Problem with Auto-Throttle in Lago Maddog MD80 2004

[havu]

Hi,

I'm having trouble with the Auto-Throttle function in Lago Maddog MD80 2004. I'm using a registered version of FSUIPC 3.48 and CH products Throttle Quadrant (if that matters). The problem is that whenever I activate the A/T, it either pulls both throttles to minimum or pushes them to maximum depending where the throttles were set when activating A/T. The throttles stay in these positions regardless of what I do. If I try to force the throttles to other position, the A/T just moves them back to minimum/maximum, or if I set a speed limit with the autopilot (the A/T should track this) the same happens.

I banged my head to the wall for a while trying to figure out what's wrong and then finally removed FSUIPC completely, restarted FS2004, re-tried the Maddog plane and guess what, the A/T now works! The reason why I even bothered trying this i.e. removing FSUIPC was the following article:

http://www.avsim.com/pages/0505/ERJ/ERJ.htm

What in earth could be wrong here?

Best Regards,

Antti

[Pete Dowson]

I banged my head to the wall for a while trying to figure out what's wrong and then finally removed FSUIPC completely, restarted FS2004, re-tried the Maddog plane and guess what, the A/T now works!

...

What in earth could be wrong here?

At a guess, it sounds like you are using FSUIPC for multiple throttles, posssibly to get reverse on the same levers, and haven't set the cirrect options?

Without a lot more information I would have no other ideas.

Instead of simply removing FSUIPC altogether why don't you try simply resetting your throttle calibrations and mapping in it? If you don't actually ask FSUIPC to do things it doesn't do them.

In the next version (3.50) you can have different joystick settings in FSUIPC for different aircraft, so you could then switch the throttle stuff off for the MD80 without losing them for everything else. If you want to try that there's a Beta version available at the top of this Forum.

BTW the AVSIM reference you provided also included this paragraph:

I will repeat that the problem I encountered will only affect those using individual throttle levers which are additionally calibrated through FSUIPC’s (version 3.47 or earlier) individual throttle calibration to include reverse thrust. The latest version of FSUIPC has an option to make this work and if you don’t use the payware version of FSUIPC you will never notice any problem. I also want to comment that once the appropriate parties were aware of what the problem was, it was quickly solved and an update to FSUIPC made available, good customer service from both Peter Dowson and Feelthere. Certainly more effective than griping on an unrelated forum.

Perhaps you missed that bit? The option mentioned is at the bottom of the separate throttles page of FSUIPC 3.48 onwards.

Pete

[havu]

Hi Pete,

Thanks for the rapid answer! I looked at FSUIPC joystick options and the only option I could find (for the throttles) was "exclude THROTTLEn SET". So I ticked this option and it worked! However, I didn't find anything in FSUIPC 3.48 manual concerning this option... What is it supposed to do in practice?

BR,

Antti

[Pete Dowson]

Thanks for the rapid answer! I looked at FSUIPC joystick options and the only option I could find (for the throttles) was "exclude THROTTLEn SET". So I ticked this option and it worked!

Yes, that is the one added to get around the ERJ145 problem.

However, I didn't find anything in FSUIPC 3.48 manual concerning this option... What is it supposed to do in practice?

Ah, you didn't look carefully enough then ;-). Just searching on _SET for example, or scanning the Joysticks section for the table showing all the controls, would have led you to the bit in the table on the separate Throttle controls, and the explanation is in the right-hand column there, viz:

–4096 (full reverse*) via 0 (idle) to +16384 (full forward). All four are operated together if you map a single axis assigned to AXIS_THROTTLE_SET to these.

Since FS2002 these are replaced by those with the AXIS_ prefix. FSUIPC handles both identically, except when calibrating the 4 axes separately, where there’s now an option to only process the new AXIS_ ones. This option is useful for those aircraft panels which themselves use the older controls for “fly-by-wire” type operation

Oddly, in the 5 or 6 years FSUIPC has been operating this for both older and newer axis controls, only two instances of aircraft panels actually using the old ones (for their own purposes) have arisen -- and both in the last few months!

Regards,

Pete

[havu]

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