I will say this video is really not a guide at least i didn't market it as that lol. But it certainly shows a good bit of the inside.
@@2020fsers yes it triggers it for a fraction of second. I also noticed once throttle 2 is in slightly above idle position the throttle 1 becomes very noisy.
You may want to just return it for an exchange or return get your money back and buy a new one seems you may have a problem unit only after 1 week.
Just sent mine out for the same issue with one of the reversers. Got the new one in today after waiting two weeks. Went well until I realized the number 5 lever isn’t working. Oddly enough, when I move the #6 lever, the #5 in the calibration app moves which makes me think something isn’t wired correctly.
Yep you probably hit the nail on the head 🙄 the qc is not quite running on all 8 cylinders.
@@2020fsers What’s frustrating is no one is picking up their customer support phone. It takes 3-4 days to get a reply via email. And this thing literally just arrived from freaking Hong Kong. It’s like come in guys, you want me to do this again?
@@2020fsers ruclips.net/video/WdfOvQ5-bwA/видео.html
Omg that's nutz
@@2020fsers Right?!?! Looks to me like someone wired it wrong.
Thank you Sir! That just saved me from buying these haha. I was sceptical when reading they still use the dreaded potentiometers, but this really killed any intent now. Hell no ^^
Your welcome . I heard they fixed the issues and not sure if they also switched to hall switches.
@@2020fsers As far as i could research, they didn't switch to Hall Effect. The Alpha has them and was updated (XPC), the Bravo never was and there - as of now - is no intention to do so either. Which is pretty sad imo
oh thats sux why would they do that dumb.
Nice work! I'm assuming it worked and doesn't bind?
Yep is working well I may post a working video idk but it is very nice now thank you for the comment and asking 😀
Hey I have just bought my own bravo quadrant and after much testing I’m convinced my gear lights (the three red/green leds on the front above the gear lever) don’t work. Can you give me any suggestions on how to fix without having a to send the whole thing back? After all it’s the ONLY thing not working on my quad and after looking around I should consider myself lucky. What do you think might be the cause of the problem?
Have you tried using spad to control the lights. You can get the free trial to test .
I already own SPAD and for the last time it’s not software trust me. All the other lights and levers work all EXCEPT the gear lights.
Am I likely to void my warranty if I go open it up?
I suspect a loose wire is to blame but can you tell me from your experience opening it up is it easy to access those gear lights or am I in for a nightmare of cables and screws
You will most likely void your warranty opening it up . But when you separate the top and bottom be careful of the rear plug on the bravo . And the lights are probably connected with a plug like all the other things in there so it may be a plug not plugged in or loose .
@@2020fsers any chance you could upload a quick video showing that part of it?? Would be awesome if you could please.
The Bravo, while an outstandingly realistic setup, particularly for airliners, has apparently got some very serious quality control issues. My first one had the identical problem that you are dealing with here, on only the #3 channel initially (#2 throttle in a 747 setup), and it cropped up after around 2 months. Honeycomb replaced it, and I must say that aside from the irritation of having to have a new one sent from China every time this happens, they have been very responsive - no problem there. But the replacement they sent was miscalibrated on all axes right out of the box and of course unusable, so back to Fedex again for another return. Unit three, which I have had for a few months, is so far OK, but there is an ominous clicking sound when (again) number three channel is retarded from high thrust settings to low. Looking in the slot, I see that sure enough one or more of the wires is catching on some piece of the assembly, and it will probably be but a matter of time before it breaks. Unfortunately for me, I have none of the electronic repair knowledge and skill that you have, so taking it apart will not be a possibility. I could take it apart all right, but I would have no chance at all of getting it back together!
In any event, it seems that I am by no means the only one who has this problem - I wonder if they are all defective like this? Too bad, because nothing else comes close in terms of look and feel.
I agree 👍 and the new units going out still have this same flaw even replacements it's sad they are not fixing the issue . It is a really great unit though aside from that I like the Boeing yoke but not the throttle that comes with it I would like to get the yoke separately. Wish you the best luck with your bravo. Thanks for the comment .
@@2020fsers I agree on the Boeing Yoke, although I have yet to actually try it out. Thrustmaster products can occasionally be troublesome as well, but everything at this level seems to be, sad to say. The alternative would be some real throttles from the boneyard, but it would take at least a masters degree to get them working in a sim setup, although some have actually done just that...
@@2020fsers cheap slaves in china doing this work what did you expect........
There are little servo's that have a movement limit so I am guessing they were out of wack . I had to re-center mine after I had it all apart .
I couldn’t agree more. It’s a shame, as the Bravo and Alpha which I have are wonderful peripherals and have made my experience up until now very enjoyable. This problem though is extremely frustrating, and as many have pointed out, one would expect the quality to be better, given the price of these units. I have my Bravo disassembled as I type this, and trying to repair is indeed intimidating.
Excellent video. I managed to repair the broken wire a few months ago following your instructions. However 3 more wires have broken. I’ll attempt to replace some wiring. Can you you tell me what type of wiring it is and what gauge it is? Much appreciated. Richard
I used small 25 gauge silicon wire. For electronics.
Many thanks
Your welcome
Going to have to do this myself. Reverser and TOGA is not working anymore. I can see the wires broken. Pretty annoying, and for them to fix it they want me to send it back with all parts and it could take 8 weeks. Crazy.
Yep and most likely take longer . It's pretty simple depending on where your wires snapped check them all and give them.some slack so they can move and not bend.
@@2020fsers I think you went the extra mile, I have a feeling if I re route them and sauder them I can make it work. I work on motorcycles as my hobby, this can't be too bad haha. Cheers.
You should be fine when you separate the top and bottom take care of the wires that go to the ba k plug once you gently pop the top the unplug the rear cable to finish removing it .
The tough part is going to be the saudering!
Nah it's really easy practice first. Tin the soldering iron before you solder the wires tin each of the wires and you'll be good and get some Flux to.dip your wire ends into.
May I ask what it is you’re doing at 3:41 in the video? I can’t see on my Bravo what I’m supposed to be undoing. Thanks for the video by the way…intimidating.
I was unscrewing those plastic levers that the handles attach to
Did your repair fix the issue ? I have lost one reverser so far . I barely fly jets if ever so pretty pissed that this is happening .
Yes it's still going strong ... the wiring will break even tho you don't use the reversers .
@@2020fsers That's insane that they break never being used . Thanks for the vid .
Your welcome
@@2020fsers Took it apart last night . Bit of a job but found a few wires broken and I removed all those wire loop rings . OMG they were strung and wound so tight no wonder they broke . I have reversers once again and all levers work as they should now . I used the smallest shrink tube I have and slid it over the wires to give them more protection at those high movement area's . HoneyComb really need to update there internal wiring design . It was pretty cool tho seeing the tech and design that they came up with . Getting that C-Clip off was fun . Seems there hearts in the right place in giving us simmers some cool toys . Hopefully future units will have a better internal setup
Hey glad you got it fixed . Not much in that big thing is it lol. I did the same with those wire rings that is so stupid 😑 why would they make the wiring so tight idk. Thanks for the followup
Great video, but... I can't figure out how to get the second to fifth lever out. I managed to repair the first lever, but it seems like I have to take the whole thing apart to get the plastic part with the wires out so I can fix the wires. I have no idea how to do that. Can anybody help?
i wish i could help with that question but its been quit a while since i took this apart so im not sure but you should be able to remove them like the others.
I actually made it. I didn't have to take everything apart. Only had to screw the hex screws a few millimeters in after removing the nuts and toothwashers, so I could pull the levers out and solder the cables. Now the detents of the levers are mostly gone, but I guess this is adjusted with the hex screws. I'll check that out. But not today.
You need to adjust the hex nut where the detent is .
That's what I'm going to do. But it has to wait until weekend. Thanks a lot, 2020fsers. Without your video I had never dared to repair the Bravo. Thanks a lot!!!
@guggemal5223 your welcome .. I never really intended for this to be a how to video lol but I'm happy it helped.
Wow. Mine have never worked. I bet they are all broke in my Bravo. Not good.
Either that or maybe they didn't plug them in I have seen that before as well.
Good job, enjoyed the video....I'd like to put my order in for a 3D printed TBM throttle handle for the Bravo, like your printers in the background, TBM throttle on my wish-list 🙂
Lol thanks never thought of tbm handle hmm I may look Into that thanks for that. I love my 3d printers use them to prototype things and I make lots for around the house . Very useful if I want something I just make it and the cool thing is if you have one then someone can just send you the print file and poof now you have 9,429 miles away.
Damn !! That is a crappy wire harness !! I stumbled upon your video while looking for something else. Guess what ? I took a peak into slots of my Bravo .. Damn !! The number 2 lever 2 wires are snapped. I think the wires get stretched too much when pushing the lever into the full down position. Also where it routes into the lever - too much bending when the levers are moved up and down. Luckily I do not fly aircraft with reversers - so at the moment does not affect me. Really don't feel like returning the unit to Honeycomb - 6000 miles between me and them. My unit only in use for about 3 months now. Question : are those wires multi strand or single conductor wires ?. Took some screenshots of the 3 pin connectors - will go to my local electronics supplier and see if the cannot makeup some harnesses in preparation for the day when i start flying jets .. LOL .. Thanks for making the video .. Excellent !!
Yeah Hey thanks for the comment they are multi strand wires and the issue was there is no way for the wires to move inside of there and the way they have them bound to the back side they've gotten them tied to the metal part of the controller and every time that you move the throttleforward and backwards it bends those wires kind of like a paper clip until they snap. I know a couple people are waiting for honeycomb to get parts in to repair . I think they should almost have a recall situation because every single one of them is gonna do this. But that's on their reputation.
Also they don't use copper stranded wires they're using aluminum stranded wires
Mine has never worked since I pulled it out of the box!!
What really the entire unit ? 😳
@@2020fsers The thrust reversers have never worked. The computer/game doesn't even sense an input when I activate the levers. Pretty much everything else works thought, as far as I can tell.
Wow maybe they forgot to plug them in I would think they can't all be broken so probably not plugged in pull the screws off the bottom and pull the top off but be slow when pulling it off cuz there are wire connected to it then unplug them and pull the rest of the way off and check the connections on the board .
@@2020fsers Will do!
Hi do you know where I can get the potentiometer for throttle quadrant
That I'm not too sure you may have to pull one out and get a part number off of it to be able to order one or maybe you can reach out to honeycomb
thaanks
Your welcome
Hi John, hope you're well today, I need help, for some reason my prop 1 (C208) feather detent (switch button 26) does not make the prop to feather, nothing happens, closing the prop brings it back to the Prop MIN position, pulling prop lever beyond the flight detent position does nothing, the Caravan's prop stays unfeathered during shutdown, it just doesn't look and work correctly, please help Mate, thanks?
I will look into it and let you know
Try prop decrease instead for button 26 and see if that works
Thanks & wildo....will let you know tomorrow, I'll be a happy 2020 fs'er if it works, so far the C208 is the only aircraft in my fleet that does not cause a CTD or failure of any app, so the C208 has now jumped to the no 2 spot behind the TBM
That's crazy but I have also been getting more crashes than normal for some reason 🤔
Got hit by a 9Gb mandatory update this morning, doing that now, whilst sitting here and watching the white status bar grow I can't help to think "what on earth of all my sim stuff, software and hardware, will not be working when all this is done?", I'm optimistic, but from experience, since Sim Update 1 there's not much hope it'll be smooth sailing after the restart....keep you posted on that feather detent setting
I've just sent my 2nd unit back with this same problem!
Thought it might have been something as stupid as this engineering fault
I'm wondering if the give a 12mth warranty on the replacement units?
I doubt they will . Hope you have better luck on this one
@@2020fsers if that's the case I will probably pull it apart when I get the new unit and hot glue the wires in place
The annoying part is Honeycomb aren't answering my help ticket ! It's been 8 days now and 2 more requests.
I love this flexibility of bravo but if there was another alternative I'd asked for my money back
I agree
UPDATE: Honeycomb just confirmed that they will give the full 12mth warranty on my replacement unit but they didn't confirm if they have solved the engineering problem :(
What do you think the odds are that my 3rd unit will break and need to be sent back?
Thanks a great update for warranty . Probably gonna need it most likely they haven't fixed the issue tho 😕 or maybe they did only way is to open it up and take a peak .
reset the freezer bleep bleep bleep ,,,,,,,,,,, but many thanks for this upload
It was the smoke alarm lol thanks for watching
It’s remarkable how empty the bravo casing is.
Yeah I thought so too.
And.... wait till your Alpha yoke gets sticky in pitch with the poor resolution from potentiometers and not hall effect sensors. I had to hanger it.
Dang .. I hope mine holds up for a little bit .. I haven't heard many issues with the yokes but I guess time tells all .
Most of this stuff is clearly modular. HC should at least sell parts for this considering they have a section dedicated to parts on their site. Kind of like a missed opportunity there.
They haven't been the most organized if ya know what I mean ..
hmm, this is concerning to see! Thanks so much for posting this. I just received my throttle quadrant last week. I can see that the wires are being bent each time the throttles are moved, so this will eventually happen to mine. I'm not quite clear how you modified it so that it won't happen again. Was it just hot-gluing them down? Or was that heat-shrink doing something other than preventing snags? They seriously cannot have put much testing into this design for this to be released. It's a rookie mistake. If they are honouring the warranty, this will cost them a fortune. Having said that, it's clear from looking at the insides, that they are making a lot of profit on each unit. Not much inside. I'm curious why you fixed it yourself though. There's a two-year warranty, and doing what you did will have voided that.
Hey thanks for the comment. So I had to re route wires inside and remove a stud that they had the wires wrapped around . Then hot glued the wires I place so they won't bend and then make sure the wires can move and not snag . They are covering under warranty but the replacements are the same units no modifications have been made on their part . So i would rather not wait 6 weeks or more for them to replace it to just have the same thing happen again. What good is a warranty if it is always broken so I made it better and now works great. Hope this gives some insight on the fix and the reason why I did it.
@@2020fsers thanks for the additional detail. I think I may open mine up and pro-actively fix this weakness. Gotta be easier than doing all that soldering.
@@2020fsers ok. great. thanks for the extra info. I will probably do this mod, but first want to be sure that that all the buttons and axis work properly. haven't had a chance to play with it much yet
Well use it first before you tear it apart lol
@@2020fsers I had snapped wires also. I did the same repair you did, but I want to replace the wiringharness with copperwires. Do you know what diameter the used wires have?
Can someone please share the gauge of these cables? (in mm or awg) I'd like to order some silicon wires before I disassemble my Bravo (which obviously has the same issue)
Someone mentioned that they used CAT5 wires, which I believe are AWG24 (or 0.2 mm2) but just wanted to confirm.
I used 26 awg silicon wire
@@2020fsers Thanks. I actually just stripped and measured a spare CAT5 cable and the copper gauge was exactly 0.41mm thick which is essentially an AWG26 as per the conversion tables. Will order some silicon 26's then, thanks again.
Your welcome
After watching the entire video I find that I can't see just what you soldered to what. It would have been good to have taken some macro photos of the details of what went where during this process. Of course, even with that I will have no hope of being able to do this, but others may benefit. You might even want to provide illustrated instructions in pdf form and sell that!
Oh, BTW, how much would you charge to do this to my unit!?
Hey thanks for the comment the only thing I soldered are the wires to themselves where they broke that's all . I made the diagram so I could keep wires going to the correct terminal. Never thought of making a teardown and repair pdf if I get enough requests maybe but right now they are honoring their warranty so most people are sending them back. I probably wouldn't do this on another unit other than repair the wires but I would design some 3d printed thing to go inside to be a guide so the wire can move freely and then can mass make them.
@@2020fsers Although I did not take any of my units apart, I was able to see that my wire had broken cleanly, almost as though it had been cut by a razor. I presumed that this break had occurred at some point where the wire was connected to a terminal of some sort.... I never saw any other broken end, but of course it is very difficult to see much through the small slot of the axis.
You'd probably be better off cutting the plugs off with a short length of wire and running all new wiring. Silicone coated wire is very flexible.
If I had to do it again that is what I would do it wasn't easy trying to get all the wiring to fit.
Mine broke just after the warranty expired, awesome..
That's how it always goes 🤷
@2020 fs'ers jip, like clockwork. Haha.
Thanks for fixing tutorial tho, will tear into it soon 👍
You'll be fine just be careful when removing the upper and lower halves .
Major design flaw -looks like it can get just past the warranty period before breaking. The engineering aspects of wiring harnesses and wire-draw breaking wires/solders has been known and taken into account for decades. I guess the customers have to pay for some obscure Chinese engineer learning this lesson.
Some people have stated within a month or so they have had wires break and honeycomb is just replacing with the same design confirmed by a viewer whom had 1 replaced and opened it up to let me know what's inside and no change .
7 mths before my first unit broke; 2 mths for the brand new replacement unit to break😡
Someone honest about the issues with the Bravo.
Thanks for watching. Glad to say my fix is still working 💪. It is a great unit for what it can do but the design needs a little help .
A crap product from Uncle Sam. Things are supposed to be tested to destruction before the products are put on the market, aren't they? Obviously that doesn't happen with Honeycomb. I have the Alpha Yoke and the Bravo Throttle Quadrant but it is the latter that has been disappointing, particularly the Auto-pilot buttons and selector knob, and the slippery overly sensitive trim wheel (which I see they have produced a rubber addition for ... at a cost to the consumer). I would have to think critically before buying Honeycomb products in the future - in Australia the prices break the bank, so to say. If we cannot trust A1 products from America then we should vote with our wallets and buy elsewhere - even if it costs more we can probably get a better product. No-one should have to tear down a product to fix a problem that should have been eliminated in the design stage. Come on Honeycomb - recall your second rate products and give us a refund.
i agree we should not have to fix these things ourselves and i wasnt trying to cut on honeycomb in the video i just wanted to bring this to everyones attention as i know lots of people have this and wanted to get the word out so that everyone don't think its the sim not working or a bug, its the bravo not working ,to help diagnose issues for people but i do hope that honeycomb gets to see this so they can make changes if they havent already. Thanks for the comment and for watching
Shoddy merchandise! The Company MUST know about this?
I think they do from some people I talked to with this problem and getting replacements but the new units 1 fellow opened his up to let me know there are no changes to the design so I don't know what they are doing internally about the design. But they are replacing them
With that design flaw its a shame from HC. Looks like i'm Waiting until mine will broke.
Yep it sure is a bad design and the worst is from what others are now telling me they are replacing the broken with a refurbished unit not a new one that's not right. Hope you have good luck with yours and thanks for watching
@@2020fsers Well, looking inside bravo when watching Your movie brings me memory of china toy cars - same small wires with not so good soldering. So im pretty sure that after guarante finish my will stop working :D
Ohh you are probably right
Damn..warranty of course :)
The wires on mine have a different configuration, they have a loop around a plastic piece, and STILL broke. Not because of snagging on something but the exit from the leaver is abrupt so the wires move alot on that single spot
Yeah they did try a change the configuration. I have one of the 1st ones . I guess they didn't fix the issue
I've been considering the Honeycomb Yoke? Forget it, this is crap QC!
The thought is great but design has some flaws for sure.
I have this thing, but I wouldn't buy another one.
Now knowing what I know I would still buy one but not for the price it needs to be less expensive.
@@2020fsers yes, but will it work???
I guess that's the gamble lol
+1! subbed/
Thank you 😊
After watching this I am strongly considering cancelling my order as it should arrive within the next week. After watching you crack the unit open I am quite annoyed of the absolute cheapness of it, this is a £280 unit not some cheap ass Chinese £25 piece of junk. I would expect for this price something premium which this is clearly not.
I thought like you about the guts of the unit they should be much better for the money it cost . More thought is needed in design and quality of parts . I hope this helped save you or gave you a heads up at what you will need to do . Honeycomb is repairing them but that is only when they get parts to do so. But a re design is needed so dont know how long it would take. Thanks for watching
@@2020fsers I have today emailed honeycomb to try and ascertain whether or not they are aware of the issue and if they are what has been done ?. I wait on their reply before deciding to keep my order and continuing to allow it to be delivered or cancelling it.
That is a great idea make your decision after you get all the info, smart, let me know what they say.
@@2020fsers Will do
@@TheDigitalFlight I’m guessing they never got back to you? From what I’m reading online they have zero customer service standards
This is a disgraceful design fault - inexcusable given the cost of the unit.
I agree