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Docked Universal Fader Wings Compatibility with Ion

My fader wing could talk to my Ion or Congo Jr before it went in for a WinXP to Win7 upgrade, but now it can't.

My fader wings talk to my Ion or Congo Jr via USB but are docked to each other, why can I only talk to the wing with the USB connection?

Why can my fader wing only talk to my Ion or Congo Jr through a USB connection rather than through a docked connection?

Explanation

There are two generations of the Universal Fader wing. You can identify the generation by looking at the color of the wing's USB port:

  • black: older version, uses USB 1.0
  • orange: newer version (revised), uses USB 2.0

Old vs Revised USB Connectors ANNOTATED.jpg

Each version has a different compatibility with WinXP and Win7 Ions, as listed below:

  WinXP dock connection Win XP USB connection Win7 dock connection Win7 USB connection
Old wing (black, USB 1.0) YES YES NO YES
New wing (orange, USB 2.0) YES YES YES YES

When connecting via USB to a Windows 7 based Ion or Congo Jr, it is best to connect to the yellow or black USB ports.  When using the blue USB ports, which are designed for USB 3.0 communication, the use of an external USB v1 hub may be necessary to help facilitate translation to v1.0. 

Note-Icon.png NOTE: Docking includes if multiple wings are docked to each other. For example, if two old wings are docked to each other and one has USB connection running to a Win7 console, you will only have communication between the console and the wing with the USB connection. It will not pass the data through the dock connection, both wings will need a USB connection.

What is the difference between the USB connection and the dock connection:

  • A USB connection goes straight to the consoles motherboard, which can negotiate between USB 1.0 and 2.0 reliably
  • A docked connection requires going through USB hubs. If the console is Win7, those hubs are using USB 2.0 and will have a hard time translating USB 1.0, which is why you should not have a Win7 Ion docked to an old wing

What do the colors mean on the console:

Can an old wing be upgraded?

Yes, it can.  For more information please see Universal Fader Wing Upgrades for Use with Windows 7 Ion Consoles or Universal Fader Wing Upgrades for Use with Windows 7 Congo Jr