VR Insight M panel programming

[jimwilson3]

Hi I have just installed FSUIPC 4.60a because I wanted to use the new VRInsight programming funtionality for my M panel. I downloaded, installed and purchased a key for VSPE as suggested, as I am running FSX on Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit . I followed the instructions regarding setting up the virtual ports and this seems to have worked OK. When I start FSX and watch the logging panel everything seems to start up nicely, the Mpanel is recognised and all the VRI CMDRST CMDCON etc lines appear as described.

The problem comes when I try to program the buttons and knob in the FSUIPC buttons tab. Some of the buttons are recognised e.g. flap, gear,and rotary dial, but others such as the 5 buttons to the left of the Mpane e.g.l hdg speed etc are not recognised. That is to say although they appear in the logging panel when pressed with their description, they do not appear in the button programming window in FSUIPC, so I cannot asign them. I hope this makes sense.

Any suggestions to make this work greatly appreciated

Many thanks Jim Wilson

[Pete Dowson]

The problem comes when I try to program the buttons and knob in the FSUIPC buttons tab. Some of the buttons are recognised e.g. flap, gear,and rotary dial, but others such as the 5 buttons to the left of the Mpane e.g.l hdg speed etc are not recognised. That is to say although they appear in the logging panel when pressed with their description, they do not appear in the button programming window in FSUIPC, so I cannot asign them. I hope this makes sense.

I just received my M-Panel yesterday so I'll be looking at this today or tomorrow, but if I recall what happens correctly from the logs I've seen from Andy, those buttons do different things according to your selection on the little joystick. Of all the possible inputs I omitted the radio setting facilities because they are really best left the way they are.

If you tell me which button modes and what the log shows for the buttons, for those you wish to re-program, I can check. Maybe I've not put them all in yet. If not that is easily rectified. There would be about 20 different inputs from 5 buttons, but probably no inputs till you've chosen a mode.

Regards

Pete

[Pete Dowson]

I just received my M-Panel yesterday so I'll be looking at this today or tomorrow

Okay, I've looked at this and there are a few problems I can see.

First is that the mode changing joystick needs to be allowed to talk to the SerialFP2 driver even in FSUIPC's Buttons & Switches programming tab. Otherwise it doesn't get the instruction to change modes, and this prevents the new button assignments working. In the current FSUIPC implementation you have to select the mode first, before going into FSUIPC options. I'll change that.

Then there are 4 modes: AP/C, AP/M, USR and RADIO.

RADIO is left alone by FSUIPC, for reasons I already gave.

AP/C mode needs some fixing. The buttons don't send messages in this mode in any case, they just sleect the control value to be changed. But the white button should be programmable ("BARHOLD" is missing), and the adjuster knob isn't right for "VVS" or "BAR". For those it is only recognised as one button. For the others ("ALT", "SPD" and "HDG" it's okay -- 4 buttons, two in each direction, fast and slow.

AP/M mode has "APMAT" not recognised, nor "APMMST" (the white button). Also the knob should be 4 buttons and it isn't, its only one.

USR mode had the Knob only seen as one button, not 4, and none of the other buttons are seen.

I'll fix all this in an interim update later today. (It is much easier sorting these things out with the unit actually here -- before now I was trying to do it by interpreting logs from others, mainly Andy (thanks Andy)).

Regards

Pete

[jimwilson3]

Hi Pete

Thanks for looking into this for us m panel users. Basically the only buttons and knobs recognised on my m panel seem to be the flap and gear switches, the rotary knob and the little joystick selector. I'll wait for your update and try again. Many thanks Jim

[Pete Dowson]

Thanks for looking into this for us m panel users. Basically the only buttons and knobs recognised on my m panel seem to be the flap and gear switches, the rotary knob and the little joystick selector.

The joystick selector should not be recognised. That's the main problem. Currently you have to use it only to select the mode you want to program BEFORE going into FSUIPC options. Anyway, best to wait as some of the button numbers in FSUIPC will need to change.

Regards

Pete

[Pete Dowson]

I'll wait for your update and try again. Many thanks Jim

Okay. The updates are now available in the Updates and other Goodies Announcement: 3.981 and 4.601.

Regards

Pete

[Andydigital]

You are so fast Pete it's unbelievable at times :lol:

[jimwilson3]

Hi Pete

Major progress thanks Pete. Started to reprogram my M panel and so far so good.

I mainly use Wilco Airbus Series 2 to practice for my simulator checks as I fly Airbus 340's for a living. As you are no doubt aware the Airbus aircraft have a Track/FPA mode which is great for flying VOR approaches. I have assigned one of the keys on my M Panel to toggle between HDG/VS mode and Track/FPA mode which works fine. In HDG/VS mode I can adjust the Selected Heading bug using the rotary knob on the M PANEL. However once I toggle to Track/FPA the bug (which I guess is now a selected track bug) no longer moves. Is there any way I can program the M panel to adjust the selected heading bug when in HDG mode and the selected TRK when in track mode?

Cheers again Jim Wilson

[Andydigital]

Are you using mouse macro's?

I'm totally unfamiliar with Airbus aircraft so I don't know how it works, but does HDG mode and Track/FPA mode share the same selector dial to adjust the bug? if so then you need to create macro's for the selector dial in both modes, so you would end up assigning 4 macro's (inc+/dec- X2) for the one selector dial on the Airbus panel presuming that HDG mode and Track/FPA are just 2 different modes. If a single dial was to work with 3 modes you would need to create 6 macros for it, and so on.

Hope that makes sense.

[jimwilson3]

Hi Andy thanks for the reply

Yes I have just been trying to create some macros and am making some progress. However I am now having problems with "cross talk" between heading speed alt modes. I select heading to adjust for example and as I turn the rotary knob the heading bug moves initially. Then for some bizarre reason the speed starts to adjust (or the altitude!) this can happen in reverse! All very confusing! Perhaps Pete could see if his panel reacts in the same way?

Cheers Jim

[Pete Dowson]

Yes I have just been trying to create some macros and am making some progress. However I am now having problems with "cross talk" between heading speed alt modes. I select heading to adjust for example and as I turn the rotary knob the heading bug moves initially. Then for some bizarre reason the speed starts to adjust (or the altitude!) this can happen in reverse! All very confusing! Perhaps Pete could see if his panel reacts in the same way?

Sorry, I don't have any Airbus add-ons to test with. I doubt that the M-Panel itself is doing anything wrong, it is most likely the SerialFP2 programming for add-on panels, using keystrokes probably, which is getting confused by what you are doing.

If you've re-programmed M-Panel actions in FSUIPC they should not reach Serial FP2, so then you would be okay assigning your own actions and programming different actions for different settings (via conditional button actions). But don't forget that the dial on the M-Panel sends different codes, and therefore does different things with SerialFP2, depending on your selection there, on that panel.

The logging in FSUIPC should help you untangle what you are doing.

Pete

[jimwilson3]

Do you think it would help to delete any keystroke programming in Serial FP2 itself? think I might try that because I'm pretty sure my macros are good in FSUIPC

Thanks for you swift replys Pete. Wish all tech support was up to your standard!

Cheers Jim

[Pete Dowson]

Do you think it would help to delete any keystroke programming in Serial FP2 itself? think I might try that because I'm pretty sure my macros are good in FSUIPC

I don't know. Are they being invoked? You can use FSUIPC's Key and Button logging to check exactly what is going on -- it logs keypresses arriving in FS no matter who sends them.

If you run FSX in Windowed mode (just whilst testing) and enable FSUIPC4's console log, you can see the stuff being logged in real time. That should soon help work it out.

Regards

Pete

[Andydigital]

I think this is actually down to the aircraft causing a problem, as I see a similar effect in the new Feelthere ERJ V2. I believe Feelthere had something to do with making the Airbus too, although I could be wrong. I think it is down to the way the custom autopilot system works in these aircraft and the way that they can hold a constant speed or VS in the climb and descent. They hold the speed for example by constantly varying the VS speed and you can see this constantly changing on the M-panel VS display and SerialFP2 doesn't like it and gets confused.

You can probably confirm this for yourself by trying it with another aircraft that doesn't have the same type of custom autopilot, you will probably find that it works perfectly in other aircraft, this problem only appears with the M-panel because of its multi use single dial, there is no such problem when using the MCP Combo.

[jimwilson3]

Cheers Andy

It seems that the selected values are being overidden somehow by serial fp2. ie you select vs -700 fpm but then serial fp2 seems to send back the aircrafts actual VS which then becomes the new selected value. I can see this happening in the log. Oh well I may just have to get an MCP pro or even the CP Flight FCU. Although thats a pricey option

cheers Jim

[Pete Dowson]

It seems that the selected values are being overidden somehow by serial fp2. ie you select vs -700 fpm but then serial fp2 seems to send back the aircrafts actual VS which then becomes the new selected value. I can see this happening in the log.

Try first just filtering it off. What does it look like? "VVS+nnn" or similar? Are you using the M-Panel SetBaro plug-in I provided? If so you could add "VVS" as

WrFilter.2=VVS?

in the [VRInsight.MPanl] section of the FSUIPC INI file. See the example data in the Lua documentation.

I'm sure there's a way around it, even if you have to program the Vertical Speed adjustment yourself in the Lua plug-in. I can help with that, but at present I am not sure I understand what is going wrong.

Regards

Pete