External control lines from Joy Stick switches

[RegMoen]

Pete

I am looking for a solution to map the tophat and three of the switches on a Logitech Extreme 3D pro (or other flight sticks) for external switch use. While running FlightSim I need to control some switch lines on our system external to the FlightSim computer.

Ideally, if we could control the data lines on the LPT connector that would be great, however, if there is a piece of hardware that can be connected to a Com port or USB port to do this, that would work as well.

These switch lines are only 5 volt logic inputs to our system, a total of 7.

Thank you for your help.

Reg

[Pete Dowson]

I am looking for a solution to map the tophat and three of the switches on a Logitech Extreme 3D pro (or other flight sticks) for external switch use. While running FlightSim I need to control some switch lines on our system external to the FlightSim computer.

Ideally, if we could control the data lines on the LPT connector that would be great, however, if there is a piece of hardware that can be connected to a Com port or USB port to do this, that would work as well.

These switch lines are only 5 volt logic inputs to our system, a total of 7.

I'm rather confused. What is the actual question here? You seem to be saying you have a hat and three switches which you want to use to control something external to the computer. Right? So why is the computer involved at all? What is its part?

Isn't this a hardware implementation question? Can you elaborate?

Regards,

Pete

[RegMoen]

Pete

I am running FLightsim on my computer, however, I need to run some external controls to our system to operate functions from the tophat and switches that are on the joystick running the flightsim software.

I hope this answers what I am trying to do.

Thanks

Reg

[Pete Dowson]

I am running FLightsim on my computer, however, I need to run some external controls to our system to operate functions from the tophat and switches that are on the joystick running the flightsim software.

I hope this answers what I am trying to do.

Well, not really. Let's see if I understand: You have some of the controls (axes, buttons, whatever) on a single joystick/controller operating things in FS, but others, also routing through FS you actually want, instead, to connect to your other hardware -- and presumably you don't want to open up the joystick or whatever it is and take connections direct from that, bypassing the PC altogether?

Obviously, to drive some hardware from the PC you need to interface it somehow. Are you designing the circuitry for that? It isn't just a matter of linking bulbs or LEDs or whatever to contacts on a parallel or USB port. You need an interface, including isolation and current drivers, whatever. And USB certainly needs cleverer chippery of some sort. All this is hardware which I know little about -- I've played around with circuits in my younger days, when microcomputers first came out, but I really wouldn't want to do that sort of thing myself now.

There are some ready-made solutions though -- check out some of the cockpit building Forums and websites, or just Google for flight sim hardware.

You could probably get an all-in-one solution which allowed your joystick device to connect through the same interface hardware that is connected to your indicators, which would be tidier and probably easier. Certainly EPIC can do such things with ease, and it is programmable. There are other, probably cheaper solutions.

I hope this helps. If I am on the right track to understanding your question, then I'm really not certain why you are asking me in the first place, so perhaps I am still misinterpreting it?

Regards,

Pete

[RegMoen]

Pete

You have it right. So far, using the EPIC interface seems to be one solution, albeit a significant investment in time and money to get 7 low current logic lines mapped to the switches externally.

Thank you for your help.

Reg