[Anyone using X-Plane & V3 Software??]

Hi,

I am just trying now to do that. In the G-Stap sofwtare folder after unzipping you will find a pdf doc with a screenshot on waht to do in x-plane to make it work. But I have run into problems with the mssing "offsets". I would need prop pitch (helo collective), rudder/yaw, elevator and aileron (helo cyclic) values resp. "Index and value pointers".

Anyone having these??

regards, Dirk

[Turn and bank coordinator GSA-69]

Hello Micky,

I have done some more work, the GSA is now working nicely and it seems most things will also work out ok. First prio is to get the steering right. Pedals work, stick too, I am stuck at the moment with the twist-grip throttle and the pitch lever. Some nondescriptive mechanism is giving me a headache, but I am not running out of ideas. Thanks to Pete Dowson and the "Never surrender, never give up"-motto.

Does anyone have experience with the newer Helos in FSX, namely the R22, R44 or Schweizer model?

Dirk

[Throttle trouble with Schweizer Heli]

ok, I have now used the axis calibration feature to check whether there are any inputs coming from somewhere. I have switched off the joystick control in FSX by unchecking the box in the calibration tab of "settings, controls"

BTW: Apprently this was more clear in FS9, there was a pulldown menu with the command "disable joysticks", now in FSX it is the method described above, correct?

When I let FSUIPC search for joysticks there should be nothing, because no joystick is connected and my potentiometer controls go through an interface directly to FSUIPC. But it finds a Joy#17 with Axis#T and Joy#18 with Axis#N after switching back and forth between pause and unpause. Could that be the mechanism overwriting my values? How can I find out where they come from? And get rid of them?

Thanks, Dirk.

[Throttle/Prop only usable when FSX is paused]

Hello,

I am trying to build a sim based on the schweizer 300, which is FSX internally based on the R22/R44 models.

I have connected pedals and stick throught simflights IO module correctly and they work.

For the collective though, I have a problem.

The collective lever has a throttle knob on top and it can be pulled upward to increase the pitch angle of the blades (for those who are not familiar with rotary wing).

For both we have functions either predefined or through FSUIPC.

The thing is, that I can see the throttle moving on screen, but only when FSX is paused.

When unpaused the throttle control is inactive and some values are written into the throttle offsets from somewhere else.

Also:

I'd like contact with someone who successfully connected controls to a R22/R44/Schweizer Helo model, apparently they are all based on the same internal FSX model. Did someone successfully achieve this?

Thanks, regards, Dirk.

[Throttle trouble with Schweizer Heli]

I think we are getting there!!

Yes, I actually mean RPM, that is what I want to control. But the collective lever on screen is labeled "throttle", so I used that synonymously. Adding to confusion - sorry about that.

The thing with the 50% I have seen from FSinterrogate. The RPM knob at the collective lever tip contributes 50% to Max RPM

The collective lever when pulled, changes the blade angle (I have not seen where this needs to be sent, if at all), but simultaneously adds the other 50% to RPM.

When I turn the throttle knob at the tip of the lever, FSInterrogate tells me that

088C ENG1 throttle lever changes from 0 to 8240

3AE8 ENG1 (Recip./General) Throttle lever Pos changes from 0,00291 to 0,50291

When I in addition lift the collective lever FSinterrogate tells me that

088C ENG1 throttle lever changes from 8240 to 16336

3AE8 ENG1 (Recip./General) Throttle lever Pos changes from 0,50291to 0,99707

332E Throttle (common) axis input

I just would like to replay this with my potentiometers instead of a joystick.

Could it be a joystick assignment that overrides my inputs when unpaused?

Dirk.

[Throttle trouble with Schweizer Heli]

Hm, I am not that deep into FSX model structure, my apologies.

I was trying to help myself with the offset list.

I know the helo in question is always having the mixture lever at 100% whereas other aircraft have not.

I was looking for the PROP PITCH in the offset list, but am not too clear which offset it is. Is it something other than 88C and/or 3AE8?

May I ask where you looked that up?

I have a feeling that I do have the right offsets, because I see the helo throttle on the tip of the collective lever move correctly on the screen- but only when in pause.

I have two potentiometers - one is the helo throttle on the tip of the collective lever, the other one is the colletive lever itself. Each provides 50% of the overall helo throttle. Aren't there two offsets where I can simply feed those in? (sorry if I move towards wishful thinking)

Thanks again, Dirk.

[Throttle trouble with Schweizer Heli]

Hello again,

I have followed your advice and tested with other aircraft.

For a Cessna I can manipulate the throttle (actually the mixture lever) while unpaused

For the Bell 206 Heli I can do that too (the collective lever moves)

For the R22 it does not work and also not for the Schweizer.

Apparently the throttle values are overwritten from somewhere when unpaused.

This is what I have done: I have connected some potentiometers and translate the values through flighillusions IO card into FSUIPC and map them to the proper offsets. They work, I see it when in pause mode.

Is there a chance to just disable any other input which might override my controls?

Thanks, Dirk.

[Throttle trouble with Schweizer Heli]

Thanks, Pete.

I have assigned a key in FSUIPC to write 255 into 310A when pressed - but no effect on the throttle behaviour. My controls only work when FSX is paused. It must be something else. Damn, I thought I had already solved that. Any other ideas? Or diagnostic approaches?

Dirk

[Throttle trouble with Schweizer Heli]

Hello Pete,

thanks for the fast reply.

re 1: I am using the flightillusion IO interface to connect the wires and their config software for it. They then transfer the values to FSUIPC and I wonder where in this flow I could somewhere insert the programming. Could you give me a little direction to investigate on how this is typically/ideally done?

re 3: I thought more that the values are overwritten by FSX from somewhere when unpaused. Keyboard or Joystick, could that be? The cyclic and pedals work fine. It is just the throttle that gives me the trouble.

Thanks again, Dirk

[Throttle trouble with Schweizer Heli]

Hello Pete,

thanks for your reply. I have made some progress. I have found out that the Schweizer uses some fuctionality of the R44 model in the background. That led me to the assumption that there must be a governor somewhere like all robinsons - and it was true. Although there was no word of a governor in the Schweizer doc, there is one active and can be switched off with "shift + ,". Verified that through monitoring offset 826 through lua-plugin.

I have also seen that there are two inputs for the overall throttle. One is the throttle itself, one is the collective lever. Both add to same parts to the throttle value. e.g. 88C has a range from 0 to 16384 for throttle, 8192 come from the throttle lever, the other 8192 come from the collective lever and are added up. That leads me to the following questions:

1. How can I add a value coming from a wire to an existing value in an offset?

2. I have found offset 3AE8 "General engine 1 throttle lever position" ranging from 0 to 1, again half coming from throttle, half coming from collective. Can I write into these? What is the difference to 88C?

3. I am a little puzzled by the following thing: With the lua plugin I am able to verify the inputs for offsets 88C and 3AE8, but they only seem to work when in pause mode. My controls have no effect when unpaused - I think I have solved that somehow before but cannot seem to find it right now. Any idea?

THANKS!!!! Dirk.

[Throttle trouble with Schweizer Heli]

Hello everyone,

I am building a Heli-Simulator and have connected custom controls via potentiometers and flightillusion's IO cards and fsuipc. All values seem to transport over nicely.

I seem to have some trouble with the throttle, though. I have searched this forum and found several hints, but ....here's the problem:

The Schweizer 269 does not have a governor and pilots have to watch and adjust rpm constantly - I'd like to build this also in the sim. I have saved a flight situation on the ground with engines off.

(sidequestion: Can I define somewhere the switch settings for this situation? e.g. Battery off, Generator off, clutch disengaged? When I start the engine, the rotor turns a little although the clutch is disengaged, so in reality it shouldn't. Can I set rotor rpm=0 together with starting the engine to get rid of that effect?)

When starting the engine with a little throttle, the rpm goes up too high, normally when starting the engine (with disengaged clutch of course) you would only go to motor rpm of 1500 max, but it goes to 3200rpm, the upper limit of the green take off range and cannot be adjusted. The value of 88C stays at ~4100. I can kill the engine by pressing F1 or go to max by pressing F4, it will slowly go back down to a value of 4000 (~3200rpm) after that and stays there.

I use offset 89A to get the throttle values between 0 and 12200 into the Schweizer Heli add-on. I have done the calibration through flight illusions software and they arrive ok in FSX through fsuipc, I have verified that through the lua-plugin. I can write values into 89A, but the value in 88C is always 4000 - apparently constantly overwritten from somewhere.

My suspicion is that I have not properly disconnected the throttle axis input in FSX (I can still press the F-buttons) that would be done through offset 310A, correct? How would I do that? Assign a button in fsuipc which would write 255 into this offset to simply disable all of them, just to be on the safe side? I understand that this would need to be done frequently - is there a permanent setting?

My ultimate goal is to manually and freely adjust throttle to influence motor rpm (and after enguipc aging the clutch rotor rpm with it) just like in the real Schweizer.

Thanks for helping, Dirk.

PS:The next upcoming challenge is the collective lever which also influences the throttle a bit. Any insights into this following question is greatly appreciated.

[Helicopter Offsets in FSUIPC?]

Thanks, Pete, incredibly quick reply.

The comments on the tools help. I had a feeling that each model is different, will have to find out about it. I also contacted the development team, maybe they have something for me. The SDK docs and tools help, but there are so many offsets, even if some are named pretty straight forward regarding their meaning.

Is it possible that some of the variables the model uses can not be accessed through FSUIPC? I guess what I am actually asking is: I am willing to search for a needle in the haystack, but it comforts to know that it is in there for sure. :-)

thanks, regards, Dirk.

[Helicopter Offsets in FSUIPC?]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to build a Schweizer 300 based Helicopter Simulator and am using the Gauges and interfaces of flightillusion. The configuration software contains only a number of functions most of which are not Helicopter suited, so I have to define the ones in need myself using the offsets from FSUIPC. Is there a list of typical FSUIPC offsets to be used for helicopters? Does anyone have experience with the Schweizer model in particular?

I have the german version of the Schweizer 300 extension for FSX and I am not sure which functions really give me the rotor rpm, pedal or the pitch position. Also, is there a tool that displays just a the values of a number of variables through FSUIPC during flight? The flighillusion config software has that a bit, but it is very hard to do when you don' t know the exact FSUIPC offsets.

Thanks!!

regards, Dirk.

[Connect 2 FSX PCs via FSUIPC one serves as "remote control"?]

Thank you, Pete, I will investigate all of the options you mentioed. Magenta seems coll, but is also expensive :-/.

regards, Dirk.

[Turn and bank coordinator GSA-69]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to config the GSA-69 turn and bank instrument for a Schweizer helicopter sim with FSX. Has anyone done that successfully? The functions in the flightillusion software were available in the list, but they were not mapping to any FSUIPC offset, so I had to program them myself and I was using the following offsets:

036E for the ball (range -127 to +127)

037C for the plane (range -512 to +512)

The ball function seems to be working ok, the plane however seems a bit more challenging. Are these the right ones? Has anyone done the successful calibration for this?

BTW: The config software keeps crashing, when the data update speed to the gauge is adjusted.

Is there a list of helicopter specific FSUIPC offsets? (see my other post)

Without such a list it is difficult which offset is to be used.

Is there a tool which detects a change in values, e.g. the clutch has been disengaged and that is represented to a change of value in offset X?

thanks!!! regards, Dirk.

[Helicopter Offsets in FSUIPC?]

Hello everyone,

I am trying to build a Schweizer 300 based Helicopter Simulator and am using the Gauges and interfaces of flightillusion. The configuration software contains only a number of functions most of which are not Helicopter suited, so I have to define the ones in need myself using the offsets from FSUIPC. Is there a list of typical FSUIPC offsets to be used for helicopters? Does anyone have experience with the Schweizer model in particular?

I have the german version of the Schweizer 300 extension for FSX and I am not sure which functions really give me the rotor rpm, pedal or the pitch position. Also, is there a tool that displays just a the values of a number of variables through FSUIPC during flight? The flighillusion config software has that a bit, but it is very hard to do when you don' t know the exact FSUIPC offsets.

Thanks!!

regards, Dirk.

[Vista Users - your comments please]

Hello Ed,

we are trying to build a Heli Sim based on a Vista 64 bit. I don't see any downsides because of vista or 64 but. The drivers are available and work. Sometimes the Flightiullion config software crashes and has problems detecting the connection status of the interfaces afterwards, but I have a feeling that is not dofferent on other systems. The software could be more stable and documented a little better, but with a little experimenting you get new functions defined even without docu or other help. We just save as soon as we change anything we might lose after a crash.

At one point though you get stuck or even sick to permanently search for the needle in the haystack, so I will be more active in this forum here and would also like to communicate much more with the so far very helpful guys from flightillusion.

Calibration is an issue to learn about to make it work best, we are trying this with the turn and bank indicator as first proof of concept.

Regards, Dirk.

PS: ANYONE having experience with setting up a HELIKOPTER sim using flightillusion, especially based on SCHWEIZER / HUGHES please contact me for exchange of ideas. Thanks!

[How to define own functions in IO-Module Software?]

Hello,

I am in the progress of connecting Helicopter controls vie the IO-Module to FSX. The thing is, that the GSA software is cool, but the functions available from scratch in the software are not covering what I need for helicopter controls e.g. the cyclic. I am using the 6.0.4 GSA software and have the manual which says:

There are two options for assigning a function to a digital input. The first option is to assign a

FS function by clicking on the ‘Category’ or ‘Function’ pull down menu in the upper half of

the configuration screenAfter choosing a category (e.g. Engines)

you can select a function in the second pull down menu. For advanced users it is also possible

to add functions yourself, but that subject is not being attended to in this manual.

I would need instructions how to map other inputs to FSX via the GSA software. Can you help?

thanks in advance, regards, Dirk.

[GSA-55 problem, detected as unknown device]

Just to close this topic: New GSA-55 works fine, no prob at all.

regards, Dirk

[GSA-55 problem, detected as unknown device]

Hi,

I am trying to connect to the GSA-55 module and the GSA IO, but Vista detects no serial COM-port, only an unknown USB device with no drivers available. This happens on both 32 and 64 bit systems and makes communication with the attached GSA-IO impossible. I have downloaded the driver install package from http://www.flightillusion.com/download%_Setup.exe but no luck.

thanks in advance for helping, Dirk.

UPDATE:

I went to ftdichip.com's website, since it is their driver which is not recognized. There is a doc describing installation of drivers on vista. It contains a hint that a driver may not be recognized when VID and PID programmed into the device don't match with the PID/VID of the INF file. They offer a tool to read out the VID and PID of a USB device and what I found for the GSA-55 was all zeros. This leads me to believe that my GSA-55 was not programmed corerctly. What would normally be in such a readout? How I can I check this? Do I need to return the device and ask for replacement?

[Connect 2 FSX PCs via FSUIPC one serves as "remote control"?]

Hi all,

I was looking for an instructor station, basically FSX can do all the things I want (change position, altitude, heading, weather etc), but I'd like to have that done behind the scenes like in an educational simulator. The look outside is provided by one box and this view should be provided at any time without any visible windows or menus. Can I use FSUIPC to connect a separate kind of synched up FSX running on a networked PC and remotely control the other instance, e.g. change position to train a particular landing pattern over and over or change weather/visibility from behind the scenes without affecting/interrupting the picture I see?

thanks!! Dirk.