This may be backwards way to go but i wanted to start with the hardest first. Can anyone help with some tips or explanation on how I get FSX to 'talk to the motors . I cant see any problem with metal fabrication which I enjoy but do I use the epic board ? I followed a link to classicsim and they had what I assumed was another way to go, some other boards with their own software? As I am in australia I guess I need to purchase this europe or states. Any pros and cons appreciated.thanks, Mike.

Hi Mike, For FSX I have not yet seen motion utilities. I suggest you check with the simconnect forum. FS9 has some utilities that can be used for motion drive. Below some links of motion builders that should get you going: http://www.jimspage.co.nz/intro.htmlhttp://digilander.libero.it/tornadoblu5/index1.htmhttp://homepages.woosh.co.nz/cwarner/flightsim.htmhttp://www.classicsim.com/http://www.simprojects.nl/motion_platform.htmRoland

Thankyou for responding. I reposted in simconnect. I was curious by your statement about 'not seen motion utilities for FSX'. I thought it was a mater of getting anysoftware you had to work with something like the EPIC card ? In any case its early days and I thank you for your reply.mike.

Poll offsets in FSUIPC for the values related to the plane's yaw, pitch and roll velocities and accelerations. Then these values need to be sent to a controller of some-sort, be it a PC based motion controller card or a stand-alone controller that can process the output from the PC running FS and command the connected motors to move accordingly.Motion is a major topic to "wrap" one's head around when it comes to home based motion for a simulator. Obviously if money weren't such a factor it would be easier, albeit still a challenge, to create a motion platform from commercially (sp?) based products that would be up to hanlding the tasks. Things to consider are update speeds and bandwidth of the control system.Like the saying goes in the industry, anything is possible with time and money. If you want more information or would like to discuss this topic more in depth I would love to. Motion is part of what I do for a living. My brain is just full of awesome ideas for the home cockpit community but it all comes down to money. The controllers I work with on a day by day basis would be awesome for home cockpit builders but the expense just doesn't make it feasible.For a side note I have been considering ideas such as yours and I have been working on an application level protocol that "rides" on TCP that interfaces with FS. So what I am saying is there will be a client, a black box, that can connect to a computer running FS and it will communicate with the server (FS comptuer) via Ethernet and can exchange variables and data and whatever. It's a bit like FS Communicator but the protocol is open on the end of the client. You could feasible hook-up a Mac on the network and extract info from the FS computer. So what does this mean, I guess not much, but for companies that build hardware modules, like Go Flight, could possible use a tool like this as an option to USB for communications. So there's an ear full I guess..... More questions, let me know.Art

Art, You're quite right about update speed and system bandwidth. With the help of another programmer we have done some experiments with FS9 and a homebuild electric servo driven platform. Currently only pitch and roll, heave is in development phase. Even with the severe compromise of only pitch and roll platform, some nice effects are possible, but FS9 together with a very fast DLL that communicates with another PC, FS9 can at the most give you update speed of 45msec. As far as I know, FSUIPC can give you updates at best around 100msec. So software averaging and other tricks are severely limited. Nevertheless motion with FS is a fantastic tinkering project.Roland

Roland,>> FS9 can at the most give you update speed of 45msecI am not sure I understand what the limitation is for the update rate nor the limitation for FSUIPC? Will you explain how you arrived at these numbers? Just curious, that's all.Thanks,Art

Here's some info from the programmer of the portdrv utility that I'm using: "The portdrv utility is directly linked to the update cycle of FS;It pulls the variables directly from the engine and sends them immediately to the serial port. A hardware serial receiver will then receive the data and directly drive the electric servo" FS cycle seems to be about 45msec. Concerning FSUIPC I got some feedback from people using it for motion and they got stuck around 100msec. Don't know the details, sorry.Roland