Hello All!

 

I have the 182RG which I have pretty well modified to be exactly like the T182RT that I spent many hours in back in high school (Save for the avionics which were much closer to stock and not the GNS430/530 stack and all that stuff) But one thing that I haven't really been able to fix yet is the instrument lighting. There is the standard "dome" light controlled with the panel light command which is a bright flood light that illuminates everything and is really only useful on the ground during pre-flight and in cruise when you drop your pen unfortunately it has the effect of making your immediate surroundings very bright making it tough to see outside. Somehow (I think through either a weird install or that's the way Carenado designed it the glass is slightly reflective causing the light to "bounce" back) Carenado has replicated this effect so that if the dome light is on it is a bit difficult to see outside. Not impossible, but difficult.

 

However there is an absolutely brilliant post (read instrument only) light fx file somewhere that illuminates only the instruments and leaves the dome light off, that is controlled with the landing light command. It looks great (save for some tweaking of the light maps to include the avionics modifications) and I much prefer to use the post lights.

 

Now there are really 2 solutions to this issue. The first is what I have been doing which is just leave the landing light on through the entire flight. However, being a real world pilot and instructor, I really don't like to do things different in the sim than I would in the real world lest I develop bad habits (like not completing cruise checklists which include the line "Landing Light ... Off.)

 

Or, what I'm trying to do is to re-assign the dome light to say for example a recognition or "recog" light and assign just the post lighting fx file to the panel light command. This way it separates the instrument lighting from the landing light allowing for more accurate procedural flying.

 

The trouble is I'm fairly positive that the lighting fx assignments are in the aircraft.cfg file, and I can see the fx_vclightcar line in there but I can't find anything on the landing and taxi lights. Am I just looking in the wrong place?

 

Sorry for the long winded question, just trying to explain thoroughly.

Hi crashdriver,

 

I am sorry if I understood you wrong in the end, I think it can be achieved that way:

 

Open the aircraft.cfg and look for the [lights] section where you´ve been before the right way.

Do a backup of your original aircraft.cfg and exchange the " 4 " in the line of " Light.2 " into a " 9 " !

 

 

[lights]

//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing

light.0 = 3, -3.05, -18.11, 2.9, fx_navredcarencrg

light.1 = 3, -3.05, 18.11, 2.9, fx_navgrecarencrg

light.2 = 9, -3.0, 0.0, 1.3, fx_vclightcar

light.3 = 1,-20.42, 0, 6.63, fx_beaconcarencrg

light.4 = 2, -3.37, -18.14, 2.88, fx_strobe

light.5 = 2, -3.37, 18.14, 2.88, fx_strobe

light.6 = 3,-20.37, 0, 1.46, fx_navwhicarencrg

 

This change will now assign the dome-light to the logo-lights and if you assign a key to the logo-lights in the FSX-setup you can toggle it that way.

Now the panel lights won´t turn on the dome-lights anymore and you will only see the lit gauges!

 

If you do not see the backlit gauges ... in "older" VC´s like the RG182 the gauges will only be backlightened at a certain position of the sun from dusk till dawn (if I recall right) ... they will then lightup automatically. On newer models like the Carenado B200 the backlight gauges will lightup anytime you toggle the lights-switch.

 

I really hope that was the question ... :blush:

 

Cheers!

Well Andy, half of it was solved :biggrin: . The fix certainly removed the dome light from the panel lights command. I just need to figure out how to get the actual instrument lighting assigned to the now vacant panel light command without turning on the landing lights like in the screen shots (don't know why I didn't post that in the first place.)

 

The 2nd shot is using just the panel light command and as expected nothing happened, which is the first part of what I wanted.

 

The 1st shot is what I would like to happen using the panel light command, less the landing light obviously. As that is currently what is controlling the instrument lighting that you see in the picture.

Ah ok I see, so the Gauges are connected to the landing light ...

I do have this plane but never ever flew it at night so I didn´t realize that.

 

ATM I am out of ideas concerning this problem, I jump in if I can find something.

Yeah my original thought was to change the lighting section in the aircraft CFG and I expected it to be a quick 5 second fix of changing lightX.1 to lightX.4

 

But when I opened the CFG file I couldn't find the line for "fx_instrument light" Or whatever Carenado calls it. I guess I can try to find the original .fx file and write in my own line but I'm not really sure if that would work since it's got all the positioning info in there.

I am no gauge programmer, maybe someone more into this can jump in and correct me, but I think the gauge backlight is coupled with a gauge file and no effect-file, but as said it´s a guess,

I really hope someone more firm into this like me can drop in a comment, if that all can be done without the need of the developer :wacko: .

Hi crashdriver,

 

I am sorry if I understood you wrong in the end, I think it can be achieved that way:

 

Open the aircraft.cfg and look for the [lights] section where you´ve been before the right way.

Do a backup of your original aircraft.cfg and exchange the " 4 " in the line of " Light.2 " into a " 9 " !

 

 

[lights]

//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing

light.0 = 3, -3.05, -18.11, 2.9, fx_navredcarencrg

light.1 = 3, -3.05, 18.11, 2.9, fx_navgrecarencrg

light.2 = 9, -3.0, 0.0, 1.3, fx_vclightcar

light.3 = 1,-20.42, 0, 6.63, fx_beaconcarencrg

light.4 = 2, -3.37, -18.14, 2.88, fx_strobe

light.5 = 2, -3.37, 18.14, 2.88, fx_strobe

light.6 = 3,-20.37, 0, 1.46, fx_navwhicarencrg

 

This change will now assign the dome-light to the logo-lights and if you assign a key to the logo-lights in the FSX-setup you can toggle it that way.

Now the panel lights won´t turn on the dome-lights anymore and you will only see the lit gauges!

 

If you do not see the backlit gauges ... in "older" VC´s like the RG182 the gauges will only be backlightened at a certain position of the sun from dusk till dawn (if I recall right) ... they will then lightup automatically. On newer models like the Carenado B200 the backlight gauges will lightup anytime you toggle the lights-switch.

 

I really hope that was the question ... :blush:

 

Cheers!

 

All 10 of the Light Types

 

[LIGHTS]

 

//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing, 6=Taxi, 7=Recognition, 8=wing, 9=logo, 10=cabin

I am no gauge programmer, maybe someone more into this can jump in and correct me, but I think the gauge backlight is coupled with a gauge file and no effect-file, but as said it´s a guess,

I really hope someone more firm into this like me can drop in a comment, if that all can be done without the need of the developer :wacko: .

 

hmm, that would be a bummer. Cause I totally don't have that kind of skill.

 

I did find what appears to be a lighting map in the texture folder, so I'm wondering if there's something in the .air file that commands it to look for that texture. In which case I'd have to learn to edit .air files.

Crashdriver: PM me. I have the fix you are looking for.

Did it work?

I've been swamped with work. Stupid real world. I'm just about to try it.

 

Well the dome light seems dimmer, and the lighting maps for the Garmins work (ish...I think what I'd do is just leave them out of the lighting map since I believe they come with their own lighting gauge) But the main problem (Instrument lights being controlled by the landing light switch) is still there. Does that have to do with the "standard.xml" entry? Cause I can't seem to find that.

BTW!? What happened to my screen shots. Kinda helps in the explanation process!?

Well I have no screen shots but I will make some when I get the chance. The light maps are modded to get rid of the old lights for the default radios and autopilot. As for the cabin light fix, just go back to the default light use the following:

 

 

[lights]

 

//Types: 1=beacon, 2=strobe, 3=navigation, 4=cockpit, 5=landing

 

light.0 = 3, -3.05, -18.11, 2.9, fx_navredcarencrg

light.1 = 3, -3.05, 18.11, 2.9, fx_navgrecarencrg

light.2 = 10, -3.0, 0.0, 1.3, fx_vclightcar

light.3 = 1,-20.42, 0, 6.63, fx_beaconcarencrg

light.4 = 2, -3.37, -18.14, 2.88, fx_strobecarencrg

light.5 = 2, -3.37, 18.14, 2.88, fx_strobecarencrg

light.6 = 3,-20.37, 0, 1.46, fx_navwhicarencrg

 

Use "shift+F12" to turn the cabin lights on/off after applying the Standard.XML enty. The Standard.XML file is located in c:\Users\yourprofile\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\Controls.

I have some screenshots now but can't figure out how to post them. Any help?

Hope this is correct for uploading.