Pedals newbie-question

[Raymond van Laake]

Hi guys,

I would like to have pedals for my FS9 in addition to my CH Product Flightsim yoke. I'm trying to buy one second hand thru internet-markets, but they are just about never offered (at least in The Netherlands).

On the other hand, millions of racing wheels with pedals are offered for very low prices.

Question: is it possible to use such a pedal for FS as well? And if so, is it something you would recommend?

Thanks for any suggestions,

Ray

[Frank.O]

Hi Ray,

On the other hand, millions of racing wheels with pedals are offered for very low prices.

Question: is it possible to use such a pedal for FS as well? And if so, is it something you would recommend?

I don't have such pedals myself but I know that several simmers are using them. It should depend on the particular model. Rudder in FS is a single axis while brake and throttle on a car sim are two axes. If they can be switched from one setup to the other then it should be possible. Wether they are suitable for flightsim use is a bit of a matter of personal taste. These car pedals move independantly so if you push the right one forward the left won't be going back as it would be in a real airplane (and on the CH pro pedals also). I use the CH pro pedals and I wouldn't trade them in for car pedals :wink: .

Regards,

Frank

[Raymond van Laake]

As I said, I'm a pedal-newbie and by what you write I get that even if car-pedals do work, they won't work realistic enough.... thanks for the info... will have to save some more money and get new CH pedals then!

Pete, I hope I'm not misusing your forum with a question like this but didn't know where else to put it! Thx!

[Pete Dowson]

Pete, I hope I'm not misusing your forum with a question like this but didn't know where else to put it! Thx!

No problem for me, but you might get a wider and more relevant audience in the general FS2004 Forum, or maybe the cockpit builder's Forum (they won't ALL be building their own pedals! :) ).

I think there's a hardware discussion forum over on AVSIM which may get results.

Regards,

Pete

[rickalty]

Rudder pedals are probably the easiest piece of hardware to make for yourself. There's nothing in there but a single 100k-Ohm potentiometer. No electronics, no circuits or anything. If you're using a gameport yoke, which pins to hook the wires from the pedals to is posted all over the net. I'm not used the USB versions, but I'm sure that's out there too.

Couple of hours and a hanfull of guilders and uou'll have better pedals than you could buy, and cheaper too.

if you look in the cockpit builders forum on http://www.avsim.org, there's several links to pedals people have made, including pictures, scematics and everything.

Richard

[Raymond van Laake]

Thanks, I'll check that out!

BTW, we are not using guilders anymore, instead euros! :idea:

[Gregflight]

The left and right pedal of the MS Sidewinder Force Feedback Wheel are assigned to different controller axes. Under Vista it seems impossible to join them to one controller axis so that it can be used in FSX for rudder control (FSX allows to assign only one controller axis to the rudder).

Question: is it possible with FSUIPC to merge two controller axes so that one axis (left pedal) moves the rudder to the left and one axis (right pedal) moves it to the right?

Thanks for any hint!

[Pete Dowson]

Question: is it possible with FSUIPC to merge two controller axes so that one axis (left pedal) moves the rudder to the left and one axis (right pedal) moves it to the right?

Hmm. Difficult one. You can certainly use FSUIPC to assign more than one axis to the same control, but the calibration (including the facility to reverse the axis) would be common to both, so you couldn't get one going the other way. So at present I don't see how it is possible without some programming, or some hardware changes (like reversing the pot in one of the pedals, or at least the connections to it).

Regards

Pete

[Gregflight]

So at present I don't see how it is possible without some programming, or some hardware changes (like reversing the pot in one of the pedals, or at least the connections to it).

I saw that it's possible to reverse the connections of one pot so that the pot = voltage divider reacts opposite on pedal movement. This would then require a switch on the pedal housing to allow for both operation modes.

Pete, what programming do you mean? It looks more reasonable to let the computer calculate the difference between two controller axes (plus offset) than doing invasive surgery with the soldering iron...

Thanks,

Greg

[Pete Dowson]

Pete, what programming do you mean? It looks more reasonable to let the computer calculate the difference between two controller axes (plus offset) than doing invasive surgery with the soldering iron...

A program to read both axes and make some sense of them as one axis, with the result being fed either directly into FS or via FSUIPC.

I just had one other idea which may work. You could assign one pedal as the rudder axis in FS, but reverse it there. This is one of the facilities in FS, I think.

You can calibrate it in FSUIPC as the rudder.

And assign the other pedal to another FS axis, one you don't need for anything else at all. Find out the control number for it (there's a list of FS control numbers installed in your FSX Modules folder).

In the FSUIPC4 INI file add this line to the relevant [JoystickCalibration] section(s):

RudderB=

where you give the control number of the control you assigned. (This is part of the "multiple joysticks" facility described in the back of the Advanced User's guide).

Now both rudder axes are assigned to the rudder but one of them is being reversed in FS before FSUIPC sees it.

Best to make sure both are well calibrated in Windows before doing this, and both have null dead zone and max sensitivity settings in FS. Then also calibrate both in FSUIPC -- one to give max deflection one way and the other to do so the other way. Best to give them a decent centre zone. And choose a slope to give you best control, to taste.

Regards

Pete

[Gregflight]

You can calibrate it in FSUIPC as the rudder.

I'd like to try this. Is there a way to verify this idea before I buy FSUIPC?

Regards,

Greg

[Pete Dowson]

I'd like to try this. Is there a way to verify this idea before I buy FSUIPC?

Sorry, no.

Pete