Dodo sim fsx and annunciator lamps

[DodoHeli]

Hi, I am building dual control heli sim based on dodosim and using CAN bus technology linked to excellent fsuipc dll. I need to find offsets for the annunciator panel lamps among other things. Does anyone have experience of dodosim offsets or of probing for changes in order to find them? 

 

[Paul Henty]

HI,

I doubt Dodosim helos have specific offsets of their own; if they did they would be documented. If they use the normal Flight Sim mechanics for a particular system then you just use the normal offsets.

If they use their own internal code to model the systems (which a lot of third-party aircraft do) then your options are limited, especially if there is no SDK from the authors. It may be impossible to get the information from FSUIPC.

If you want to view many offsets values at once to see what is changing you can download the FSUIPC SDK and use the program called 'FSInterrogate2std.exe'.

Other possibilities are as follows:

Events/Controls

For controlling actions, the aircraft might use custom events (aka Controls), or make use of an unused built-in event. These can be found by using the logging facilities in FSUIPC. Select the Logging tab and check the box for Events (non-axis controls). Also check the box to "Send to console window". Then operate the control in the aircraft. If it uses an event its number will be logged in the console window. You can use this from FSUIPC directly, or via the DLL, but only for control - you can't 'listen' for these events.

LVARS (Local Panel Variables)

Many aircraft store data in local panel variables. To see what it available for your aircraft:

Go to FSUIPC and assign a key press or joystick button to the control "List Local Panel Vars". Make sure the console logging is enabled (see above), go back to the aircraft and press the button/key. A list of LVAR names will be listed in the console. If any look useful you can use these from LUA or the DLL. (See FSUIPCConnection.ReadLVAR())

Program your own logic

Simple example: If it's impossible to get the status for a low oil pressure warning light, you might be able to monitor the oil pressure using the normal offsets and use that information to light the warning lamp when it falls below a particular value.

Paul 

[DodoHeli]

Excellent,  many thanks Paul, and thank you for the amazing effort you must have put into your dll and docs. I am writing a separate windows program to interface to fsx so that when helicopters become stable in fs2020 I can port it easily without affecting the CAN software already written.

Regards Phil