Radar Altimeter/Altitude

[Filipe Bessa]

Good Day,

 

I'm building my Seneca V panel and I have managed to configure quite a lot of commands, including the engines switches, lights, rotary encoders to change altitude QNH, heading bug, vor1 and 2, etc. All works nicely turning 10 degrees every click of the rotary encoder after some adjustments in the buttonrepeat and pollInterval.

One last instrument to configure is the Radar Altimeter/Altitude. I'm using a software to emulate the gauges and they respond FSX/PD3 nicely, however I can't find any offset or command to turn the knob on this instrument by using the last rotary encoder I have. I've searched the "FSUIPC4 Offsets Status" and "List of FSX and P3D controls" documents, but I can't find anything related to that. Also searched on google, but can't find anything consistent.

 

Any chance anyone have gone through this before?

 

Appreciate any help.

 

Cheers,

Filipe Bessa

 

[Pete Dowson]

One last instrument to configure is the Radar Altimeter/Altitude. I'm using a software to emulate the gauges and they respond FSX/PD3 nicely, however I can't find any offset or command to turn the knob on this instrument by using the last rotary encoder I have. I've searched the "FSUIPC4 Offsets Status" and "List of FSX and P3D controls" documents, but I can't find anything related to that. Also searched on google, but can't find anything consistent.

 

Do you mean setting the Decision Height (DH)?  Or is that orange bug something else? If so it is proobably local to the gauge.

 

For the DH all you needed to do was search the list of FS controls, installed in your FSUIPC documents folder, for "Decision", as I just did, and it would find these two:

 

INCREASE_DECISION_HEIGHT

DECREASE_DECISION_HEIGHT

 

Another way to find FS controls is to enable Event logging in FSUIPC, use the switches on the FS cockpit, and check the log.

 

Pete

[Filipe Bessa]

Hi Pete,

 

Thank you very much for the very quick reply and sorry I was looking at the wrong thing in the documents. For some reason decision height didn't come up in my mind so didn't use it in the search string.

I've managed to map it and make it work in the rotary encoder. 

 

By the way, the hint about the logging is awesome. There are a few switches in the Seneca V which I couldn't map, this will help me quite a lot.

 

Thanks again.

 

Have a great weekend.

 

Cheers,

Filipe Bessa

[Filipe Bessa]

Hello Pete,

 

A further help please. I've set the debug mode in FSUIPC on the attempt to catch the command sent to change an engine system instrument on a Carena Seneca V airplane. I click on the virtual cockpit panel, but this instrument doesn't log the command, although it does for other instruments like DME. 
Have seen experienced this before? 

Thanks,

Filipe

[Pete Dowson]

A further help please. I've set the debug mode in FSUIPC on the attempt to catch the command sent to change an engine system instrument on a Carena Seneca V airplane. I click on the virtual cockpit panel, but this instrument doesn't log the command, although it does for other instruments like DME. 

Have seen experienced this before? 

 

By "debug mode" do you mean Event logging?

 

What engine system function are you trying to change? Many individual gauges on both default and add-on aircraft do't use FS events. The switches are programmed only internally, in the gauges themselves. For those you may hsve to either use Mouse Macros or Local panel variables (L:Vars). Mouse macros don't work on a lot of recent add-on aircraft because they are not written in C/C++ using the Microsoft gauge SDK. L:Vars are quite commonly used on gauges written in XML.

 

It is also possible that there is no way to operate switches without using a mouse.

 

Pete

[Filipe Bessa]

Hi Pete,

 

Thanks again for your quick reply.

Yes. the Event Logging in FSUIPC. 

It is the DDMP (Digital Display Monitoring Panel) on a Carenado Seneca V. This instrument shows engines readings, like rpm, temperature, fuel, etc. The switch button changes the display showing different groups of readings (attachment). This Carenado airplane only shows virtual cockpit. 

Sorry for the dummy question, but how would this Mouse Macro or Local panel variables work? 

It's most likely that it is not possible to change it without using mouse as you said. I'm building this instrument using AirManager software, which connects to FSX and read the events. It is not ideal, but I was thinking to use a switch event that will not be used on this airplane. Not sure if this will work but I just need an event to assign to a function and use the switch button to shift between the various functions, which will be the groups that I want to show on the instrument each time.

 

 

Thanks,

Filipe

[Pete Dowson]

It is the DDMP (Digital Display Monitoring Panel) on a Carenado Seneca V. This instrument shows engines readings, like rpm, temperature, fuel, etc. The switch button changes the display showing different groups of readings (attachment). This Carenado airplane only shows virtual cockpit. 

 

That is almost certainly only implemented locally to the gauge.  There'd be no FS control for it as it isn't implemented in FS, only in the gauge.

 

Sorry for the dummy question, but how would this Mouse Macro or Local panel variables work? 

 

Mouse macros work by calling the internal code of the gauge directly. There is documentation on how to create these -- see your FSUIPC User Guide and Advanced Users guide. If you browse the User Contributions subforum you'll see lots of folks using these, but they don't apply to all add-ons -- less and less these days.

 

Local panel variables work inside local panels, or gauges. They are named variables used by the code in the gauge. If you can find the name which stores the state of the switch you may be able to program a button or key to  write values to it using a macro. Again, it's all in the documentation. You can list the local panel variables using an assigned FSUIPC control, and you can log them to screen as they change using one of the supplied Lua plug-ins.

 

Pete

[Filipe Bessa]

Thanks Pete.
I'll have a look at the documentation and see how it goes.

Have a great week.

 

Cheers,

Filipe