What *exactly* does E1 and E2 do? And *when* does it do it?

[johnl]

Hi

this is a follow-up to my post about trying to change axis

assignments with a button. Seems this is not possible. So I have another solution....which doesn't work, so I guess its *not* a solution...but if I knew *why* it did not work, I might be able to make progress....

Here is a post of mine from the Aeroworx KingAir page. To start this plane you must NOT introduce ANY fuel into the engine until 12%N1. I have a CH yoke and only one axis for the fuel condition levers. So I was using E1 and E2. That did notg work....see below.

My question is: when you set, say, fuel at 0% on engines 1 and 2, hit E1 and adjust the fuel to E1....then hit E2 to change to engine 2...what is the fuel value in engine 2 *immediately* you hit E2? HOw is the transfer done?

I tried two posisbilities in the post below

1) it *instantly* gives you the value on engine 1

2) it maintains the value it had until you move the axis

Neither (!) seems to be the case!

Does anyone know???

Help!

:-)

JL

-------------------------

Hi All

firstly, congrats to all involved with this wonderful plane! Its a gem.

My only frustration has been trying to start the thing with he CH flight

yoke. I finally found a solution in a post from Kurt Yoda:

"Never try to use a single controller lever (such as the CH Yoke) for

the fuel conditioners. Disable your condition lever, and start both

engines with the mouse, then move the condition lever to mid-range

before re-enabling it."

Of course, this works fine! Thanks Kurt! But I was thinking....and experimenting....

In principle, of course, we can use E1, E2 and E12 to start the engines properly

and if FS behaved we should be OK.

I tried the following (as have others, as I see in the forum)

E1

Start 1

At 12% Move cond lever to low idle

This gives a fine start for engine 1

Now the question becomes - what does FS do when you hit E2?

Does it instantly take the value of the cond lever for E2 to be that of

E1? Or does it start at its current value (0%) and only change when

you move the lever?

If it was the latter then repeating the procedure above would work.

But it does not so I concluded that as soon as I hit E2 FS was sending

fuel to the engine even though it still reads CUTOFF.

So I thought I had a solution!!! Proceed as before

Fuel Cutoff (both!)

E1

at 12% move to low idle

Engine 1 is fine

Now.....leave lever as is and START engine 2

When second engine gets to 12% hit E2

I thought this would introduce fuel to engine 2 at the correct time.

But alas it hotstarts cry angry

Any ideas why this fails?

I am reasonably happy starting with the mouse but using the levers is nice.

Its a pity you cannot use hotkeys in FSUIPC to adjust the axes....if you could

then a key to make two levers the fuel cond levers for engines 1 and 2

would be ideal..then a key to take them back to their usual setting...and

all would be fine.

I think fate is trying to make me buy a throttle quadrant!

But...does anyone know why my proposed solution did not work?

Thanks!

John L

[Bud]

John,

I am at my Dad's and have access to his GoFlight throttle quad so I can do some testing. So far this is what I have found out:

After engine 1 is started and you hit E2 to control engine 2, fuel flow is at 0, however, when you move the lever from its E1 position to the cutoff position it takes the value set by the E1 position. One way I think to get around this is after you start Engine 1, press E2 then when you go to move the lever, move it very quickly to the cutoff position and it does not seem to grab the E1 value. You should be able to start engine 2 normally. I can only test this in the PMDG B1900 but it seems to work as long as the fuel lever is not too high up when you start. If you want to monitor fuel flow to E2 use FSUIPCs logging function using offset 2120, putting a check inth e display to FStitle bar so that you can see the value there. If this does not work there is one other thing, does your aircraft have other fuel valves so that you can shut the fuel to engine 2 then open the valve when you are ready to start?

Bud

[johnl]

After engine 1 is started and you hit E2 to control engine 2, fuel flow is at 0, however, when you move the lever from its E1 position to the cutoff position it takes the value set by the E1 position.

So...if one hits E2 and does NOT move the lever then the fuel to engine 2 remains at zero?

ne way I think to get around this is after you start Engine 1, press E2 then when you go to move the lever, move it very quickly to the cutoff position and it does not seem to grab the E1 value.

I can try this...but I think the authors of this plane wrote it so that *any* fuel injected into the engine prior to 12%N1 wouold cause the hot start fault.

I even tried not switching to E2 until the 2nd engine reached 12%N1 but even that failed!

If you want to monitor fuel flow to E2 use FSUIPCs logging function using offset 2120, putting a check inth e display to FStitle bar so that you can see the value there.

I should try this!

does your aircraft have other fuel valves so that you can shut the fuel to engine 2 then open the valve when you are ready to start?

Good idea, butno it does not have a separate fuel valve :-/

Thanks for the help!

JL

PS Ilove the PMDG B1900 :-)

[Pete Dowson]

I can try this...but I think the authors of this plane wrote it so that *any* fuel injected into the engine prior to 12%N1 wouold cause the hot start fault.

I even tried not switching to E2 until the 2nd engine reached 12%N1 but even that failed!

I don't know if this will work, but try using the FSUIPC "offset" facilities to manipulate engine selection, instead of the keypresses E+1234.

The engine selection set by E+1234 is a single Byte at offset 0888. In this byte, one bit each is used per engine. Engine 1 is bit 0 (value 1), Engine 2 is bit 1 (value 2), Engine 3 is bit 2 (value 4) and Engine 4 is bit 3 (value 8). So, for example, E+12 sets offset 0888 to "3".

If you have two buttons you can use, the program one to select Engine 1 and the other to select Engine 2, but only on "Release". On "press" set NO engines.

Do all this using the FSUIPC control "Offset Byte Set". The Offset parameter is x888 and the data parameter is

x0 for no engines

x1 for Engine 1

x2 for Engine 2

Then, press and keep pressing the selection button whilst reducing the mixture lever to zero, then release the button. That SHOULD prevent the non-zero value being written to the new engine mixture.

I cannot test this here at present, so please let me know if it works.

Regards,

Pete