Brunner CLS Economy Yoke

[captainofflight 2]

OK I received the yoke....

 

.It´s quite complex in terms of all the parameters you can adjust..but for now my main problem is how can I get it to work.....I can´t connect it to my FS (P3D V3)

In their manual it´s written: Open the "Simulator Plugins" folder in the installation directory. Run the file "Prepar3D plugin installer.exe" on the machine running Prepar3D

 

Neither I can find the folder nor the file.

 

Another "odd" thing is that you have to pull out the USB and power cable to make the yoke completely shut down...even when I shut down my PC the yoke is still on ....like a kind of standby.  So do I have to pull out all the cables every time?!?

 

Thanks for any helping comment!

[mikealpha 266]

I assume you have installed CLS2Sim ? In the installation folder, e.g. c:\Program Files (x86)\Brunner Electronik AG\CLS2Sim\Simulator PlugIn Installers,you'll find the Prepar3D Plugin Installer.

 

In the CLS2Sim program itself, you have connect and Init the Hardware. You'll see the Yoke moving in the Init phase. If you have green indications for Elevator/Aileron, you can start P3D. Then you can click the Connect Button in CLS2Sim (on the bottom right of the main window) and it should work.

 

Yes, the Yoke is powered. You can set it to off (sort of standby) on the Yoke itself. But to get it completely unpowered, you have to pull out the power cable.

[captainofflight 2]

I assume you have installed CLS2Sim ? In the installation folder, e.g. c:\Program Files (x86)\Brunner Electronik AG\CLS2Sim\Simulator PlugIn Installers,you'll find the Prepar3D Plugin Installer.

 

In the CLS2Sim program itself, you have connect and Init the Hardware. You'll see the Yoke moving in the Init phase. If you have green indications for Elevator/Aileron, you can start P3D. Then you can click the Connect Button in CLS2Sim (on the bottom right of the main window) and it should work.

 

Yes, the Yoke is powered. You can set it to off (sort of standby) on the Yoke itself. But to get it completely unpowered, you have to pull out the power cable.

OK when I start the plugin setup it wants me to install the plugin into the P3D sub folder in %APPDATA%\Lockheed Martin\directory

So I put it into Appdata\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v3..........I guess that´s the right place, isn´t it?!

 

When I start CLS2Sim the indications for elevator/aileron are green....but when I click "Connect" i get the message: "Could not connect to simulation."

[mikealpha 266]

Yes, that's correct.

Try to start the Plugin Installer, and also the CLS2Sim Program itself with 'Run As Administrator'. Right click, then Compatibility. I have Windows 8.1., might be different with other Windows versions.

[mikealpha 266]

Just to make sure, on the settings page in CLS2Sim, did you set it to `Use LM Prepar3D` ?

[captainofflight 2]

No, it doesn´t work....I have to contact Brunner....I hope they can help me out...
Do you have the USB version or the ethernet version of the yoke

Just to make sure, on the settings page in CLS2Sim, did you set it to `Use LM Prepar3D` ?

There isn´t such a line to click on?!

That´s the main window http://www.beh.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/OnlineHelpCLS2Sim/index.htm
Scroll down to the "main window" section

No, it doesn´t work....I have to contact Brunner....I hope they can help me out...
Do you have the USB version or the ethernet version of the yoke
There isn´t such a line to click on?!

That´s the main window http://www.beh.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/OnlineHelpCLS2Sim/index.htm
Scroll down to the "main window" section

OKK...i got it!!! Damn... i didn´t see the setting page.,....shame on me :Doh:

 

Thank you a lot!!!!!

[zmak 331]

Fs Force software should work well with this

[mikealpha 266]

Ok ! Great to read it`s working now.

 

Mike

[captainofflight 2]

Yes it´s working......I think it takes a while to find the best settings...there are so many options such as all the different force settings...trimm settings
....which one do you use...hw trimming or "normal trimming"
On Brunner website is a description of how it works and how to use it.....they say to change the aircraft.cfg for elevator trim
What´s your experince with that issue?!

I like the HW trimming because of its natural movement..it feels real....but on the other hand it doesn´t impact on the trim wheel in the airplane (PMDG NGX)....So you can´t actualy set a trim setting for take off where you get a specific value from the fms.
With normal trimming the movent of the yoke is too weak.....I don´t get the "real feeling"

It seems to me you need a long time to get everthing configured properly

 

[mikealpha 266]

Indeed it's a bit of work to get everything configured to your liking. OTOH, it's very flexible to define individual Aircraft profiles. I have only A2A Cherokee and C182, Dash 8 and PMDG 777, so it's not that much.

 

I did not change the elevator trim value as advised by Brunner. I get a huge trim change with a short touch of the trim button with that small value of 0.1. So I left this value as is in the aircraft.cfg or only slightly reduced it. So you might reduce the value, until you get a suitable reaction on a trim button press to your liking (or better imagination ).

That way you can get hardware and software feel almost similar.

 

I have no experience with the PMDG 737. Can you adjust the trim for takeoff in the 737, then notify the elevator position/trim in the CLSSim Profile Manager, and then change to hardware mode and adjust it to the same value ? There will always be a bit of guesswork of elevator/trim position betwwen FS and the Yoke in that mode, but until you remain within effective elevator range, you probably won't notice it.

But to my understanding the hardware mode is meant to connect a remote device, so I remain in software mode for now.

 

By the way, do you also have the PMDG 777 ? The 737NG is supported , but the 777 not yet. So you get no Autopilot/Yoke movement connection.  I have inquired at Brunner, maybe you could do that as well ?!

 

Mike

[captainofflight 2]

So you get no Autopilot/Yoke movement connection. I have inquired at Brunner, maybe you could do that as well ?!

 

 

Indeed it's a bit of work to get everything configured to your liking. OTOH, it's very flexible to define individual Aircraft profiles. I have only A2A Cherokee and C182, Dash 8 and PMDG 777, so it's not that much.

 

I did not change the elevator trim value as advised by Brunner. I get a huge trim change with a short touch of the trim button with that small value of 0.1. So I left this value as is in the aircraft.cfg or only slightly reduced it. So you might reduce the value, until you get a suitable reaction on a trim button press to your liking (or better imagination ).

That way you can get hardware and software feel almost similar.

 

I have no experience with the PMDG 737. Can you adjust the trim for takeoff in the 737, then notify the elevator position/trim in the CLSSim Profile Manager, and then change to hardware mode and adjust it to the same value ? There will always be a bit of guesswork of elevator/trim position betwwen FS and the Yoke in that mode, but until you remain within effective elevator range, you probably won't notice it.

But to my understanding the hardware mode is meant to connect a remote device, so I remain in software mode for now.

 

By the way, do you also have the PMDG 777 ? The 737NG is supported , but the 777 not yet. So you get no Autopilot/Yoke movement connection.  I have inquired at Brunner, maybe you could do that as well ?!

 

Mike

No I don´t have the T7.....only the NGX.....and I think I´ll stick with that to get along with the Brunner Yoke....I still haven´t found the sweet spot

Unfortunately the manuals are very ....well......let´s say "basic".....in my opinion they could be a bit more detailed with some explanations

But it´s a really nice feeling to have a "living" yoke in my hands.....a whole nother level of flight simulation for sure!!

 

You mentioned  the autopilot movement....I do have a yoke movement with enabled AP...but f.e.  I cannot assign the AP disconnect button on the yoke...and other things

I´m gonna contact Brunner tomorrow to help me out

Fs Force software should work well with this

You actually don´t need it because Brunner Elec. have their own software where you can adjust all of these things

[mikealpha 266]

Regarding Autopilot disconnect and other buttons : Check the manual, virtual joystick part.

You have to install the virtual Joystick driver, vJoy_205_050515.exe (in ../Program Files/Brunner Elektronik AG/CLS2Sim/Virtual Joystick driver).

 

Mike

[HamSammich 17]

Mike,

 

I'm following this thread as well as the Majestic one, as your taste in aircraft and mine run exactly parallel. Still mired in fog, though, which may lift when I get the yoke and start messing with it. (See? I've talked myself into it already!)

 

This still puzzles me:

 

>>So you might reduce the value, until you get a suitable reaction on a trim button press to your liking (or better imagination ) That way you can get hardware and software feel almost similar.<<

 

I take from this the process with some planes consists of building a hardware force profile and then somehow mapping it back to the trim settings in the airplane software. Hope I'm wrong. That sounds nearly impossible.You'd have to be trimming your yoke and then trimming the software.. one hand on the yoke and another on the mouse, hovering over a cockpit click-spot. Otherwise the flight model, which uses trim inputs, would be blithely flying an out-of-trim aircraft that feels correct in your hands.

 

I know I've got this wrong, and I think the confusion comes from a lack of a simple, cookbook, generic stepwise example to achieve the following:

 

An aircraft where the model's trim forces are felt in my hand. Where the application of the trim switches not only trims away the forces I feel in the yoke, but also removes them in the model--i.e. moves the model's trim wheel, trim tabs and mathematical representations of such in the flight dynamics engine and then those changes are reflected back to the forces in my hand.

 

IOW, what are the flow-chart steps on takes to ensure that rocking the yoke's trim switch before takeoff sets the right settings in the actual plane, receives correct trim data back from the aircraft software and ensures that it all "just works.?"

 

This is where all the "Hardware trimming, software trimming, virtual joystick, aircraft.cfg" stuff really starts looking messy. That

and the language barrier.

 

 

Can you help with a pair of specific setup decision trees, one for a "supported aircraft," such as the A2A and one for a "non-supported" one like the Majestic or PMDG 777?"

 

I'd be most grateful as I get ready to pull the trigger on this purchase.

 

Shall I also cc: this to Stefan?

 

Thanks!

 

Best,

 

Marshall

[mikealpha 266]

OK, maybe due to my "German" english it probably sounded a bit more complicated as it actually it. It is not easy to explain, but in practice it is much less complicated as it sounds.

 

1. The Yoke can operate in two modes, software mode and hardware mode. In software mode it is coupled to FSX/P3D or XPlane. It means e.g. if you operate the trim on the Yoke, you see the trim changing in the Sim. In hardware mode, trim changes on the Yoke are decoupled from the Sim.

What's the advantage/disadvantage of both :

 

Software Mode : You push or pull the Yoke and trim away the force, as it should be. The trim changes in the Sim as well. The Yoke remains off-center, again as it should be in a real plane.

So far, so good, in XPlane. But it can't be 100% correct in FSX/P3D, due to the quirky Microsoft implementation of trim. They had self-centering Joysticks in mind, not force feedback Yoke with non-neutral elevator position. This is all explained in detail here :

 

http://www.beh.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/OnlineHelpCLS2Sim/TrimFunctionality.htm

 

So in FSX/P3D you are left with some uncertainly, to quote Brunner : "Furthermore, the influence of trimming is not proportional to the attitude of the aircraft, preventing CLS2Sim from cancelling out unrealistic trim effects." In practice, you'll notice that only if you evaluate flight modelling down to the smallest detail.

 

Hardware mode : Here the trim fuctionality is decoupled from the simulation, so the Sim has no knowledge of the current trim setting on the Yoke. It feels completely natural to trim, and you could just disregard it, as long you remain within effective elevator range. But it is of course not realistic to see the trim indication in the plane not correspond. Also it prevents setting the trim for takeoff in the Sim (except you try the workaround I mentioned above).

To get it right and correspond, Brunner provides a remote-control-interface with read and write access to the hardware trim data, so third-party developers (e.g. Majesticsoftware) could interact with it.

 

I mostly use the software mode, but that's up to you to experiment with both.

Are you still with me ? Anyway, now to the Setup :

 

Brunner delivers a default profile for every airplane. So you can just use that and fly. As simple as that.

But that's not what it's all about, so you can store individual profiles for every plane you fly in FSX/P3D/Xplane. So you e.g. copy the default profile to your Plane X or Plane Y and start adjusting it to your liking, with lots of parameters to adjust :

 

http://www.beh.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/OnlineHelpCLS2Sim/CLSProfileManager.htm

 

One example : You think Plane X should feel more heavy on the controls than the default profile ? So just increase "Pull Force in %" and store it. And so on, until the entire profile feels natural for you.

There is one thing on the FSX/P3D side to adjust, the elevator_trim_limit in the aircraft.cfg. It basically defines which amount of trim change is caused by a trim switch press on the Yoke.

 

I can not give any cooking recipe for a correct setup. For some airplanes I'm still experimenting with it myself. And that already depends if you have flown the plane in real life or not. Or it is just based on your imagination, how it should feel. It's up to you personally until it feels right for you.

 

To summarize : It is not an out of the box product, which feels immediately right for all your airplanes, from small Cessna to an Airliner. It can't be. So you have some work to do to get it feel right for your planes.

 

It's the best purchase I ever made for flight simming. For the first time operating elevator/aileron/trim in the Sim feels natural and comes VERY close to my real Cessna/Piper experience.

Whatever I judged regarding Addon flight modelling and behavior in the last 10 years, based on self-centering and high spring tension Joysticks or Yokes (like the CH Yoke), I can throw it all in the garbage container. It's a world of difference now.

 

Mike

[HamSammich 17]

Mike,

 

Finally! It clicks!

 

Okay.

 

And just to make sure (forgetting A/P coupling), you CANset up, using SOFTWARE mode, the Dash, the 777 and A2A planes?

 

As long as that's the case, I'm totally happy to tweak additionally to adjust to my tastes or RW experience with the planes.

 

I'm REALLY looking forward to this..

 

Best,

 

Marshall