I have been thinking of buying a EPIC usb ver. for sometime now,but I'm unclear as to what I need. I keep hearing of patches or addons by Peter Dowson to make EPIC run sounds like this thing won't run right out of the box can someone clear this up for me? What I plan to do with EPIC is basicaly simple stuff right now i.e. hook up toogle switches, momentary switches , and rotory switches with the occasional warning/indicator light. My OS is winXP/home, CH products throttle,joystick,and pedals I plan to run EPIC with Falcon 4.0 and FS 2002 any speical drivers or freeware utilities that are needed? Thanks Dave.

Let me try to explain.You don't need any add-on drivers/programs if you simply want to turn on/off the switches that can be defined in fs2002.cfg. You DO need a PC program if you want to turn on/off lights on your own device hooked to you EPIC. EPICINFO is a program which enables you to get data from Sim and send it to your EPIC. But EPICINFO doesn't support USB version at the moment so that you have to write a program to do this.I'm now writing a small program by using FSUIPC SDK and EPICIO SDK.Hope EPICINFO soon be ready for EPIC USB staff.Dan

Hi Dan,Thanks for replying to my post I'am learning quite quickly that this EPIC thing is very complicated it's not a take out of the box and go type of product. In your opinion if I were to buy a EPIC usb ver. and all that I were to do was hook up toogle,momentary,and rotory switches using winxp OS, I sould'nt really have any problems other than maybe programming issues? I really want something that will grow with me I'm using x-keys right now and it works fine ,but I keep finding myself wanting more an the EPIC keeps coming back as the thing to have.

Your view is correct.Some comments on rotary encoder.You do not have to have any aditional devices/circuits if you can get a pulse type rotary encoder. Pulse type rotary has two outputs. One for right turn, the other for left turn. But the problem is that it's very difficult to get. I have no idea how to get them.Two phase type rotary needs aditional device/circuit. You have several choices but Roy's solution seems to be very smart.Dan

Well Dan I'm a few more steps closer to an EPIC card your answers to my questions are greatly appreciated I'm sure when my EPIC card arrives and I start putting things together I will certainly have questions for the forum. I will have to keep my eyes and ears open for a program to extract data out of Falcon 4.0 the military sims seem to be my main interst right now although ,FS2002 is great fun as well at least one can fly around for fun with out worrying about being shoot down by sam's. Thanks again Dave.:-beerchug

Don't be discouraged if it takes you a few weeks to even get a single switch event to work. Not a limitation of the EPIC, but rather a significant learning curve, and the overwhelming desire to *NOT* smoke-check a very expensive system!It took me awhile, but after that there was no stopping.Ray

Thanks for the words of encouragment Ray I have a big bottle of Advil on the shelf ready to go! :-hah. Also been looking at your site and [www.simpits.org] lots of good info keep up the good work. Dave

Hi Ray,I was woundering if two ,two channel rotary encoder's could be used in place of the four rotary encoder's that are in place on the QRC as of now? The reason is I would like to set up comm and nav radios with the primary freq. MHz-KHz on one encoder and secondary freq. MHz-KHz on the other encoder like Bendix King radios. I have no idea if this is workable or not any thoughts? Dave.

They sure can! If you are referring to Concentric encoders, they are handled as 2 separate encoder circuits, with only the mechanical linkage being common to both.Ray