Level D 767

[mounty]

Hi Pete,

I am having a problem with the Level D 767. I am trying to use a Go Flight RP 48 to set up the MCP and EFIS, thro FSUIPC. I have done this with the PMDG 737 & 747 - no problems. However with the Level D, the rotaries tend to jump around all over the place and the numbers will suddenly jump by 10 or 20 on the heading or 100-500 feet on the altitude. I am using the Leve d key commands and setting them to both the fast and slow speeds of the rotaries. Any thoughts or is this a level D issue?

Many Thanks

Rob

[Pete Dowson]

Hi Pete,

I am having a problem with the Level D 767. I am trying to use a Go Flight RP 48 to set up the MCP and EFIS, thro FSUIPC. I have done this with the PMDG 737 & 747 - no problems. However with the Level D, the rotaries tend to jump around all over the place and the numbers will suddenly jump by 10 or 20 on the heading or 100-500 feet on the altitude. I am using the Leve d key commands and setting them to both the fast and slow speeds of the rotaries. Any thoughts or is this a level D issue?

Sorry, no idea. But isn't the Level D well catered for by virtue of a good SDK and software support from Nico Kaan? See http://www.lekseecon.nl/lekseecon.html. I would strongly advise doing things properly wherever possible, as it is here, and certainly rather than resorting to keystrokes which are always a pain. I wouldn't be surprised if the keystroke problem isn't simply due to message queues building up in FS -- airliners such as this sometimes use hundreds of messages per second all on their own! (You can probably see some by enabling FSUIPC's event logging).

Regards

Pete

[mounty]

Hi Pete,

Thanks for you help.

The Level D has an interface as you mentioned and there are offsets for the rotaries. However I'm having a problem in setting these offsets. The lekseecon id's are 296, 297, 298, 299 for the IAS, Hdg, Vs, and Alt. and the offsets identified are

0x8b1b for the IAS, 0x8b1c for the Hdg, 0x8b20 for the VS, and 0x8b24 for the Alt. I am unsure of how to set these in the FSUIPC drop down menu as they are rotaries on the GF RP48. Can you advise me how to do this, I looked in the users manuals but couldn't find examples of the GF rotaries.

Many Thanks

Rob

[Pete Dowson]

The Level D has an interface as you mentioned and there are offsets for the rotaries. However I'm having a problem in setting these offsets. The lekseecon id's are 296, 297, 298, 299 for the IAS, Hdg, Vs, and Alt. and the offsets identified are

0x8b1b for the IAS, 0x8b1c for the Hdg, 0x8b20 for the VS, and 0x8b24 for the Alt. I am unsure of how to set these in the FSUIPC drop down menu as they are rotaries on the GF RP48. Can you advise me how to do this, I looked in the users manuals but couldn't find examples of the GF rotaries.

You simply assign the button numbers produced by the rotaries (there will be 4 for each -- fast and slow in each direction, exactly as documented in the FSUIPC documentation). Assign to the appropriate Offset controls -- there are offset increment and decrement controls for different types of values, and cyclic ones for things like the heading. I cannot advise more specifically because I do not know the details of the offsets you mention. They are private to LekSeeCon, so not part of my documentation.

Have you tried LekSeeCon support, or documentation?

Regards

Pete

[kiek]

Hi Pete (and Rob),

Rob has to check the Manual of the GoFlights FSConfig software to find out how he can assign FSUIPC offsets to his rotaries. I do not know the RP48 but I doubt it will be possible to let the rotaries generate values between 0 and 359 for the MCP HDG offset. That's what my leksecon FSUIPC offset for MCP HDG requires...

best regards,

Nico Kaan

[Pete Dowson]

Rob has to check the Manual of the GoFlights FSConfig software to find out how he can assign FSUIPC offsets to his rotaries. I do not know the RP48 but I doubt it will be possible to let the rotaries generate values between 0 and 359 for the MCP HDG offset. That's what my leksecon FSUIPC offset for MCP HDG requires...

Hi Nico.

I thought he was interested in using FSUIPC for this, as else he needs to go to the Goflight forum. FSUIPC doesn't use any GoFlight config software for basic button or switch assignments.

The RP48 rotaries are detected by FSUIPC as 4 buttons -- fast clockwise, slow clockwise, and the same counter clockwise. All he needs to do is assign those to appropriate FSUIPC Offset controls -- there are increment, decrement and cyclic inc/dec controls available for bytes, words and dwords. The cyclic controls have a limit parameter, which would be 360 for a heading. And the increment is also specifiable so he can have larger and small increments for fast and slow..

All he needs to know is what the offsets are and whether they are byte, word or dword.

Regards

Pete

[kiek]

Hi Pete,

I see, that's indeed the way forward, not via FSConfig, but with your powerful FSUIPC Offset controls.

The lekseecon offsets can be found in the Lekseecon Manual, 0x8b18 for the IAS, 0x8b1c for the Hdg, 0x8b20 for the VS, and 0x8b24 for the Alt, all 4 bytes.

(and do not forget to 'activate' lekseecon variables 296, 297, 298 and 299 in the CONFIG_FILE for lekseecon in FSUIPC Mode)

[mounty]

Hi Nico, All i need to know now is what type of offset to use. As Pete mentioned there are several different types of offsets. Also I set up the two files, ini and Mounty but I get an error message 31 when I run lekseecon - ini file not found. They are all in the same folder.

Thanks

Rob

[Pete Dowson]

Hi Nico, All i need to know now is what type of offset to use

Nico mentioned that:

0x8b18 for the IAS, 0x8b1c for the Hdg, 0x8b20 for the VS, and 0x8b24 for the Alt, all 4 bytes.

4 bytes = 4 x 8 = 32 bits = DWORD ("double word"). So you would use the Offset Dword controls when assigning.

Unfortunately, with their being no (or few) values in the original FSUIPC offsets with DWORD values needing increment and decrement facilities, there are currently no "Offset Dword Inc" or "Offset Dword dec" controls to assign to.

With the IAS you should be okay with Offset uword Increment and decrement, because, assuming it is in units of 1knot, you would never be using the high 16 bits. Same goes for Alt.

The heading can be manipulated by Offset word cyclic increment and decrement because it can run simply from 0 to 359 in any direction wrapping round at the limits. Again the top 16 bits won't be used.

The awkward one could be the VS, which, although can be fitted in to a word of 16 bits, is signed, and -1 in 16 bits is +65535 in 32. Maybe, with luck, Nico's program would treat a negative in the lower 16 bits as a correct 32 bit negative, and in that case you could still use Offset sword increment and decrement. If not let me know and I'll see if I can add sdword and udword inc and dec controls.

Regards

Pete

[mounty]

Hi Pete,

Thank you very much for the info. I will set that up. Really appreciate all your help

Rob

[mounty]

Hi Pete,

Entered the offsets as you suggested but found that when I went back inot FSUIPC, they were no longer there after turning the rotary. Am I fogetting something in the parameter? I have been using 4 for this column.

Thanks

Rob

[kiek]

Hi Pete/Rob,

Here are the definitions of the lekseecon read/write variables for the Level-D MCP. These variables are available at the 4 bytes offsets posted before.

Note that these variables are not only used to send rotarie values to the Level-D but they also receive information from the Level-D, for instance in case you change a heading or altitude with the mouse in the panel, or to give the Speed a value when a speed window "opens" or the VS a value when the VS window "opens" (with opens I mean that it goes from blank to a value).

So these variables can also be used to drive 7-segment displays in an MCP.

296 Vrw MCP IAS/Mach, range 100 to 950 Note: Mach values are given x 1000, so .802=802

297 Vrw MCP Heading in degrees, range 0 to 359

298 Vrw MCP VS, range -9900 to 9900

299 Vrw MCP Altitude in feet x100, range 0 to 640

Using word controls in stead of dword controls might work for ALT, HDG and SPD. Maybe you have to make sure that the upper 16 bit of the offsets are 0 by changing these values in the panel with your mouse, before you start using your rotaries, then lekseecon will initialize these values.

For VS it will not work i'm afraid. Lekseecon treats the 32 bit value as signed, not the 16 bit lower part.

regards,

Nico

[Pete Dowson]

Entered the offsets as you suggested but found that when I went back inot FSUIPC, they were no longer there after turning the rotary. Am I fogetting something in the parameter? I have been using 4 for this column.

Sorry, I am not clear about what you mean by "no longer there"? Do yuo mean you entered the details then exited the options dialogue, then went back and ... what, truned the rotaries again?

If you Cancel the assignments rather that press "OK" to confirm, then they certainly won't be saved. Pressing ESCape is the same as cancelling.

Not sure why you want '4' as the parameter. That would be the increment or decrement you want it to use. 4 is an unusual value for that -- folks usually want increments of 1 or 10, for instance. And you should to provide the limit value as well. Please do read this up in the User Guide. It's explained in a special boxed section in the Buttons chapter, about age 31 or so Search for "Offset Increment/Decrement Controls".

Regards

Pete

[Pete Dowson]

Using word controls in stead of dword controls might work for ALT, HDG and SPD. Maybe you have to make sure that the upper 16 bit of the offsets are 0 by changing these values in the panel with your mouse, before you start using your rotaries, then lekseecon will initialize these values.

The upper word could be set to zero by an Offset Word Set for the offset+2 with a zero paramter, assigned also to the same button value. That would mean editing the FSUIPC INI file to add a second assignment, but it is easy enough really. However:

For VS it will not work i'm afraid. Lekseecon treats the 32 bit value as signed, not the 16 bit lower part.

That's a bit of a shame as FSUIPC doesn't currently have 32-bit offset controls other than those for 32-bit Floats. There hasn't been a call for such till now.

I'll take a look at my code. If it's reasonably easy to add more offset controls I will do so, but I need to take care as all the add-on controls are encoded in 32-bits with bit-fields including 16 bits for the offset (all to fit in with the wParam, lParam provisions of the Windows message system).

Regards

Pete

[mounty]

Hi Pete,

I have used the formats you gave me and I find that the parameter remains the same when I go back into FSUIPC, but the Offset reads x0000. I have tried different types of offsets and all are the same - the parameters stay but the offset goes. Is this normal?

Thanks

Rob

[Pete Dowson]

I have used the formats you gave me and I find that the parameter remains the same when I go back into FSUIPC, but the Offset reads x0000. I have tried different types of offsets and all are the same - the parameters stay but the offset goes. Is this normal?

No, that would make no sense at all. You are entering something incorrectly. Tell me exactly what you are entering in each place.

Pete

[Pete Dowson]

I'll take a look at my code. If it's reasonably easy to add more offset controls I will do so

Okay ... turned out to be real easy. I'm adding these new controls:

Offset dword cyclic increment

Offset dword cyclic decrement

Offset udword increment

Offset udword decrement

Offset sdword increment

Offset sdword decrement

However, since there's only 16 bits each available for the increment value and the limit, the only use of the high 16-bits is to ensure it is zero (for positive numbers) or all ones (for negative numbers). So the range of numbers remains -32768 to +32767 for signed and 0 to 65535 for unsigned.

This change will be in updates I hope to post later (Monday), versions 4.749 and 3.998k

Regards

Pete

[mounty]

Hi Pete,

In the Offset window I enter 0x8b18 (for IAS) and in the parameter window I enter 100/950. After clicking on OK I close FSUIPC. When I reopen FSUIPC and turn the rotary, in the Offset window I get x0000 and in the parameter window I get 100/950. I have tried using different types of offsets but the same thing happens regardless of what type of offset is chosen.

Rob

[Pete Dowson]

In the Offset window I enter 0x8b18 (for IAS) and in the parameter window I enter 100/950. After clicking on OK I close FSUIPC. When I reopen FSUIPC and turn the rotary, in the Offset window I get x0000 and in the parameter window I get 100/950.

The explanation is simple The format for the offset is either x then the hex value, or a decimal value instead. Because you preceded the value with 0 that is the value seen. Please do check the documentation more carefully. FSUIPC uses a simply x prefix for hexadecimal to make it easier for users, rather than the 0x used only in C/C++ where the 0 is needed to distinguish it as a number rather than a name (In VB a $ prefix is used because it doesn't allow $ for names)

Note that 100/950 for the IAS will only allow you to set 0, 100, 200 , 300 ... 900 knots, which seems a little strange. I can understand an increment of 1 or 5, but 100?

Regards

Pete