Goflight 166 radios and power issue

[Steenos]

Good evening everyone. I was building a 737 sim but found out I had to move and had to sell all of my gear. I found out about go flight because they have a pedestal and I could keep everything on the pedestal and it would be a lot cleaner of a setup that I could move around.

I bought 2x Go Flight 166 radios. One for Com 1 and one for Nav 1.
https://goflightinc.com/product/gf-166-radio-panel/

So I plugged everything in to my USB ports thinking everything would work. Boy was I wrong. I read some forum posts about the GF166 requires a lot of power because of the LED's on the radio. So I went to Best Buy and bought a $30 dollar insignia powered USB hub. Plugged the radios in. Everything was still not working. So I unplugged everything. I plugged just one radio in the USB hub. EUREKA! The radio works just fine and didn't lock me out.

The USB Hub is 5v 3.5amp. As soon as I plug in a second radio everything dies. I bought a second usb hub for the second radio and as long as they're both on separate hubs they work! But, at 30 dollars a hub and if I wanted to have 4 radios in total that's a lot of money.

Forgive my ignorance but I don't know power very well. I don't know how much the Radio draws because the users manual doesn't tell me anything. Is there any way to have just one hub be able to produce that much power and be a little cleaner than having multiple usb hubs for just one radio?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

[blueskydriver]

Hey Justin,

That is pretty strange for only one radio to work per hub, I can have 6 or 7 GoFlight Modules plugged into one powered hub without any issues; this includes multiple GF-166A's

What happens when you plug one module or both into the computer's USB port(s)? What is USB port version for your computer 1.0/1.1, 2.0 or 3.0?

What is the model number of these hubs? I'm curious to look them up. Insignia can be pretty cheap in price, but also cheap in manufacturing. I use Belkin Powered Hubs.

By the way, did you see all the GF items I am selling? If you're interested send me a PM. One thing for sure, they would meet your needs for mobility and ease of use. If you can overlook black versus the grey ones...

Kind Regards,

John

[navymustang]

A little gadget I have in my tool chest is this USB power meter.

https://www.amazon.com/X-DRAGON-Multimeter-Chargers-Capacity-Accuracy/dp/B019RHJRM8/ref=asc_df_B019RHJRM8/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=242041198988&hvpos=1o4&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9249253118111244117&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9011775&hvtargid=pla-426269107564&psc=1

Highly recommend folks have something like this.
Then you can determine what your final power requirements will be.

[Steenos]

Hey John. This is the powered usb hub that I used. Was the only thing I could find at Best Buy. They aren't cheap. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-4-port-usb-3-0-hub-black/5631038.p?skuId=5631038


They don't even light up when I plug them in to the computers usb slot. That's where I did the forum research for the powered usb hub. You said your belkin you can plug them all in? I really want to have 4 radios. But I also don't want to have to buy a usb hub per radio.

Navy thanks so much. I'll chedk that out

[Bob Reed]

Did you install the GoFlight software so you could assign what each radio would do?

[Steenos]

I did Bob.

[Bob Reed]

And it sees both radios and allows you to assignee them while they are both connected to the same hub? I have never had an issue with plugging multiple GF products to the same hub. In fact at one point I had 2 six port hubs with 12 GF units all working happily!

[Steenos]

What type of hub did you use Bob? I bought these cheap insignia ones from Best Buy. Cheap manufacturered. Not cheap price. Haha. The software recognizes the radios but no lights on the radio light up.

[iwik]

Justin,
I would put a call into Goflight Support. No way should one unit draw that power, unless something is radically wrong.
You say the radios are recognized but do they adjust frequency in fsim when you turn the controls.

[Joe Lavery]

Justin,

I too have 6 go-flight units attached to a belkin hub and they work perfectly.
I would also suggest a call to go-flight, but before that I would try them on another PC and see if you get the same issues.

Just a suggestion.
Joe.

[Steenos]

Thanks for the info. Can you guys tell me which Belkin hub you have?

[Joe Lavery]

Hi Justin,

Well I've fed you false information, after crawling under my MIP it appears that the Go-Flight unis are attached to an Orico powered hub: this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/7-Port-Powered-Aluminium-Windows-Adapter/dp/B075FFJLW4/ref=sr_1_5?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1542451248&sr=1-5&keywords=orico+7+port+usb+3+hub

I do have another Belkin one that is attached to some of the other USb devices, Gauges etc. and that is this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Belkin-Ultra-Powered-Power-Supply/dp/B0061RSASU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542451591&sr=8-1&keywords=belkin+7-port+usb+hub

Sorry for the mixup... 
Joe.

[Bob Reed]

What type of hub did you use Bob? I bought these cheap insignia ones from Best Buy. Cheap manufacturered. Not cheap price. Haha. The software recognizes the radios but no lights on the radio light up.

They where just cheap ones. BUT... This was several years ago. All my units where the black ones, no grays. It is posable they have changed something in the boards over the years.

[Steenos]

The Belkin hub did not work and neither did the 7 port slim hub from best buy. I think I'm figuring out what is going on. These little hubs only have 3 amps total power. A guy on youtube has at least 4 GF 166 radios that he's plugged in and they're all working on this hub.

https://www.amazon.com/Datamation-Systems-Universal-15-Port-DS-SC-PP15/dp/B00FH2I1XO

Holy 625 dollars. Seems a bit overkill. But I can't seem to find anything else that has 2.1 amps per port. I found one on ebay for 200 OBO but doesn't include a power supply. Ugh.

Anyone know of a powered USB hub that supplies 2.1 amps per port? I've been searching google and so far I haven't found anything.

[iwik]

Justin,
Before you keep pouring more money, why dont you get one of those gadgets to measure power. It may not be a power problem, os may be shutting down the USB port.Have you tried them on another computer?Then you will know for sure
what you really need. Even better just contact Goflight and ask them what is the power draw of these radios is.
I can see you ending up with a bunch of hubs and getting nowhere.
Even better, try there support forum, you should get support there.
Les

[Steenos]

There's no contact info for goflight. I have a support email but sometimes they don't even respond to my emails. Makes me wonder why I bought them. But I'll try again.

[Bob Reed]

There's no contact info for goflight. I have a support email but sometimes they don't even respond to my emails. Makes me wonder why I bought them. But I'll try again.

Have you registered at their site and left a support ticket? Sounds to me like you have something wrong with one of those units.

[Steenos]

So I'm reading a post about someone having issues with their 166's. Another guy says Run GFWindow8Fixer.exe. Apparently he says this helps with getting the LED's to light up properly. But I don't have this.

[iwik]

Justin,
You may be having problems with USB power management, have a look at this link and make sure
Auto is disabled.
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-prevent-windows-10-turning-usb-devices.
Its also available in Win7.
Les

[Steenos]

So, doing more research on forums and such with goflight. The software on goflight's website said that it's only for prepar3d. So I didn't download it because I was using XPlane 11. Well I saw a post where someone said you need to run windows8fixer even on windows 10 and that it was in the goflight folder.

So I went back to the website and downloaded the software. I ran the windows 8 fixer and sure enough. Everything was working. I just don't understand what was going on. But that's what everyone said if the lights weren't illuminating properly. Feels good to have everything working though after nights of frustration.

Thanks for all your help.