Master Caution/Warning Reset

[gblock]

I have a few Eaton lighted pushbutton switches that I would like to use for the Master Caution/Warning reset function. Is there a way to do this within FSUIPC?

[RichardL]

Try a Mouse Macro found in the FSUIPC documentation. It is the best utility to control panel mouse hot spots with a hardware switch. You will need some type of hardware interface for the switch.

By the way Pete, I have been meaning to thank you for the Mouse Macro. To me, it is by far the best addition to FSUIPC. THANK YOU!

Regards,

Richard

[gblock]

Thanks for the help. That would solve the press to extinguish, but since the switch is lighted...

Would there be a way to illuminate the switch depending on the lighting condition of the Master CAUT/WARN in FS?

[Pete Dowson]

Would there be a way to illuminate the switch depending on the lighting condition of the Master CAUT/WARN in FS?

FS itself doesn't simulate these things. Where an aircraft panel has them, their condition is determined by the logic local to the gauge maintaining the display itself. This is also why there are no FS controls for "pressing" those buttons and you have to resort to mouse emulation.

If you are using a sophisticated add-on aircraft, like the Level D 767, then there's probably a way of accessing the status via the information in their SDK, or through interface programs written for this. The PMDG aircraft did have an SDK but it has only ever been made available, at a price, to hardware deveopers and I think it is withdrawn in any case at present.

The more generalised add-on aircraft systems programs like Project Magenta and FlightDeck Software, and another I see recently, Sim-Avionics, do have interfaces via FSUIPC which you can use. If you are serious about building an airliner cockpit then you should really be looking at something like that for full flexibility in linking in and operating your indicators and switches.

Otherwise you would have to resort to simulating the Master Caution condition yourself by checking all the conditions which can cause it to be lit. You could do this in a program interfacing to FSUIPC (or SimConnect, for FSX), or, in FSUIPC, you could consider writing a Lua plug-in to do the same thing.

Regards

Pete

[BAW019]

Just for info that's exactly what I've done. I'm using a couple of bytes (starting at offset 66C0) to flag up the Master Caution and the Fire switch. Since many of the failure modes have their own offsets I just read them all and set my new flags to 1 if any problems are identified. I only set them back to a zero when I press my master reset switch(es).

A real benefit of using the 64 bytes of 'free' FSUIPC storage to do this (starting at x66C0) is that other programs can easily read your new flags too, so for those programs it's as if your new offsets were there all along.

Dead handy!

Ian

[gblock]

Ok. Thanks for the help, I will probably resort to that then.

Thanks Again