feelthere ERJ-145 Speedbrake Problem

[ilellis]

Howdy Peter,

Hope to clear something up with your help. I recently started having a problem with my ERJ that many others have the same problems with per forum posts at feelthere. This problem has been ongoing with no resolution. Some do not experience the problem so I decided to spend some time to try and sort this out. I received a copy of a discussion you had with a fellow via the feelthere forum but I have some information to add to this to see if you can help further....

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Let me recap what he posted to me...

Hi Iven,

Sound's like you are on the correct path. I posted in the Peter Dowson forum about this problem and no one had mentioned it to him before. There was quit a bit of problem's with FSUIPC and the FADEC throttle's the ERJ uses and the way FSUIPC handle's throttle's assignement and calibration, however no one else had reported this spoiler problem to Pete. Here is his answer/response to my question.

sulu600 wrote:

Hi Peter,

Hate to open old topic's and wound's between you and this add-on vendor, however, has anyone mentioned a problem with the complex way the ERJ deploys it ground spoiler/air brakes and a conflict with FSUIPC?

You said:

There's no wounds that I know of (???)and there's really there cannot be any "conflict" with anything in FSUIPC if you aren't trying to use any conflicting options therein. And to answer your question, no, no one has mentioned any such thing. Sorry.

He said:

I and several other's who have registered versions of FSUIPC are having trouble with the speed brake's deploying on the ground at speed's above 25 knot's and the throttle's are moved to idle. Once that occurs, the speed brake's deploy (thinking you have just landed and have retarded the throttles) and will not reset. Their cure is to "Remove" the FSUIPC.dll from the module's folder to fix the problem.

You said:

FSUIPC does not touch the spoiler unless you tell it to, so quite honestly it cannot be anything to do with FSUIPC as such. If removing FSUIPC "fixes" it it can only be because either something else you've set FSUIPC to do is doing it, or another add-in or add-on is operating this through FSUIPC's facilities.

FSUIPC is not an "active" component, it only does what it is asked to do. Delete your FSUIPC.INI file so only default options are applied (none of which are related to throttles, axes or spoilers), and check the FSUIPC Log to see what other programs or modules are using it. Eliminate those one by one to find the culprit.

You seem to imply that you only get this with registration of FSUIPC -- and since all user-registration really does is allow you to use more options, it is I would have thought pretty obvious that it is most likely to be related to something you have set.

He said:

I do use FSUIPC to assign one of the axis on my CH Yoke to spoiler, however even removing this has no effect on the problem.

You said:

FSUIPC does NOT allow you to make any axis assignments. FSUIPC's joystick facilities operate on FS controls, there are no (repeat NO) axis assignments within FSUIPC and never have been. You must be making your spoiler axis assignment in FS, and that is where you have to delete it -- there's no way to make nor delete any such thing in FSUIPC.

Regards,

Pete

He said to me:

Hope this help's trouble shooting the problem and I am also getting serious about finding the problem here as well...will keep everyone informed.

Steve Park

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Okay, I recently found also that if I renamed the FSUIPC.dll that the problem would disappear but went a few extra steps to sort this out. I have a HOTAS Cougar and I too assign an axis to control the speedbrakes on my various aircraft. I do use the axis calibrations under the Joystick tab in FSUIPC. On those aircraft everything works great, it was only the ERJ giving me a fit. So I started playing around and found out something by putting together some things told me by the feelthere folks and further from your comments above...

You told Steve above that FSUIPC doesn't assign any axis (I understand this) but there is under the Joystick tab pages to calibrate the various axis' on a joystick and throttle and such. So I figure some sort of interaction was happening there? I think many people have gone in and disabled various settings trying to isolate the problem with no luck but this failed because of something further I stumbled upon. I did the same thing with the same results, the speedbrakes wouldn't work after disabling certain FSUIPC settings.

The feelthere folks stated that the logic in the ERJ worked primarily on/off (fully deployed or fully retracted) and not on graduated axis control. So I concentrated on this.

While messing around with the settings in FSUIPC the ERJ speedbrakes started working but I didn't know how or what I had done so I set out to duplicate this. I went back in and started messing around again and sure enough got it to screw up again, that was easy. Now the trick was to get it working again...what fun :D

The trick I found was in restarting the flight simulator AFTER making the changes in FSUIPC. The setting in FSUIPC that seems to be in conflict is the speedbrake axis calibration. Click reset (for the speedbrake axis calibration), exit FSUIPC and flight simulator then restart and all was back to normal.

I don't know if you can look at anything here or if the folks at feelthere will talk to you about this (I did ask them to coordinate with you on these findings) but I can imagine if this problem could be fixed once and for all there would be some mighty happy ERJ pilots around...

Regards,

Iven

[Pete Dowson]

The trick I found was in restarting the flight simulator AFTER making the changes in FSUIPC. The setting in FSUIPC that seems to be in conflict is the speedbrake axis calibration. Click reset (for the speedbrake axis calibration), exit FSUIPC and flight simulator then restart and all was back to normal.

Once you click "Reset", so that the button reads "Set", FSUIPC no longer does anything at all with the spoiler axis. The same principle applies to all of the Joystick 2Set/Reset" buttons -- they merely set or clear a flag which tells FS whether to bypass such controls or not. Reloading should most certainly not be needed.

With recent versions of FSUIPC you can make joystick settings, including which are set and reset, aircraft-specific. It sounds like you have multiple sections in the INI file dealing with general and specific aircraft, and this is confusing the issue. Please take a look at your INI file.

Regards

Pete

[Pete Dowson]

I don't know if you can look at anything here ...

One thing you can try to glean additional information is to enable both Axis logging and Control logging -- see FSUIPC's Logging page. The two types of controls are individually selectable there. FSUIPC will log each and every event, so the log may get quite large, but it should then be easy enough to search for spoiler events to see what sort of interaction is going on.

You could monitor the spoiler value at the same time -- the right-hand part of the Logging page is used for this. Offsets 0BCC (Arm flag) and 0BD0 (spoiler setting), both type U32. Check the option to have these go to the FSUIPC log, in the check boxes below.

Regards,

Pete

[ilellis]

Thanks Pete, I went back and did some further testing and so did the other fellow Steve and it looks like we have a thumb on the problem because he followed your suggestion (it worked) and I disabled the spoiler calibration (and it worked too - even without exiting FS9). The problem now seems not to be FSUIPC (I didn't think so because the spoiler function works with all other payware and freeware aircraft I have loaded) but in the communications with the ERJ program. We are stuck unless the programmers in feelthere take the time to see what the problem is. I made one suggestion, that they make sure the ERJ program disregard any logic coming from the spoiler calibration of your program. That way pilots can still use the calibration for all their other aircraft but it not effect the ERJ.

If you are interested here is a link to the specific thread where the details on this problem are located. This has been a long running problem at feelthere with most pilots begging for relief.

Thanks for the help and thanks for FSUIPC, it really makes things go a little smoother... 8)

[Pete Dowson]

I made one suggestion, that they make sure the ERJ program disregard any logic coming from the spoiler calibration of your program. That way pilots can still use the calibration for all their other aircraft but it not effect the ERJ.

There are two threads going on here about this -- please check the other. The answer appears to be that the Panel does NOT use the normal Spoiler on/arm/off controls (the ones allocated to the / key), but the axis control -- very odd considering that they only set full on or off and don't provide continuous settings. They should simply use the on/arm/off controls which then wouldn't interfere with your axis settings.

FSUIPC's spoiler calibration will change the values they are sending, and that is why you have the problem. Your suggestion to them is actually irrelevant and impossible since it is their code originating the spoiler axis controls and FSUIPC which is manipulating them. They don't see that. There's no "logic" as such in FSUIPC for spoilers in any case. Calibration is merely that -- matching of values according to the extremes of your external axis to match the extremes used in the Sim engine.

All you need to do is disable FSUIPC's spoiler calibration for that aircraft. Use the latest version and make that change aircraft-specific to the ERJ145 -- this way you will still have a properly calibrated spoiler axis for other aircraft.

This has been a long running problem at feelthere with most pilots begging for relief.

Seems very odd, then, that no one mentioned it here till yesterday?

Regards,

Pete

[ilellis]

Howdy Pete,

Unfortunately from reading the FeelThere forums it looks as though many have tried to get them to resolve the problem but have run up against a brick wall for whatever reasons (lack of talent or maybe they don't want to fix it, who knows?). Even I had a run in with the forum administrator right off the bat but I pressed to resolve the issue once and for all.

Others are now picking up on our findings and it is making a difference at this point. I posted for everyone to do exactly as you described here and so far that seems to be working.

I will let them know what you know so if FeelThere "feels" inclined to work this out they can. Most of all we appreciate your help with the FSUIPC side of this...thanks again! :D

Iven

EDIT: I looked at the other thread you mentioned. That is some of the people in the circles over at the FeelThere forum. That fellow named _ak is one of the programmers or admins and has told us in the FeelThere forums they will not change the logic in the ERJ145 so it looks like the recent version FSUIPC is the only answer for this problem...thanks!