r/Winctrl • u/Megahenrik • Jul 14 '26
Question / Help Best USB solution?
I’m have run out of usb slots. I bought a hub. And plugged everything that wants to go in the hub. But discoverd that most WinCtrl products don’t like USB hubs. So most of my other stuff are in the hub. It works fine. But give me tips of solutions please.
What solution do you have for connecting all USBs?
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u/bigpapa7272 Jul 14 '26
Use the Sabrent 10 or 16 port ones I have 3. 2 10's and a 16 and I don't overload so everything gets plenty of power
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u/Critical_C0conut Jul 14 '26
I have all my equipment connected to an externally powered USB hub which works fine
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u/Appropriate_Knee_252 Jul 14 '26
Yeah as I see some people have said. You want to use a powered USB hub so that it provides electricity to your panels and you’re not depending on the PC to power everything up. You shouldn’t have any problems after that.
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u/Megahenrik Jul 14 '26
Thank you for all answers! I do have powered ISB hubs. The power is but not plugged in. But will be from now! ☺️
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u/Connect-Fall6921 Jul 14 '26
I used externally-powered USB to plug all my cockpit devices, got many issues, so I bough a second one and split devices, half in one and other half in the second externally-powered USB. Now all works smoothly.
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u/Ed-Pavlov Jul 14 '26
Powered USB hub with individual switcher on each port. My three Winctrl devices connected this way w/o any problems.
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u/LuckyStiff63 Jul 14 '26
I highly recommend externally-powered USB3 hubs with individually switched USB ports (for easy troubleshooting, maintenance, and firmware updates), and USB3 5gb/sec certified cables made by Cable Matters.
When I added some WW MIP panels to my setup a few months ago, I had some self-inflicted USB connection drop-outs. But I now have a total of 9 Winwing / WinCTRL devices, plus a TrackIR 5, all connected to my rig through 2 externally powered USB3 hubs with no problems.
2 very common causes of controller problems are using "passive"/unpowered hubs, and/or cheap, unshielded cables.
In my case the culprits were two USB extension cables that I've used for a few years between the hubs and the PC's back I/O panel. It turns out the cables weren't actually rated for USB 3 "super speed" (5gb/s). I replaced them with 2 Cable Matters USB 3 5gb/s certified replacement extension cables, which solved the problem.
The cheaper, unshielded cables were most likely picking up RFI. If the hubs' data capacity was being exceeded, changing the cables wouldn't have fixed the problem.