Custom joystick with FSUIPC

[becca23]

I'm working on a project that is interfacing a cockpit with Microsoft Flight Simulator. We want to use the existing stick and throttle as the controls for the flight simulator using some hardware and a microcontroller. Can FSUIPC be used to input joystick type data to Microsoft Flight simulator?

[Pete Dowson]

ICan FSUIPC be used to input joystick type data to Microsoft Flight simulator?

If FSUIPC can read the joystick data through the standard Windows interface, like axis positions and button or switch pressings, then of course. Please just download the documentation and have a browse.

Pete

[becca23]

Yes, I read about using the axis callibration, I think perhaps I'm speaking of the FSUIPC SDK. The joystick we would be creating would not be a typical USB joystick that would be recognized by windows. Suppose we were to build a throttle device that would send the throttle position over a TCP connection to a listening program. Could this program use the FSUIPC SDK to send the throttle data to MS Flight Simulator?

[Pete Dowson]

The joystick we would be creating would not be a typical USB joystick that would be recognized by windows.

You'd need to write a driver to handle it, then.

Suppose we were to build a throttle device that would send the throttle position over a TCP connection to a listening program. Could this program use the FSUIPC SDK to send the throttle data to MS Flight Simulator?

Yes, certainly.

It might not even be that complicated. The Lua plug-in facilities in FSUIPC provide full Windows socket support, courtesy of the built-in LuaSocket package. Please check out the examples provided, especially the one linking to copies of FS together, one as Master the other as Slave, all via two quite simple short Lua programs.

The program you write, whether a Lua plug-in or a fully-fledged external interface program, does not have to manipulate offset values for throttle or other data, though that is one way. It could send the actual FS controls, effectively emulating an assigned joystick. However, if you want to be able to use FSUIPC calibration and other manipulating facilities, there are specific offsets which you can write to which are simply treated as assignable axes by FSUIPC and would therefore get treated just as if the values were being polled via the Windows joystick interface.

I can give you more advice when you've had a look and think and determined which way you want to go.

Regards

Pete