Issue with Winwing Orion v1 + Fingerlifts upgrade kit

[92nd-MajorBug]

tl;dr Installing the fingerlifts kit for the v1 Orion requires more cable length than default. There is extra cable length inside the throttle base, but before pulling on the cables, make sure the wires are free to move inside the base. That will require unscrewing the baseplate. In my unit the wires were stuck/pinched inside the base, and their soldering broke when I pulled on them. I was able to redo the soldering and everything works fine now, but checking first could avoid you the same troubles.

 

 

Up until now I was very happy with my Orion v1 : nice feeling, perfect reproduction of the hornet, no issues whatsoever in the few months I've used it. Ordering the fingerlift upgrade was a no-brainer. I was happy to receive it this morning, one week before the scheduled date. With the mod installed the feeling is great, sure metallic paddles instead of plastic would have been a plus, but it does the job, and now we have a real idle/off detent that actually works instead of shutting down engines in-flight all the time.

That is, until you plug the cable into the grip. Problem : with the fingerlifts kit, the grip is slighty higher than it used to be. Now the cable is too short to let the grip reach the off position, it will stop halfway between off and idle. See the attached image : the left grip (unplugged) is sitting nicely in the off position, you can see the difference with the right grip. The small dent at the base of the right grip is supposed to accomodate the red "autopilot engage" button. It does that nicely, as long as the cable isn't there to stop it...

Am I missing something? Did they really ship this without anyone testing first? Are my cables too short? (ouch, I'll need a bigger plane to compensate)

I'm sending the same message to winwing support and see if they have a better idea, but in the meantime, be aware that you might have the same bad surprise. Really sad because apart from that, I've had no complain about winwing hardware so far.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by 92nd-MajorBug

[ismaeljorda]

You have extra cable inside the base. Pull them carefully and take out what you need to move it comfortably.

[92nd-MajorBug]

Thanks @ismaeljorda, you had the right idea, unfortunately things didn't go as expected (I don't blame you, just winwing's poor design). The left cable was fine, but the wires inside the right cable had been pinched and squished real hard between the throttle's solid base and the back plate, so they couldn't go anywhere. They were already at max tension before I put on the fingerlifts, so I guess they would have snapped eventualy regardless.

 

I don't know how widespread that problem is, but if anyone wants some extra cable length (for their fingerlift kit or else), you might want to unscrew the backplate and ensure the wires are free to move around before putting any tension on the cable. That big black sturdy cable isn't attached to anything, the wires inside will take all the tension. In my case they were ripped from the connector on the grip. A little soldering will fix it easily, but a better design would have avoided such issues.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by 92nd-MajorBug

[CaptHawk]

Another thing, that hot glue on the connectors, if there was any heat in that area the glue will melt into the connectors. Luckily there isn't any heat generated there. But I had a DSP processor/Reverb unit once where they had hot glue on all the connectors. After the unit was on for an hour, the LCD died, then the unit just shut down. People were returning these units thinking they were defective. I opened mine up, saw all the glue, painstakingly cleaned all the connectors and the units been running ever since.

Yeah, they need a better approach on that cable. Definitely first thing I do when I get mine(today) is check that cable.

[92nd-MajorBug]

Yeah they do love their hot glue

One word of warning when opening the throttle : everything inside is screwed to the backplate (that's why there's so many screws), so everything will come loose once unscrewed, especially the throttle's base (that massive solid aluminium piece). Keep the unit upside down and handle everything with care.