Crazy controls at start

[soldano]

I am using USB CH Yoke and pedals.-

Every time I start a flight in FSX, I found the throttle at full and rudder full left, so the aircraft begin to make circles unless I quickly center the controls.-

The only cure was to save the default flight with engines off.-

I tried disabling joysticks in FSX and assign and calibrate within FSUIPC but got stuck when trying to map full toe brakes, I had no problem with differential brakes.-

So I calibrate the controls within FSX with a generous null zone intended to prevent the problem without success -

Any advise should be welcome.

Thanks

[Pete Dowson]

I am using USB CH Yoke and pedals.-

Every time I start a flight in FSX, I found the throttle at full and rudder full left, so the aircraft begin to make circles unless I quickly center the controls.

Those sound like default readings for a disconnected joystick. You should make sure you don't have Windows doing "power management" on your USB ports -- it enabled it tends to turn the power off USB devices until they need it (i.e. until you "waggle" the axes.

I tried disabling joysticks in FSX and assign and calibrate within FSUIPC but got stuck when trying to map full toe brakes, I had no problem with differential brakes.

There's no such thing as a "full toe brake" axis, only separate left and right axes. You press both together for full normal straight-line braking.

If you want the (unrealistic) equivalent of the "." key for braking, assign a button to the brakes control, not an axis. Of course you can, in FSUIPC assignments, assign both left and right brakes to both left and right axis controls, but I really think you are losing aircraft steering capabilities if you do that.

So I calibrate the controls within FSX with a generous null zone intended to prevent the problem without success -

Why do you think a null zone will help anything?

Regards

Pete

[soldano]

Thanks Pete

There is no USB energy management set in device manager, so that is not the cause.-

I fixed the problem disabling FSX controls and assigning and callibrating all from FSUIPC.-

I cannot manage to use the "short aircraft name" ini editing./ As I need to have all my Boeing jets axes specificly assigned the same way, I shortened the name and it reads: [Axes.Boeing], but doesnt work.-

Please tell me which is the syntaxis.-

[Pete Dowson]

I cannot manage to use the "short aircraft name" ini editing./ As I need to have all my Boeing jets axes specificly assigned the same way, I shortened the name and it reads: [Axes.Boeing], but doesnt work.

Please tell me which is the syntaxis.-

"[Axes.Boeing]" is fine as long as all the aircraft titles have "Boeing" in them, and you have changed the "ShortAircraftNameOK" parameter from "No" to "Substring", as clearly documented. If all of the titles start with "Boeing" then you can have "ShortAircraftNameOK=Yes" instead -- but then it won't find it if the word Boeing is not at the start.

Please do refer to the User Guide, and the new Appendix included in the latest releases.

Regards

Pete

[soldano]

Thanks again Pete

It happened that I used the parameter "ShortAircraftNameOK=Yes" and that "Boeing" is not the first word in the tittle of some Boeing aircraft.- Now I switched to "substring" and now all is OK.-

Two new questions:

1) I have problems mapping the Yoke mixture lever as an airbrake control, I selected the ax to be recognized as spoiler, but is tricky to calibrate, the reverse box is checked and it works normally raising the airbrake, but most of the times doesnt return to normal,.-

I dont understand why it has a center point, so maybe spoiler is not the option for an airbrake, but I couldnt find any other.-

2) I mapped the yoke hat and it works OK panning views, but not as smooth as it happened when controlled by FSX, is there a fix ?.-

[Pete Dowson]

1) I have problems mapping the Yoke mixture lever as an airbrake control, I selected the ax to be recognized as spoiler, but is tricky to calibrate, the reverse box is checked and it works normally raising the airbrake, but most of the times doesnt return to normal

Are you by any chance trying it out on the Ground? Don't -- the lever will pass through the "ARM" position, and then FS, seeing that you have "landed" (!) will deploy them as spoilers, to 100%.

I dont understand why it has a center point, so maybe spoiler is not the option for an airbrake

I'm sure all this is in the documentation. The "centre" is the "ARM" position, so you can arm the spoiler for automatic deployment on the ground. Look at the Boeing quadrant in FS some time, you'll see in fact that there are two detentes -- the "Arm" and the "Flight" positions. I only provide a means of calibrating the arm position. You should of course limit the deployment in the air (i.e. as a speed brake) to the appropriate max value for the aircraft in any case -- e.g. about 65% for a 737 I think.

2) I mapped the yoke hat and it works OK panning views, but not as smooth as it happened when controlled by FSX, is there a fix ?.-

Sorry, I never use view panning so I've no idea what looks smooth and what doesn't, but have you actually used the method suggested and recommended by other users? They say it is smooth. It is detailed at length in the latest documentation.

Regards

Pete

[soldano]

Thanks again Pete

Fixed the airbrake, it works OK

Also I go the hat working as it did in FS

A new question:

I noticed there is a macro already done, related to ApChart.- As I often use that gauge ,thought it was a good idea to invoke it using a simple keystroke instead of opening the FSX menu bar and looking for it, so I went to the keypress FSUIPC section and selected among all the ApChart options "ApChart show/hide", for the key "x" (which is not used in my FSX), aircraft specific unchecked.- The only result I got was that it toggles the FMC CDU in the FeelThere B737, nothing happens in other aircraft.- What I am doing wrong ?

[Pete Dowson]

... selected among all the ApChart options "ApChart show/hide", for the key "x" (which is not used in my FSX), aircraft specific unchecked.- The only result I got was that it toggles the FMC CDU in the FeelThere B737, nothing happens in other aircraft.- What I am doing wrong ?

All the Show/Hide macro does is send a Panel Toggle with the parameter set to the ID of the APChart display. In the cases I looked at it always had that ID, but maybe it is different in the version you have. Look in any of the Panel.CFG files for aircraft into which you have APChart installed and find its ID, then edit the macro to put the correct ID in.

Regards

Pete

[soldano]

Pete

These macro stuff is dificult to me, I note in the default macro: "1=Show/Hide=C66506,10000" , which acording to the FSX controls list is ""PANEL_ID_TOGGLE"", but cannot identify the specific Airport Chart id you referred to.-

In my Feelthere B737 panel.cfg the id is "Window16=Airport Chart", so how can I edit the macro in consecuence, and what should select as parameter in the FSUIPC keypress box ?

I am interested only in invoking AirportChart by keypressing "x", or some other key, all the other macro options are useless for me.-

Thanks

[Pete Dowson]

Pete

These macro stuff is dificult to me, I note in the default macro: "1=Show/Hide=C66506,10000" , which acording to the FSX controls list is ""PANEL_ID_TOGGLE"", but cannot identify the specific Airport Chart id you referred to.-

In my Feelthere B737 panel.cfg the id is "Window16=Airport Chart", so how can I edit the macro in consecuence, and what should select as parameter in the FSUIPC keypress box ?

You'll need to look in the Window 16 definition in that CFG file, the ID is given there.

For example, in my APchart installation for the default 737 (where is was Window07) the Window it has added looks like this:

[Window07]

size_mm=912,654

position=4

window_size=0.75

background_color=0,0,0

visible=0

ident=10000

zorder=4

update_rate=6

gauge00=apchart!APChart,0,0,912,654

The parameter 10000 I provided is from that ident=10000 line. I assumed it would be the same for each installation -- not sure how it can vary, unless the author changed it in the version you have, although I suppose it is possible his installer loooked at all the other Windows in al the aircraft panels and found 10000 already used, so reconfigured it. Seems less likely though.

Just find the Ident number and change it in the Macro to suit.

Regards

Pete

[soldano]

Sorry, I forgot that in panel.cfg each window has a definition section.-

So in my case the Feelthere B737 id is 10012, and consequently I modified the macro.- First It didnt work, until I selected ""Apchart show/hide"" also in the ""control sent when main key release" box, then it worked OK.- The problem is that the setting is not saved, as when changing airplanes or relaunching FSX strangely the macro then shows only in the ""control set when keys pressed"" with the other box blank, so it fails to work.-

Also, which rol does both parameter boxes play ? in my case both are in "0".-

Thanks Pete for you patience and sorry for my English

[Pete Dowson]

So in my case the Feelthere B737 id is 10012, and consequently I modified the macro.- First It didnt work, until I selected ""Apchart show/hide"" also in the ""control sent when main key release" box, then it worked OK.

Strange. The Toggle control should show it on one use, hide it on the next, so if you send it twice it should self-cancel. Are you sure you haven't got "Repeat" enabled? Maybe you are now sending it three times? Enable Button and Event logging (in the Logging tab), then use it once and check the Log, see what is happening.

The problem is that the setting is not saved, as when changing airplanes or relaunching FSX strangely the macro then shows only in the ""control set when keys pressed"" with the other box blank

You must "OK" out of the FSUIPC options, not Cancel or press ESCape. Changes are written to the INI file at that time. Check the INI file. It sounds like you programmed it with "Aircraft Specific" set and the wrong aircraft loaded. You shouldn't need any of those ApChart macros programmed "aircraft specific" as if it used 10012 for one aircraft it probably used it for all (check another to be sure).

Also, which rol does both parameter boxes play ? in my case both are in "0".-

What do you mean "both parameter boxes"? There is only one parameter entry field for each control -- there are separate places for control sent on "Press" and "Release". Each control can have ONE parameter. Where are you seeing more? See the pictures in the documentation? Don't they match?

In any case, with this Macro the parameter for the Toggle Panel control is in the Macro itself -- you don't supply a parameter with the control you program on the button, so that can be left to the default (0). If you want a macro to take a parameter you have to omit it (and its comma) in the macro definition.

Maybe if you are getting this confused you'd better let me see the [buttons...] sections in the INI file!

Regards

Pete

[soldano]

Well Pete

This happens:

APChart seems to assign window ID 10000 to all the default aircraft,.-

The addon aircraft receives diferent IDs (ie: Piper Navajo: 28760, Feel there B737: 10012, Feel there A340 :11004, B777: 16001, and so on)

All default aircraft works OK with the macro.-

I changed the ID for all Airbuses and B777, to the default 10000 and the macro works OK.-

The Feel There B737 and the Piper Navajo accepts only their own Id , and must be selected ""Apchart show/hide"" also in the ""control sent when main key release" box., this setting is not saved, and must be reconfigurated each time FSX loads.-

The PDMG B747 have no ID or window assigned to Ap Chart in its panel.cfg, but strangely, the gauge appears in the views/instrument panel menu, and can be opened by mouse click.-.-

So it seems that in case of diferent IDs, multiple macros should be created.-

[Pete Dowson]

APChart seems to assign window ID 10000 to all the default aircraft,

Ah, as it did here.

The addon aircraft receives diferent IDs (ie: Piper Navajo: 28760, Feel there B737: 10012, Feel there A340 :11004, B777: 16001, and so on)

It must scan the CFG and do something like assign the next "free" ID above the highest one it finds. Something like that.

I changed the ID for all Airbuses and B777, to the default 10000 and the macro works OK.-

Strange that ApChart chose a different one in the first place then.

The Feel There B737 and the Piper Navajo accepts only their own Id

Probably they already have a 10000 ID used. You might want to find that and see if the panel will still work okay with than changed.

.... and must be selected ""Apchart show/hide"" also in the ""control sent when main key release" box., this setting is not saved, and must be reconfigurated each time FSX loads.-

The double sending may, possibly, get the 2nd Window with the 10000 ID selected, but having any setting you make in FSUIPC options, whgich are saved in the INI file, is what I cannot understand -- there is no way a setting in the FSUIPC INI file will be erased unless it is in error. Something odd is going on there, as I said. Please, go into FSUIPC options, set it again, OK out of the options, and show me the buttons sections of the INI file as it is there and then.

The PDMG B747 have no ID or window assigned to Ap Chart in its panel.cfg, but strangely, the gauge appears in the views/instrument panel menu, and can be opened by mouse click.-.-

So it seems that in case of diferent IDs, multiple macros should be created.-

That isn't possible automatically, and if you did that each one would need a different name. Better to simply omit the ",10000" part in the Macro off, so making it take the parameter you give in the FSUIPC options "parameter" field. You'd then have to put 10000 in, instead of 0, for all the defaults, and whatever number is assigned for the others.

Regards

Pete

[soldano]

It worked Pete, I erased the ID parameter from the macro, and included it in the FSUIPC kepress parameter field.- So I configured each aircraft individually checking "aircraft specific".-

I found what the PDMG 747 problem was, it happens that there are 2 panel.cfgs, one in the Panel folder and the other in Panel.vc folder, in this last one was apchart included.-

Now I have the macro working for all the aircrafts I select.-

Thanks for all your help.-