Fanda Dash-8 Condition Levers w/ FSUIPC

[dash8311]

Hi Peter,

I'm running Oleksiy Frolov's Dash-8 (his callsign being Fanda), and have a question concerning the condition levers and FSUIPC. On Oly's plane, he has what are called Condition Levers - they control the fuel and prop condition on the same lever. I have a CH USB Yoke (the three lever one), and I'd like to have these two condition levers on my 'prop' and 'mixture' levers on the yoke. I understand this is easy to do with a default airplane, but I run into problems when trying to set it up with this one.

As said, the positions are Fuel Off (position 1), Start/Feather (position 2), Minimum (position 3, and the props are unfeather in this position), and finally Maximum (position 4, also unfeathered).

Is this possible with the current FSUIPC, or will we need some custom programming to make this to work? Sorry for the messy posting - far too many condition and lever words in it. :)

Thanks,

Kris

[Pete Dowson]

I'm running Oleksiy Frolov's Dash-8 (his callsign being Fanda), and have a question concerning the condition levers and FSUIPC. On Oly's plane, he has what are called Condition Levers - they control the fuel and prop condition on the same lever.

Does the panel accept axis inputs to control these levers? If not then I don't see how you can do it. If so, then isn't it merely a matter of proper calibration?

As said, the positions are Fuel Off (position 1), Start/Feather (position 2), Minimum (position 3, and the props are unfeather in this position), and finally Maximum (position 4, also unfeathered).

That sounds like 4 discrete switch positions to me, not axis inputs which have a continuous range. I assume his panel is designed to be used with switches and buttons? Or only with the mouse?

I'm afraid there are more questions than answers here. Until I know how you are allowed to control those levers -- i.e. what the programmer has provided for such control -- there's no way really I can advise. Certainly there's nothing in any of my programs at present which convert specific axis range values into keyboard or button presses.

If the documentation supplied with the panel doesn't tell you these things it seems you will need to contact the author. If he hasn't provided any axis controls for those levers, then possibly he would be amenable to changing it?

Regards,

Pete

[dash8311]

Hi Pete,

Thanks for the reply. :)

These condition levers are on the propeller axis, 3 and 4. They can be controlled through FSUIPC for the entire range, but what I'm really asking is how to set it up properly. It seems you have a Feather, Min and Max, which are three positions, but I require four, as per my post above. Perhaps this clears it up a little?

Again, thank you very much,

Kris

[Pete Dowson]

These condition levers are on the propeller axis, 3 and 4. They can be controlled through FSUIPC for the entire range, but what I'm really asking is how to set it up properly. It seems you have a Feather, Min and Max, which are three positions, but I require four

But the positions in the FSUIPC calibration are only so that a correct centre can be achieved. Centre is merely the value 0 (ZERO) fed to FS. Minimum is -16383 and maximum is +16384. FS knows no other specific positions, so there's no way FSUIPC can know what other intermediate values to calibrate to, is there?

It is different with Flaps, as FSUIPC can get the number of flap detentes from FS and it knows that these are equally spaced along the range of values.

Your aircraft presumably is taking some arbitrary input values on the axis and treating them the way it wants. There's no way I can calibrate to unknown arbitrary values.

Your best bet is to calibrate for a good min, centre and max, then mark the position on your lever for achievement of whichever of the two intermediate values isn't actually set by a zero input.

Regards,

Pete

[dash8311]

Hi Pete,

Okay! I'll talk to Oleksiy and see if we can sort it out. Thanks for the great module and wise responses. :)

Kris