Unstable Spoiler Axis with Add Ons (FSX)

[stopnicki]

Hello everybody:

I post this here, hoping to be directed in the right heading.

I have a very unstable (jittery) spoiler axis when using an add on such as LevelD B767 and/or the new PMDG B737-NGx.

At the start of a simulation session, the spoiler lever on my USB CH Throttle Quadrant is "forward". On the aircraft's throttle quadrant, the lever will also be "forward" and the spoilers (on the wings) stowed.

As soon as I move the spoiler lever on the CH Quadrant, the lever on the aircraft's panel will start to behave strangely, wherein it will jump from position to position or jiggle/jitter. The spoilers on the wings, unfortunately, follow suit and do exactly the same thing. If I lower the CH Quadrant lever completely, to raise the spoilers, they will raise and then, uncommanded, they will return to the closed position, then back to open, hesitating and jittering along the way. If I try to close them, the reverse occurs, etc. etc.

I have changed the axis to another lever on the CH Quadrant, just to see if I can try to eliminate an obvious hardware issue with the CH Quadrant, but the same behaviour happens on the aircraft's panel.

I have calibrated via the FSX controls and I have also calibrated via FSUIPC. The axis during the calibrations is nice and stable. All other controls, throttles, flaps and some asssigned buttons on the CH Quadrant, work OK. It is only the spoiler control that gives me problems.

This does not happen at all with the default B737 or B747 of FSX.

The system is as follows:

Windows 7 i7 - 64bit

FSUIPC 4.719

FSX - Acceleration

Level D - B767 X (I have had it for a while, with the issue, but I "lived" with it)

New PMDG B737-NGX (the issue is more pronounced with larger variations and jitters)

Several Go Flight modules, but none related to the throttle quadrant.

As usual, any help and advice is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Roberto

[Bob Church]

Hi stopnicki,

It sounds like you've got conflicting assignments, two or more axes, each from different controllers, assigned to the spoilers. The CH TQ (if you're using the CH drivers) won't send a report until you move it, so it's out of the equation initially and whatever else might be assigned is in control. As soon as you move the TQ, it sends a report. After that it and the other axis or axes that are assigned to the spoilers will start fighting for control. FS will see an input from any controller that has been assigned and just takes the data that the last one sent, so if on of the axes bobbles by as little as one count in raw data, FS will accept that value. If the TQ then moves or just bobbles, FS moves to used it's value and it just goes back and forth.

Open whatever you're using to assign the controllers to axes, FS or FSUIPC, and look at the axis assignments for all the controllers. Make sure that only one controller (the TQ presumably) is the only one with the spoilers assigned to it. Clear any others and see if things improve.

Best regards,

- Bob

The StickWorks

http://www.stickworks.com

[stopnicki]

Hi stopnicki,

It sounds like you've got conflicting assignments, two or more axes, each from different controllers, assigned to the spoilers. The CH TQ (if you're using the CH drivers) won't send a report until you move it, so it's out of the equation initially and whatever else might be assigned is in control. As soon as you move the TQ, it sends a report. After that it and the other axis or axes that are assigned to the spoilers will start fighting for control. FS will see an input from any controller that has been assigned and just takes the data that the last one sent, so if on of the axes bobbles by as little as one count in raw data, FS will accept that value. If the TQ then moves or just bobbles, FS moves to used it's value and it just goes back and forth.

Open whatever you're using to assign the controllers to axes, FS or FSUIPC, and look at the axis assignments for all the controllers. Make sure that only one controller (the TQ presumably) is the only one with the spoilers assigned to it. Clear any others and see if things improve.

Best regards,

- Bob

The StickWorks

http://www.stickworks.com

[stopnicki]

Hi Bob:

Thanks for the advice. I checked all joysticks (Saitek Pedals, Saitek Yoke and the CH Throttle Quadrant) and I ensured that only the CH yoke has the spoilers axis assigned.

I also deleted the keybooard "spoiles arm" and "spoilers" key assignments, so that, as far as I can ascertain, only the CH Throttle Quadrant was assigned to the spoiler axis.

I assign the axes, through the FSX assignments page.

I also went back to FSUIPC and I realized that I hadn't assigned an "arm" middle point in the spoiler page settings. I did that.

After this assignment (max, middle and min), an entire (albeit short) flight looked very very promising as the spoilers truly behaved.

Until I landed, put them up to slow down (which they did) and as I tried to stow them, the problem started again. The jittering has stopped, but when I get to the fully closed position on the CH Quadrant lever, the spoilers hesitate and then reopen (go up) fully, without me doing anything.

I will continue to search for the offending "other" assignment, but if you have another thought, please let me know.

Ragards and thanks again.

Roberto

[Bob Church]

Hi Roberto,

Okay, so maybe some progress. Do you have the CH Control Manager Drivers installed (it doesn't matter whether you're actually using a map or not) or are you using the standard Windows drivers? Also, when you talk about the "fully closed position" do you mean that the lever is pushed fully forward or pulled fully back? When you calibrated, were you trying to line the "middle" up with the detent near the fully-back lever position?

Best regards,

- Bob

The StickWorks

http://www.stickworks.com

[stopnicki]

Hi Bob:

I don't have the CH Manager installed, as I have been unable to understand its use :roll: :oops: showing my age, my lack of computer savvy and being a great source of entertainment for my kids.

I did not download a specific driver for the CH Quadrant, as (with formerly FS9 and now FSX), Windows appeared to do a good job in determining what it needed to run the hardware.

"Fully closed" spoilers (or fully down) is "fully forward" on the lever. I added the "arm" setting in FSUIPC, about 1/3 down from the "fully closed/forward" lever position.

Just to try and describe it again, after the first movement of the spoiler lever (say fully back for "spoilers up"), and when the anomaly starts, I have to slowly move the lever back to find a random point, where the spoilers remain down. When that happens, the lever is close to the "fully forward" position, but at a random point. If I were to push the lever to the "full forward" position, the spoilers would close and after a very shor hesitation, raise fully again, without me moving the CH Quadrant lever. The lever on the FSX panel however, is moving as randomly as the spoilers on the wing (I guess it is commanding the random movements)

Thanks for your help!!

Many regards,

Roberto

[Bob Church]

Hi Roberto,

>> I don't have the CH Manager installed, as I have been unable to understand its use - showing my age, my lack of computer savvy and being a great source of entertainment for my kids. <<

Okay. You don't really need it, and even if you install it, you don't need to use a map. It just fills in for one of the Windows drivers when the TQ is used (the other controllers still go through the normal Windows drivers), otherwise (without a map) it's essentially transparent.

>> I did not download a specific driver for the CH Quadrant, as (with formerly FS9 and now FSX), Windows appeared to do a good job in determining what it needed to run the hardware. <<

Windows does fine, it just detects it as a standard "HID-compliant game controller". There's not much difference with the TQ except that there is very little change in the raw axis value between the detent and fully back. With the CM drivers in place, you can set it to produce a larger numeric difference between detent and fully back, which is usually where people run into instability, and you have to widen that gap to get analog reverse thrust with FSUIPC. I think you can probably get the same effect with FSUIPC itself when you calibrate center, though I've never really tried that.

In any case your problem seems to be associated more with the fully forward position though so it wouldn't make a difference as it is.

>> "Fully closed" spoilers (or fully down) is "fully forward" on the lever. I added the "arm" setting in FSUIPC, about 1/3 down from the "fully closed/forward" lever position.

Just to try and describe it again, after the first movement of the spoiler lever (say fully back for "spoilers up"), and when the anomaly starts, I have to slowly move the lever back to find a random point, where the spoilers remain down. When that happens, the lever is close to the "fully forward" position, but at a random point. If I were to push the lever to the "full forward" position, the spoilers would close and after a very shor hesitation, raise fully again, without me moving the CH Quadrant lever. The lever on the FSX panel however, is moving as randomly as the spoilers on the wing (I guess it is commanding the random movements) <<

Would it make any sense to invert the axis so that "spoilers up" was at the fully forward position and "spoilers down" at fully back? Where you "move the lever back...close to the fully forward" position", that would invert and the position would be close to the back, you might calibrate it to align with the detent then and if the jump back to fully open is being caused because the axis was bobbling a count or two, and the addon, FS, or FSUIPC was responding to that, I'd think would just jump to fully closed which is where it is anyway. Just guessing, but that "arming" thing is probably a programmed sequence whose final action is to close the spoilers. It would expect the high raw data value (fully back) to produce full open (or closed) and the low data value (fully forward) to produce the full closed (or open) position. Maybe that final event is what's popping them open?

Best regards,

- Bob

The StickWorks

http://www.stickworks.com

[stopnicki]

Hi Bob:

Thanks for sticking with this on a Sunday!

It has stopped raining here in Toronto and I have run out of excuses to stay home.

I will attempt your suggestions tonight upon our return home.

What I fail to understand (other than understanding that add-ons like PMDG and Level D are extremely complicated) is why the spoilers work absolutely fine with the default aircraft. I should have mentioned that in FS9, on the same computer, the spoilers worked OK with sophisticated add-ons like PMDG and Level D.

I also want to try to remove completely the joystick from the spoilers and operate them via the keyboard and see if that shows an anomaly or not.

Thanks again.

Regards,

Roberto

[stopnicki]

Hello again Bob.

I am not sure if this is an "AHA!" moment but it surely should help to isolate the CH Quadrant as the culprit form FSX.

When I disable the joystick lever assignment and replace it with the standard keyboard commands for "arm" (shift + /) and "raise/lower" (/)the spoilers, these, operate rock solid.

Still have to try your suggestion to reverse the lever commands (although it would be soooo not real :rolleyes: )

Regards,

Roberto

[Bob Church]

Hi Roberto,

>> Thanks for sticking with this on a Sunday! <<

You're quite welcome!

>> What I fail to understand (other than understanding that add-ons like PMDG and Level D are extremely complicated) is why the spoilers work absolutely fine with the default aircraft. I should have mentioned that in FS9, on the same computer, the spoilers worked OK with sophisticated add-ons like PMDG and Level D. <<

You'd think the "blame" would lie with the add-on manufacturer. FS, just because of the way it deals with axes and things, defines a "standard" that it expects from peripherals and the add-on should try to match that. But then what you changed going from FS9 to FSX is FS itself, and there are some differences in the input systems between the two versions, so "it's MS' fault". The input system did change over those versions.

I think it's really hard to blame either side, it's just pretty much as it's been since I first ran FS back in the '80s. You take the sim, whatever tools you can get (FSUIPC, etc) and you fiddle with it until you find an acceptable solution. Or you find someone that knows how already. :) I'd guess it will be that way until MS forces us all to use XBox pads.

I'd "blame" MS, they made the change in FS. The "standard" MS defined in FS9, if as you say it works there, isn't the same as the one in FSX. It's a moving target. Help from MS is unlikely. The add-on producer might help, but then he has to spend valuable programming resources making changes for existing customers when he would likely be happier doing something new. The TQ does nothing different (obviously). The add-on does nothing different (probably). About all that's left is the FS version, and MS is usually an acceptable "them" to blame anyway. :)

WRT to the keys working, are you only looking for two positions or is the analog control a benefit. If there are keys that will activate it, you should be able to assign buttons and maybe move it back to the controllers, though the axes would be out unless FSUIPC allows axes to send characters now, or you wanted to install something like "AutoHotkey" and use that. The Control Manager could do it, too, but it's a lot of trouble for two buttons. It still wouldn't be analog though.

If you get a chance to play around with the axis reversal, let me know what you find out!

Best regards,

- Bob

The StickWorks

http://www.stickworks.com