Hawk Cannot Locate a Struck Ball

[JonH59]

Like the title says, I got my Hawk up and running (finally) and, after calibrating and entering distances, I put a ball down on the hitting mat. The Hawk saw the ball and told the RH player to hit. Right after hitting the ball, on the screen was the message "Cannot Locate Ball" or something like that. I tried placing the ball in the center and four corners of the hitting area and I get the same message. I also tried several places for a LH hitter with the same results.

I started a chat with a Foresight guy and we started with the basic driver updates (I thought that I had done that after my computer build but he found more were needed). He also went into my graphics settings and other Windows settings looking and (maybe) tweaking some things. All with no help.

Now I don't want to sound like a expert here but I really think that this is a FSX or Hawk issue, not a Windows issue. OR, maybe there's something that I didn't set up right. But I would think that if the Hawk sees my ball to hit it, it should also be able to track the ball after it's struck.

Has anyone else had this issue? And, if so, what was the problem? The LAST thing I want to do is box up the Hawk and send it to Foresight. I absolutely hope that it's something that I didn't do right but the user manual is, to say the least, quite un-friendly and I don't know what I don't know!

This morning I'm thinking of re-calibrating and seeing what that does. When I left the chat with the Foresight guy last evening, my assignment was to continue with Windows updates and that's been done. I'll check again first thing before I do anything else. Then I'll call him up again and we'll continue where we left off yesterday. HOPEFULLY, I'll answer my own questions and tell you guys what fixed this issue. But if any of you guys have some input, that'd be fantastic.

Thanks in advance,
Jon in American Fork

[JonH59]

Good news.The Foresight guy and I hooked up again and the solution was unplugging the Hawk - both the 110v and the CAT 6 cable - and letting it rest for a minute or two. Plugged them back in with a PC restart and it worked.

For a little more info, another indicator of the Hawk being sad was the tiny red LEDs that are around the camera, in the triangle(ish) window and the donut shaped ones on either side of the LED were all blinking red as a sign of something not being right. The fact that the main LED was blue meant that the Hawk was mostly happy but not all the way with the other red LEDs. The reset cured all of that. To be clear, the red LEDs blinking also means that the Hawk is searching for a ball or detects movement in its field of vision. But my blinking LEDs were happening after the ball was in the hitting area and I had a solid blue light.

Now on to setting up my multiple monitors. I gave up after an hour. I gotta read more.

Jon in American Fork

[bm11]

Glad to hear you got it up and running! Question- do you have to manually switch from right handed to left? I ask because I have a Quad, am lefty with a bunch of righty friends, and was considering swapping to make play more convenient. If I still had to hit a button, it wouldn’t be that much more convenient. Also, if I am selected as a lefty in FSX, does it automatically make the switch?

[JonH59]

The Hawk doesn't care who's hitting. After calibrating, you just drop a ball in the hitting area. As soon as the Hawk recognizes that a ball is "down there" a screen pops up and shows both the left and right hitting areas and where the ball is in relation to them. This screen shows up on my impact screen. Wanna hit lefty? move the ball over to the left side box (there's two with a small "dead space" between them of about 2-3 inches wide). Wanna switch to right? again, just move the ball over there. Once the ball is in the hitting area, the pop-up screen disappears. And, if you nudge the ball even a teeny-tiny bit, the pop-up comes on again for a few seconds. There's also a LED that's on the Hawk that will either be blinking or solid blue. Solid means everything's good and the ball is in a good hitting position. After a few hits, you get a good idea of where the ball should be. So while the Hawk is showing you the last shot - tracing, yardage, shot info, etc - you can place the ball in hitting area using the blue LED that's on the Hawk.

The only thing you do when you're setting up for a course and player(s) is tell the Hawk who's a lefty and rightly.. That's all part of the setup for each player. Honestly, I don't think that has anything to do with the Hawk and ball placement but more like ball flight characteristics between left and right players. I've really only been using it today so I'm not completely sure but I think you also tell the Hawk who's left and right hitting when practicing too, like on the driving range. It's still all part of the initial setup.