TPR Rudder Pedals Early Impression
Afflicted by G.A.S. I wanted to replace my faithful old CH Pro pedals. Against my better judgment I placed an order for TPR pedals with Amazon. The pedals arrived a day late but very well packaged. I had no illusion that I was buying a “high end” product. The deciding factors were high resolution sensors, novel mechanism and ready availability. From online searches I recognized that the “high quality aluminum” components likely are Zamac, a scrap metal alloy, mostly zinc. That in mind, when assembling the pedals I used plumber’s silicone grease on axles and screw threads, made sure not to cross thread any screws and to not tighten any fitting beyond snug. Immediately upon placing the pedals under my computer desk I recognized a retrospectively obvious flaw: the pedals are not height adjustable. In order to operate them I needed to place my heels on the floor and dorsiflex my feet to an uncomfortable angle. I questioned how this issue could have been missed in all the expert YouTube reviews I’d watched. Rewatching, it was even more obvious that several reviewers could not have been comfortable with the foot placements they were using. I can see that one circuit around the pattern might be doable, but how about a dogfight of half hour duration? I felt remorseful that I had not ordered MFG Crosswind pedals instead. On the other hand I was not looking forward to the product return process. Onwards. I set a restore point for Windows, downloaded and installed TM drivers and calibration tool, turned my PC off and plugged the pedals into a USB 2.0 port. Upon rebooting, my system opened to the motherboard menu instead of continuing to the desktop. This was a behavior I had not experienced with other hardware installs. I exited without changing settings. Shortly after getting to the desktop screen Win10 informed me that my firewalls were down! I shut the PC down and unplugged the pedals. Upon reboot I ran an AV quick scan that did not report any issues. I eventually uninstalled the TM drivers as they are unnecessary. Since that first experience I boot to the operating system desktop before reconnecting the TPR pedals if I need to disconnect them for any reason. The pedals are recognized by Windows and I set them to “default” without calibrating in Windows. Sensor resolution seems as promised. So on to the pedal height problem. Some time ago I had placed a 2ft. square of 1/2 inch plywood under my PC desk to prevent my CH pedals sliding on the carpeted floor . My forming idea was to place blocks on the plywood base to raising my feet ~ 3 inches to pedal height, avoid dorsiflexing and minimizing forces acting on the pedal mechanisms. At the home improvement store I located a nice looking plank labeled select New Zealand pine: 5.5” wide, 0.75” thick and 8ft. long. An employee cut the plank into foot long pieces for me gratis. I also bought a doweling kit that included drill, drill collar, 2 dowel centers and enough dowel pegs for the evolving project. With the first blocks positioned on either side of the base I drilled holes 2” from ends of the blocks and on thru the ply base. I used the dowel centers to align the next blocks for stacking. Top blocks were partially drilled using the drill collar as guide. Since alignment of the blocks is maintained by dowels no glue is needed. The stack of blocks clears the pedal bottoms by about 1/4”. My feet rest flat on the blocks and place no weight on the pedal mechanism. I believe that this is how the pedals want to be operated. I fly Il2 BoX in VR. My view is that the TPR pedals enhance the BoX VR immersion experience. Certainly the pedals aid in controlling tail draggers during the landing roll. Absent a timed-to-fail component I don’t see a reason to view Slaw Device or Crosswind as functional upgrades. It would however be great if someone would identify and set up for fabrication of likely failure prone TPR components.