Q400 Control Panel

[Piper9t3 25]

Hello

Just acquired the MJC8Q400 and I have some questions to ask about the control panel interface:

 

  1) I am trying to configure my yoke (CH Eclipse) under the Flight Controls and Engine Controls sections and the manual states "The Flight Simulater must run in the backgound".  After starting FSX and loading the Q400, I go to open the control panel and FSX pauses.  As such, I cannot move my yoke levers and simultaneously view the position inputs in the control panel?  Is this normal? 

 

 

2) I also notice that I cannot achieve full deflection on my levers to set the power max/reverse postions and the condition max/off positions.  I must use the mouse to drag the levers to these extreme detents.  Ultimately I want to be able to set my levers to reach all engine control detents without using the mouse.  Is there a way to set this? 

 

 

 

 

 

[adamant365 28]

Hi John...I don't know about #2 but for #1 I had the same issue. If you go to your "General" FSX settings there is an option "Pause FS on Task Switch" or something like that. You'll have to uncheck that box and you'll be good to go. That worked for me anyway.

 

Actually, I think I can help for #2...once you sort out the pause thing, I think the engine controls will work out as well. With FSX running in the background and the Dash loaded, the "Input" boxes will show what is being captured for each axis. Just move the respective lever to where you want a particular situation to start and manually type that number in the appropriate field. I have the CH Yoke (don't know if it's the Eclipse...it's one of the early USB ones) and I've got my power set up like:

 

MAX: 70000 (above the usable range...MAX would very rarely, if ever, be used since it equates to something like 125%)

DETENT: 65100

IDLE: 15000

DISC: 382

REVERSE: 0 (Also unattainable by my yoke levers. I've got it set this way because DISC really does provide a decent amount of reverse and when stopped on the ground, accidentally selecting max reverse will send you zooming backwards!)

 

I think the range for my yoke "Power" lever is 382 - 65152 or something like that.

 

For Condition, I have:

MAX: 63000

900: 53264

MIN: 38158

START: 23370

OFF: 500

 

I think the range for my condition lever on my yoke is 480ish to 61950ish.

 

Hope this helps.

[BilboBaggins 82]

The problem is that when FSX is set up to Pause on Task Switch, it will do exactly that when its Window is not selected, i.e. in focus (mouse click on it to select it in focus).

 

With FSX paused, you are not generating any values into the Q400 Control Panel window, although settings you change that basically change the mjc84.ini file _are_ saved to that file.

 

And, as with any other aircraft in FSX, when you change an .ini file, you need to reload the aircraft for it to pick up those changes and read them in on airplane startup, for them to take effect.

 

Unticking Pause on Task Switch will allow you to keep FSX running while you're in a differently-selected window outside the sim.

 

It also means, though, that if you, say, hit alt-f-p to load a flight plan, alt-w-m to look at the FSX map, etc., your plane will keep young without you.... keep that in mind.

[Piper9t3 25]

Thanks for your input guys...this aircraft is gonna need a lot of work to figure out!